The piece I made is made with Olivewood. Usually, not a typical wood for carving, since carving is ideal on a wood which is monotone in colour. For example, a Wild Fig Wood would be an ideal wood for carving. However, this one turned out to be very interesting.

And so I took all the little chisels, mainly gouges, and begun defining the shapes. And after that, I just applied Mahoney finish to it. It’s a paste finish that I apply and wait for an hour, then remove the excess off with a soft cloth.

Here’s a video of the finishing process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-d1uS31oNU

It shows how much we appreciate other professionals too–something all professionals ought to do.

For example, to cover all the cabinets inside, the walls and the floors for this particular kitchen took us 3 hardworking artisans three days for masking and, since the weather was cold, about 60F, two days of staining and finishing with high end materials.

Anyhow, just wanted to post an update about what has been happening, besides all other happenings, at Palo Arte, and later, after the doors and drawer fronts are done, they will make this kitchen complete! So, another update is near (sun, please come up!)

Oh, and I forgot to mention, some heartbreaking moment while taking off all the dovetail drawer boxes from the glides! But, cant complain. This is what we do for living, so I take it easy!

/ Post Scriptum(s) / 

In case you wonder why the heck do I have a non wood looking picture at the very top of my post, and in the pictures too, well, that’s another story to cover. But I’ll give you a little preview. I discover many new things in life as days go by, and this one was just a moment I didn’t want to lose. I take photos of things that look interesting to my eye. If you like it too, that’s fine and if you dislike it, that’s not my problem!

For example, in the curved island cabinet, in the original renderings by the interior designer, there was going to be a metallic post. But later, when they found out that I’m a woodturner, they decided (luckily) to change that metal into wood.

This woodturning is really something I love to do. I mean, the harmony of the work is very special. There is an instant connection between me, the cutter, the wood and, of course, the wood lathe. Everything made on this spinning machine, at least in my opinion, is work of art.

Anyhow, going back to the subject, I’d like to note another misstatement in there. Below, in this page, you will not only see the kitchen cabinet works, but also some progress from the residence in Los Angeles, where we’re now making the Entertainment Center cabinetry.

It’s quite late, 12:44 AM, soon will be 1 in the morning. And, with this said, I’ll only manage to post the pictures below and go to sleep. iPhone’s Siri is told to remind me to wake up early!

Cheers,

Jake

Here are some closeup pictures that I took later.

Couple of important factors to know:

The width of the egg–that is to say, diameter–is based on the length of the turning blank.

If the blank is 10″ long, then the diameter should be 5″ or around there.

And, here is the final work–sorry, looks awfully bad in the picture, due to low light.

Anyhow, I have managed to make some videos lately, where I’m using a skew chisel that looks very much like Alan Lacer’s famous skew chisel.

Basically, I’ve taken my old Delta skew, which was angled at the usual, normal skew, and I’ve made a slight curve to it. By the way, for this task, I’ve used a sandpaper belt, that is attached to the bench grinder that I have. The only downside of my chisel is—it’s not a good grade woodturning metal, like Hight Speed Steel or similar.

At each pass, I had to put the entire heated up piece in a cool water which would prevent overheating of the metal–Overheating causes metal molecules to restructure, which weakens, or does something horribly wrong (degenerates, mutates.)

After this, I took a 220 sandpaper, and manually, closely, easily sharpened the edges. After that, I just polished with the Tormek honing wheel. The finish looks like mirror and it is very sharp.

The next downside of it is—at the high friction the metal tends to heat up and pretty much burn your hand. But, of course, that can’t stop me doing what I want to do. So I had a nice bucket of cold water next to me. And when each time I felt the tool is heating up, I just placed the entire chisel in the water — what a good feeling, very relaxing

Anyhow, I think it’s worthy to watch the video. See, how can patient people create things. And with this said, I’d like to ensure the world, that this world will never end, because nothing is yet complete — everything changes, new replacements need to be made, new ideas have to become reality and all this with patience.

I was running the lathe at about 800-1000 rpm. Always starting slowly, to prevent a catch. You don’t want to have a piece of wood fly off the lathe at 1000 rpm — believe me, it looks nasty and it’s very dangerous.

With that said, be careful, wear all safety gadgets!

It’s been a while since I posted in my blog. I’ve no explanation for this delay; however it may be that I was busy at woodturning or mainly because spending time on Facebook (you know how addiction is.)

And so, here is a presentation that I made yesterday – by combining all the woodturning works I’ve done since the beginning of June 2011 until yesterday. You may watch the presentation on YouTube.

So, about my dream—the maximal

It’s been couple of months since I’ve had this, alright? I want to upgrade my lathe—-from a small delta to a VB-36 Master Bowlturner or at least a Vicmarc VL300.

I know, two brands are not in common to compare with—that is, one has been a colonist and the other the colony—but, when it comes to quality, I think that Vicmarc is still a beautiful machine and can be handy for a guy like me (remember, I still got that mini-mi Delta

And well, dreaming is fine, but still, it’s a dream and, just to dream and live my life with dreaming—wow, I said dream so many times that I may even dream in my dream tonight—it’s not going to work out. So, to keep my hands and body in motion in front of the lathe, and to sharpen my turning tools to a point when, say, one can literally use the sharpened surface as a mirror to shave, I have been working on few project and I even came up with a showoff video. LOL, yeah, isn’t it being showoff?

The pieces I’ve been turning lately were smaller than what I turned before. Mainly small cups, and, once, I even managed to make an Eccentric Piece (I don’t know if it looks alright, but it looks damn crooked to my eye.)

Anyhow, check out the video and let me know what you think.

Oh, by the way, the technique I’ve used in hollowing the cup is something I’ve stolen from Glenn Lucas. It seems like I need to practice more on handling the tool at that rate of movement. Plus, I’ve noticed that my Oneway Talon Chuck isn’t that sturdy for me anymore. With that said, I’m planing on getting a Oneway Stronghold Chuck. Enjoy my fun with Gouges and Skews and some Wood Shavings too.

Cheers,

Jake