Mantle piece with a twist

[Gabriel]

I'm a little loathed to write up a Wip with my current life commitments as time in the shed is quite scarce, and no real signs of changing anytime soon. However because I'm able to seethe end of this project, I thought I'd throw this together.


My folks asked if I could turn some mantle piece corbals as they hated their current ones (don't ask me why they chose them to begin with). Their kitchen is made from recycled Baltic pine so is quite nice. Mum is always taking about when they lived in Tassie (40 odd years ago) and how much she loves huon..... Well, that's all the nudge I needed to start getting creative.


I've never carved anything, so why wouldn't I tackle a major project that means quite a bit to me without making it bloody hard!! I thought a rope twist would add a bit of interest to the piece and it's something I've liked and wanted to try for a while. In my initial planning stages I asked here for some advice and had a small practice with some h3 pine post.

http://www.woodworkforums.com/f8/project-question-spiral-carving-209926

Confident enough, thought I'd give the real thing a crack.


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Piece of huon was 150 square and about 500 long (mm). I kept the ends square so I could reference a fence in order to cut it in half once I was happy with the shape. Problem I encountered was that my bandsaw table wasn't large enough for the whole workpiece to rest against the fence at any one time. After some swearing and annoyed stubbing of a toe, I actually put my thinking cap on. Why not screw a 'straight edge' to the piece.
It worked a treat, however now the final piece will have 1 screw hole in the top square (bottom one is turned off) but I think it will be barely noticeable after a bit of TLC


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After cutting I taped it back together for final shaping of the end.
I purchased some HDPE centres from Carrolls a while back. Turns out it was the perfect thing to hold the end whilst doing some final sanding and shaping whilst still on the lathe. Let that be a lesson to all of you. Be happy with your purchases even if you don't use them straight away. Chances are - one day - they'll be perfect!! (just don't tell my wife why I need a bigger shed)

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I have PLENTY of sanding and finishing to go, but heck, I'm enjoying myself.

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I have a slab of huon to use as the shelf, and I think I'm going to strongly suggest they have a natural edge running along the front of it.


I'm thinking to finish it with danish oil, however if someone has a better idea I'm happy to listen.

I also think I'll turn a small 'pot purri' box (out if gidgee or something) and place some huon shavings in it so they get the aroma.



Anyhoo,

C&C welcome of course....especially any tips
Cheers
Gab

[hughie]

I would say that your doing fine and I dont think you need much advice on the 'how to do it' side of things, as for finish better ask your mum what she prefers :) some shine no shine etc

Pot purri box, well the shavings wont give any long lasting aroma but it would be a nice gesture

[Mobyturns]

Nice work, great to see some larger spindle turning.:D

[Gabriel]

Nice work, great to see some larger spindle turning.:D

I know one fella who would be proud to see some spindle turning that isn't another 'bloody pen' - not that I consider pen turning spindle work, but to the letter if the law I guess it is

[Sturdee]

I like it Gab, but I thought that you would use a small power carver to do the job. I have the small Ozito that would have removed most of the bulk quickly before hand finishing.

Some more info on the HDPE centre would be interesting, is it similar to the one made by Rubber Chucky in the US. (http://www.rubberchucky.com/store/p23/_Sphere_Chucky__Set_-_Small_or_Large.html)

Also if after your finishing you want a real shine on it you're welcome to come and use my buffing machine, 5 minutes will save you hours of hand buffing.:U

Peter.

[Gabriel]

Cheers Peter !
In my initial testing, I did use a Dremel to try sanding the curves but found that unsuccessful so figured I would stick to hitting things with a hammer and sanding by hand. I actually quite enjoyed the carving bit more than I than I thought I would!

May have to have a snoop at your carving machine someday though as I have a few other ideas to explore (when time permits).
I will question mum on the finish but I'm pretty sure they would be after a more satin or mat finish to suit the rest of the kitchen.

The centres I got are these
https://www.cwsonline.com.au/shop/item/hdpe-support-with-m30-thread-3pc-set
I originally thought the large cone one would work well in the end of a pepper mill but haven't had a chance to test that theory yet

[Simplicity]

Well that should well and truly take care of any outstanding nappie credits you had outstanding with your mum.
That looks fantastic ,you do seem to like diving in head first tho.
But ,I do the same lol
But ,you seemed to have turned up alright in the end pun intended lol.
If the other half has issues regarding you ,must having a big shed just past her my details.
I get that sorted out for you In know time.
Can't wait to see the finished mantle piece.

