It’s Monday…let’s make something! ~ Week 49
After a weekend of wind and rain it was nice to see the sun shining a bit this morning as I walked to the barn! I honestly had no idea what I was going to make this morning and spent about 10 minutes walking around looking for a piece of wood that inspired me. And then I found this piece of plum wood that I picked up from a yard in Sedro-Woolley (a town north of Snohomish).
Check out today’s video! ———->
It’s been a while since I’ve made a smaller dried bud vase and I figured this piece of plum was perfect for it! So I used the Grizzly bandsaw to cut it down to size. I didn’t find the centers on either end before popping it on the lathe, mainly because I knew that I would be removing quite a bit of the wood since it was misshapen.
Once on the lathe I started to turn off some of the rough edges. Then I turned the foot. I do this because I want most of the work done on the vase while the foot is in the chuck because just held between centers it’s not as stable on the lathe. And believe me…you don’t want a piece of wood to come flying off the lathe at your face or chest.
Once the foot was turned, I flipped the vase around in the chuck and got to work shaping the outside. I enjoy these bud vases because there’s really no right or wrong way to make one. The size and shape is completely up to me and I always just tend to go where that particular piece leads me. I used my roughing gouge for most of the work since I was wanting to take off a large amount of wood. Once I had the shape done it was time to drill out the center.
This can always be a little stressful…you don’t want your drill bit to bind up inside the piece and have it or the vase break. So when it comes to drilling out the core, slow and steady is the only way to go.
Once the center was drilled out I did some final shaping on the inside of the lip of the vase and then it was time to sand. I sanded, oiled, sanded some more and then buffed the vase with its own shavings. Then gave it one final coat of oil. Now what I spaced out filming was taking the vase over to the bandsaw and cutting off the foot. Then using the belt sander to sand the bottom flat. But once that was done I was able to do a little finish sanding by hand and then oiling the entire piece.
I really love making these little vases…and I think that I’ll be working on a batch of them to get the store stocked again. What do you think? We’ll see you back up in the barn next Monday!
