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.

A new year, new projects

For the last few months making gifts has been the focus in the shop and on the blog. But Christmas is over and all the gifts have been given. There are a few gifts I made and hadn't put on the blog to keep them secret. So here are some of the gifts I made and gave this year.
Of course there are the cutting boards from the "Cutting Board Crazy" post. These made great gifts, everyone who received one was very happy to receive one.

Walnut and Maple cutting board

3 Cherry and Walnut boards, and One Cherry and Maple

My sister told me my brother in law had played corn hole over the summer and that a set of corn hole boards would be a good gift idea for him. He is a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan so I knew how I wanted to paint the finished boards. The game boards are made from 3/4 birch plywood and some 1x pine for the frame. I made a circle cutting jig for my router to make the holes. The frame is rabbeted to accept the plywood and mitered on the corners. I painted them with a high gloss interior/exterior enamel latex paint.

Assembled corn hole boards

Finished corn hole boards.

I wanted to build something for my wife since she puts up with me and my crazy hobbies.  She uses the cutting board that I made for her daily and it is stored on the counter next to the knife block.  I thought it would be nice to have a stand to hold the cutting board when its not in use. I found some nice looking walnut in the scrap pile, and decided to just make a simple stand.

Here I was mocking up a the design.

Here it is right after applying a coat of boiled linseed oil.

 Sadly I wasn't able to get it complete it before Christmas, it still needs a few coats of shellac. I always wait at least a week after applying boiled linseed oil before top coating.

I also started surfacing and preparing some maple for the next project. I was pleasantly surprised to see some spalting on the maple while processing the boards. I got about half the boards processed and will process the other half before I start cutting anything.

Spalted Maple

Surfaced Maple stacked waiting to be used.

Another up coming project is a air cleaner for the shop. It will be built with a old furnace blower and will use 20"x20" furnace filters. Hopefully it will capture the fine dust the dust collector can't capture and keep it out of my lungs and off everything in the shop. (I will still wear a dust mask.)

Future air cleaner

Cutting Board Crazy

I've been making several cutting boards lately. I finished four over the weekend and have a fifth ready for final sanding and oiling. Mostly I have just been doing a standard checker board pattern, but I did experiment a little on a maple and cherry board.

I finish the cutting boards with mineral oil.

Experimental cherry and maple cutting board before applying oil finish.

The one I still have to finish is made from maple and walnut. It maybe my new favorite.

I am running out of scraps so this maybe the last batch of cutting boards until I do some bigger projects and build the scrap pile back up. I've also been working on some Christmas gifts and will have to wait to post anything about those.

Gift making

Saturday morning I managed to got a little shop time in and work on a few projects that are need to be finished up rather quickly.

The maple and cherry cutting board was ready to run the glue up through the planner, next I cut it into strips and reglued it in a end grain checker board pattern. Here is a picture of it out of the clamps and ready to sand and finish.

 I also worked on the box I am building for my grandma. I routed a grove in the sides to hold the bottom, and then after some trial and error I managed to make some acceptable miter joints on the corners. This is mainly a display piece, if it was something that would see extensive use I would add some splines to the miters to strengthen them.

 The piece I used for the bottom is a lot of sap wood but I wanted the to be made completely from wood that was grandpa's. If I add any ascent wood it will be from the few piece of wood I have harvested myself.

 I still have to cut the lid to size and add hinges. I will be working hard this week to have the box ready to give to Grandma this weekend at her birthday party.

Where did it go?

Where did it go?  What is "it"? It might be summer, time in general, or the tool you just had, but I end up asking myself "where did it go?" a lot.

I can't believe it's been about 2 weeks since my last post and the last time that I spent much time in the shop. I made an effort last night to get some shop time in. I have some time sensitive projects (gifts) that I need to get done before next weekend.

One of those projects is a box I am building for my Grandma's birthday. It will built from the walnut that she gave me and is being built to hold one of my Grandpa's Bibles. I had previously milled the boards two a thickness of 1/2". Last night I cut the pieces to the rough dimensions.

 The first cutting board I built ended up being a failure, it looked nice but I used the wrong type of glue and when it got wet on the counter some glue seeped out. I found I used the wrong glue part way through construction, but I went a head and finished it. It has now came back to the shop. I sanded all the areas that felt rough, then gave it a coat of boiled linseed oil, and have started to apply shellac. I think it will be come my cherry and walnut paper weight.

I have already started a new cutting board to replace the failed one. It just needs sanded and finished applied. This one is 9"x9" and is 1.25" thick.

Last night I started another cutting board this time made from Hard Maple and Cherry,

I finally got the cypress that I bought for my brother planned and delivered last weekend. I really liked the looks of it and want to build with some cypress in the future.