Cheers matt

[Sturdee]

Cheers Peter !


May have to have a snoop at your carving machine someday though as I have a few other ideas to explore (when time permits).


I'll try to remember to bring it to the Stephen Hughes demonstration in a fortnight.

Peter.

[Gabriel]

Ok, I've found a little more time to get closer to a finished project.

After quite a bit of hand sanding around the carving, I am happy to say that it is an 'acceptable' level. As its my first time carving, there are a couple of shallow knicks in annoying places and slight unevenness to the twists, but as a whole piece (and its for family who have accepted me for my many failings already) I'm damn happy/proud of the corbals.

Next came the shelf preparation. I obtained this slab from ebay (you can get good stuff on there if you know what you're looking for) at a very reasonable price. For natural edge, it had one fairly straight side, and one that I thought would look great as a feature.

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So after squaring one edge, and again, a butt load of sanding, a nice looking shelf was forming. This was the point that my folks came around for a visit. I had a conversation trying to push my idea/need for the natural edge shelf. Whilst they were open to the idea at first, as soon as mum saw the shelf she mentioned that if they were to have a natural edge, there couldn't be any bark on it......

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Bugger..... Using a scribe like tool, I got to pulling the bark of the slab - piece by bloody small piece. After about 4 hours of continual scraping, the bark was removed and natural edge intact!! I also decided that given the shelf width (220mm +) the bearing on the corbals alone could lead to instability in the final piece. Especially after discovering that my folks intend to load the shelf with old oil/kero lamps (could get very messy if my shelf were to fail). For this reason I thought to add a backing board to increase the depth of support to the shelf. Given the Melbourne wood show was coming up I waited to pick up another piece of huon to complete the project.

So after creating the backing boards, attaching them with screws (unseen) I believe I'm ready for a finish and then an install!!!

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I believe I will use danish oil as a finsih. This is because it will keep the timber feel, is quite durable and my mum goes over all their timberwork in the house once a fortnight with a timber polish so it should last quite well. I believe to obtain the best result I need to apply some metho to the timber just before I apply the danish oil because of the natural oils in the huon reacting with it otherwise.

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Anyhoo - will throw up a few completed shots in a few weeks when its all done and dusted......

Cheers

Gab

[smiife]

Hi gab , looks good mate , well done , I have used
Danish oil on huon pine and thought it yellowed
the timber quite a bit , just thought i would mention
It in case that is not the look you are after , maybe
try a test piece first , hope this helps :2tsup:

[Gabriel]

The yellowing will match their kitchen I think - Baltic pine...
Danish it is.... Cheers for the reinforcement of my thoughts!!

[Paul39]

MASOCHIST!! :D:D

It looks wonderful.

[Gabriel]

So what else is one to do on a (I say useless) public holiday.

Finally got up to the folks place to install the mantle piece. I had to face fix 2 screws in each side as their last one fell off so I thought better to be safe than sorry. I plugged them with offcuts from the same blocks so after 2 weeks of dust hopefully they're unnoticeable.

Parents are happy, I'm happy and the whole project only took about a year to complete (though I suspect I had been asked regularly for a couple of years prior to commencement)

Thanks to all here who have helped along the way with tips, enthusiasm (I do lack that quite a lot at times) and general all round conversation.

Installation:

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Final product:

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Cheers
Gab

[smiife]

Hi gab , looks good mate , a few brownie points there :U
I hope you got a lamb roast or something for your trouble:cool:

[Gabriel]

Hi gab , looks good mate , a few brownie points there :U
I hope you got a lamb roast or something for your trouble:cool:

Cheers smiife, yes it's a few brownie points - but I think it's more working off all the ones they built up whilst I was an outta control know it all youngster :roll: :U

[rwbuild]

Fantastic mantle :2tsup: and it looks like your folks house has lots of character too, not like the mass produced boxes you see today

[Sturdee]

So what else is one to do on a (I say useless) public holiday.

Gab

At least you got a public holiday allowing you to earn brownie points.Looks great, well done.

The other thing you could do was what I did, buy some more chucks from GPW which offered a special on freight of $1.00. :2tsup:

Peter.

[Gabriel]

Fantastic mantle :2tsup: and it looks like your folks house has lots of character too, not like the mass produced boxes you see today

Very true... It's a 1920's Californian bungalow. They have completely renovated the inside but kept it all true to original style (or if not then it fooled me).
I'd say that I do like a lot of the houses around these days, they certainly don't have the charm or soul of the older ones - even those renovated on 'the block' to keep their period detail loose a lot of it I say.