Tool Handles

As I was cleaning in the shop recently I found some old files and rasp that were NY grandpa's. I had forgot I had them. Only one of them had a handle. I need a simple lathe project to get my fix so I used some scrap and turned some handles. Files are a lot nicer to use when they have a handle.

Oak handle on top and a maple handle on bottom.too

Bethlehem Olive Wood

Olive wood from Bethlehem is available from many vendors. The wood available comes from trimmed branches and dead trees, no trees are killed to provide the wood.

The grain in the olive wood is beautiful. I've made two pens from it and each have turned out great.  The olive wood turns very nicely and smells wonderful while working it.  I look forward to making some more items from it.

This blank had some exceptional grain, and even has some figure and curl to it.

More turned gifts

I turned a lot of pens and other items for gift this year.

Leopard wood seam ripper

Red acrylic Pocket stylus

Crushed Turquoise Slim pen

Teacher pen made from Red Acrylic, Apple Wood, and Walnut

Purpleheart twist pen

Raging Rapids Acrylic slim pen

Bethlehem Olive wood Designer pen

Nuclear Grape mechanical Pencil

A walnut slim pen, and a cherry slim pen

ScrewDrivers

Almost everyone in my family has pens so I needed to come up with a gift I could make. I decided to make screwdrivers for the guys in our families as part of their Christmas gifts. This is something I've seen several other wood turners do on YouTube. I didn't use a kit to make them, I simply took the guts out of a readily available 6 in 1 screw driver from the big box store.

For a couple of the screwdrivers I glued some thinner stock together

Walnut and Sycamore

I finished them with spray lacquer

Shaping the Sapele screwdriver (yes, I need to get better about taking my ring off when I am in the shop)

I added burn lines for decoration

Top to Bottom: Sapele, walnut, Cherry and walnut, and walnut and sycamore

The screwdriver gifts were very well received and it was a lot fun to make them.

Birds Eye Maple Fountain Pens

A friend of mine from high school contacted me about making some fountain pens for him. I had never made a fountain pen, but it wasn't different to make than a regular pen. I used birdseye maple on this set of pens.

all the blanks with the layout done

the first finished pen

the completed set

I really am happy with how these pens came out. I have never used a fountain pen, but plan to make myself a pen like this but as a roller ball pen. 

Toolboxes for the Kids

My daughter has a small tool bag with a few tool in it. Now that my son is spending more time in the shop and wants to use his sister's tools they need a better place to keep their tools.

I plan to build myself a dutch style tool box this year to store my hand tools in. I thought the kids would like to have a toolbox like have a tool box like dads.

I made the tool boxes from 3/4" plywood. I pre-drilled and even pre-assembled the tool boxes so that they would be easier for the kids to put together on their own.

Ready to be taken apart for the kids to put together.

Each of the box has a sliding till for the smaller tools and items

Henry working hard on his tool box

Daphne working on her tool box

 After we used glue and screws to put the boxes together we plugged the screw holes

Henry's tool box with the tools he got for Christmas in it.

I need to make some handles to make the boxes easier to move. I plan to stain the boxes before we paint them so that as the boxes wear the stain will show through.

Shop Tour January 2015

I am going to try to film the Monthly shop tours the first weekend of each month.

December was a month of hurrying to finish Christmas gifts, some didn't make the deadline, but I am close to having them done.

In this tour you can see I've done a little cleaning, and added a much needed storage area for kindling and other fire related items. Hopefully as I work in the shop this month I can make some big changes to how things are stored and do a better job of cleaning up when I am done for the day.