It’s Monday…let’s make something! ~ Week 34
Well…it’s week 34…and last week darn near whooped me. We had a massive storm, called a bomb cyclone, come through on Tuesday night. And we lost power at 8 pm…and didn’t get it restored until Thursday at 2:30 pm. I’m incredibly grateful that we have a generator that can power our furnace, fridge and some other things in our house…and that the power company workers, county workers and others worked so hard to get our power back on. I know that there are still some people that don’t have power, so we are incredibly lucky.
All that being said…I was able to get up into the barn this morning for Week 34! I grabbed a massive cherry log for today’s project.
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I’d been wanting to see how big of a vase I could make…so this was fun! I cut this log to length on the Grizzly bandsaw. Then I punched a hole in each end and popped this bad boy on the lathe. I knew that it wasn’t super secure, so I focused on turning the foot so I could flip it around and get it solidly in the chuck jaws. And once it was in the jaws, then the real work could begin. I started by rounding out the log, this was slow going. Once that was done I started to figure out the shape I wanted.
I had something in mind when I started, but as it usually does, that vision changed as I was cutting. I had so much fun turning this vase, seriously. Watching this big log transform into something like this is what keeps me hooked on wood turning! Once I had the base of the vase sorted, I worked my way up to the top of it. Once I had the entire shape of the vase, I trimmed down the top piece that would eventually be cut off. Then I sanded the outside, oiled it and sanded some more.
Then it was time to trim down the top. I used the knives to turn it down as far as I felt comfortable, then brought in the hand saw to finish the job. Then I was able to start turning the inside of the top rim. I started to turn it out like I would a bowl. Then I was able to drill out the center. Once that was finished, I went back to do the final shaping of this inside of the top. And then, as you probably guessed, sanding and oiling. I used my air compressor to blow out the inside and all of the cracks in the vase. And because this is still a rather green piece of wood, I know that it’s going to develop cracks. But how many and how bad…is yet to be determined. But fingers crossed that it just adds to the appeal!
I really enjoyed turning this vase, and it’s definitely the biggest one I’ve turned by a long shot! What do you all think? Hope you all have an amazing Thanksgiving holiday! And I’ll see you all back up in the barn next Monday!
