This is a bunch of spinning tops I made this last week out of wood and corian.
I used some of the best and brightest corian colors I have for these tops. I let everybody pick their favorite color out of what we had, and then on Christmas morning they each got a top made out of that color in their stocking.
When Mary Cate was painting her recent nativity set, my two daughters were absolutely fascinated and wanted to paint some themselves. But we didn’t have any extras, so that couldn’t happen.
So I’ve made some for them, of various sizes, that they can paint however they want.
This is a mortar and pestle. It’s a little smaller than I had planned on, but for a first try, I’m pretty pleased.
The main material is Corian, and the wood is maple recycled from the foot pedal of an old organ.
I recently became a member of the local woodturning club, and it turns out that they’ve got a really organized wood harvesting thing going out here. Apparently, in Oregon, wood grows on trees, and there’s a lot of it available. They were very willing to share, so I grabbed some.
So, now that I’ve got some big chunks of wood, I’m trying my hand at making bowls for the first time.
I’ve only done the rough turning for these bowls. They’re much thicker now then they’ll end up being. Since the wood I turned them from was green, I need to let the bowls air dry and warp for about six months. At that point, I’ll turn them to their final shape.
I’ve got walnut, pear, and birch bowls here.
This is a woodturning tool called an “oland tool” which I made in my shop.
In essence it’s just a little piece of sharpened high-speed steel (HSS) stuck in the end of a metal bar, held in place with screws:
The HSS insert I bought four $4 at Harbor Freight Tools. The rod is 1/2″ cold-rolled steel that I bought at a hardware store and was left over from making my chicken plucker a couple of years ago. The ferrule is made from one of the brass nuts that was with a faucet was being thrown away. The handle is a piece of ash (I’m guessing) that I salvaged from a pallet. The wood wasn’t thick enough, so the handle is flat on both sides at the thickest part. You can still see one of the nail holes from the pallet.
I sometimes really enjoy the recursive nature of making woodworking tools in my woodworking shop. I fluctuate between spending time working in my shop and working on my shop. The first is working on things that are supposed to exit my shop. I did a lot of that during the months leading up to Christmas, so now I’m taking a break spending some time working on my shop.
But it’s not a complete break. Oland tools are mostly used for making bowls, which I’ve barely started playing around with. I’ll surely try out my new tool on a bowl here in the next few days.
A mallet like this was one of the first projects I ever made on a lathe, with my father’s help. I gave the mallet to Mary Cate, who used it in the kitchen (you’d be surprised how often a mallet for whacking things comes in handy in the kitchen).
Unfortunately, this was during the time when our youngest liked to toss things in the trash. At least, that’s why we assume that it disappeared forever within a couple of weeks of me making it.
So years later, I made two more. One is for the kitchen, and one is for me in my shop.
The heads are made from maple. The handle of the one on top is ash, and the one on bottom is oak.
Porter's Workshop 