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Ozkaban
13th May 2009, 05:15 PM
I reckon most of you would be pretty aware of the fact that producing gifts for significant others is a pretty good way to get capital outlay forgiven or approved :D

This year being the first mothers day with a lathe, I turned up a few otems for LOML and her Mother. Went down a treat :2tsup:

The first is a Red Mallee Burl potpurri bowl. It's pretty simple design, but I'd never turned the wood before and I had heard that it's not the easiest. Cetrainly very hard on the tools... I'd run into problems before having a recess for the chick splitting the bowl as it's so small so this time I left a foot on it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and it certainly took the Shellawax polish very well.

The next one is a Western Red Cedar pot purri bowl - the first one I'd done. I like the soft glow to it, but it's fairly plain looking. Still, it was fun to turn and the recipient seems happy enough! It's done with Trax Wax on top. the lighting in the photos was really annoying, but I didn't have time to fix it :doh:

The third item is the "Pepper Mill that Bit Me" in Tiger Myrtle. We went on a holiday with the inlaws some time ago and my MIL left her treasured pepper mill behind (commercial one, and very nice too...). Every since i bought the lathe I knew I had to make a replacement. The dent on the top is where it came off the mandrel and whacked me and the lathe bed, but it's staying as a character mark :U. The design is pretty much a rip-off of the commercial one that was lost, which is a bit dubios, but we already bought one of them :2tsup:

Thanks for looking. Constructive criticism always welcomed!

Cheers,
Dave

Ad de Crom
13th May 2009, 05:44 PM
Ozkaban, what is nicer to make mothersday presents with your own lathe and hands, instead of buying presents. I think the first.
Perfect made potpourri bowls and pepper mills, I like it a lot.
Ad :2tsup:

rsser
13th May 2009, 05:59 PM
Nice work Dave.

Good to see a kind thought or two can be pragmatic as well :wink:

The pepper grinder looks a little pregnant which is pretty apt.

Ozkaban
13th May 2009, 06:26 PM
Hi Rsser,

I agree on the pepper mill shape, I think the top section of the body is too thin, but it matches the commercial one pretty accurately, which was the priority. The feedback on the shape is that the thin section makes it pretty comfortable for people with small hands (such as MIL!) to hold a fairly large pepper mill.

I was worried about the thickness - a 27mm hole, and a 35mm outside diameter is pretty close - only 4mm on each side. Previously when I've attempted these things (never successfully) I've had a lot of trouble drilling such a long straight hole. This time I used the 200mm forstner bit extension from Vermec tools (http://vermec.tripod.com/PDFs/forstnerbitextension.pdf) and it did it perfectly. I measured the clearances on the sides of the ole at each end with vernier calipers and they were spot on. Not a cheap addition, but certainly a good one!

Cheers,
Dave

rsser
13th May 2009, 07:03 PM
Good points Dave.

Yeah, forstner bit extensions are darn useful. Mine waggles around a bit when wound right out but folks can't see the result :p

jefferson
13th May 2009, 09:32 PM
I took over 20 something small redgum bowls to the MIL and M for Mother's Day so they could make their selection (singular).

First question from the MIL was "how many can I have?"

One, I said.

Same thing happened with my mum too. And you know, they changed their minds over and over.....

As for the remaining bowls - great for small change etc - off to an outlet soon. Gotta pay for the latest acquisition which I will test then post with pics.

Jeff

Sawdust Maker
13th May 2009, 10:20 PM
Dave
great work
I especially liked the way you adapted the pen mandrel to obtain the character mark :D
It's funny - SWMBO doesn't like those pot pourri thingies so I forget that others do like them :doh:


I took over 20 something small redgum bowls to the MIL and M for Mother's Day so they could make their selection (singular).

First question from the MIL was "how many can I have?"

One, I said.

Same thing happened with my mum too. And you know, they changed their minds over and over.....

As for the remaining bowls - great for small change etc - off to an outlet soon. Gotta pay for the latest acquisition which I will test then post with pics.

Jeff

There's a lot to be said for not giving consumers too much choice :D

Ozkaban
13th May 2009, 10:48 PM
Choice is a funny thing. In a previous life i worked in a service station, and watched people spend ages chosing chocolate bars. I wondered if there would actually be any less sales if there was just a single plain choccy bar... probably, but not by much, I reckon!

SM, you're right about the potpurri things, I'm not a huge fan, but they look nice and are pretty easy to make. The red mallee burl one is currently holding hair ties and clips for my daughter and then other was was going to be used for jewllery!

Cheers,
Dave