The first important decision to make is whether you are going to cast the pewter into your finished work or to cast it into a waste mould and then glue it into your finished work. I have found that I get more predictable results by using a waste wood mould. That way if the pewter is too hot and burns the wood it does not matter.  On the waste block you need to mark out the dimensions of the pewter top and turn the recesses to make the mould.

It is important to remember that the mould profile is the mirror image of what you want the pewter piece to look like. Put enough pewter into a metal cup or crucible and put it over a flame. Within only a few minutes it will have melted. If you are pouring directly into your finished work you will want to test the temperature of the metal with a stick of wood to check for scorching.

You should ware gloves for safety. In the picture to the right you can see that the pewter is very hot and is burning the wood. If you pour the pewter when it is too cool you may have problems with the metal joining at the two ends of the pour. That is the major reason I like to pour into waste wood at a higher temperature.

Once the metal has cooled down or been forced cooled in water, you can remount the waste block on the lathe and turn the pewter to the desired shape. I use a sharp gouge and a parting tool to do the majority of the turning. The pewter can then be sanded and buffed to a mirror finish. The only downside of buffing is that it will blacken you buffing wheel.  Then glue it into the finished piece.

This same pewter casting technique has been used to make the ring on the picture to the right.

I get my pewter from Atlas Metal.

There were 120 students who attended Arrowmont for the week. Some were doing clay, Fiber, Metal, mixed media, paper, stone, surface design and 12 were doing woodturning. The woodturning studio is excellent and is pictured on the left.

There are lathes from all the major manufacturers and when you arrive you select the lathe you want to work on for the week. I selected the John Jordan Stubby lathe as I had never turned on one of those before. We had turners for all over the USA. Russ drove all the way from California on his Harley-Davidson.

Most days would start with some time in the excellent library at the school, gathering ideas for the day. Then Jack would do a demonstration of one of his texturing techniques, then it was up to the students to do their thing.

The picture on the right shows some of the items the students created during the week. The course was fairly unstructured so it gave each student the opportunity to explore his/her creative mind. What was particularly good was that Jack has an irreverent attitude towards beautiful wood and explores wood purely as a canvas on which to create his own works of art. This allowed the students to really unlock some of the creative door in their minds.

On the left is the first piece I turned called “The Matador” It was hollow turned and then matted with masking tape and sand blasted to create a torso texture on one side. The bulls horns were added to depict the victory of the bull.

Having access to a sandblaster for the first time in my life was fun, so my next creation was “The Seed Pod”. This was turned and painted with Indian ink and acrylic paints.

I then went crazy with the Bosch carving tools in the studio and carved and drilled this piece, which then got very heavily sand blasted. It was fun, but not too sure if I will be doing much more of that.

After a tour to the resident pottery student studio I got the idea for another piece which is a classic potters shape with a very interesting tick carved pattern.

My thanks go to Russ for making the week so entertaining and the beers to celebrate on the last day.

My thanks go to Brooke for her friendship and showing me how to do multi axis turning.

My thanks go to Mark for being there whenever anyone need help.

My thanks go to Jack pictured in front of Brooke for his guidance through the week.

I certainly hope to be back at Arrowmont next year as it was a good learning experience.

The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, located in and owned by the Township of Parsippany-Troy Hills, is the former home of noted turn-of-the-century designer Gustav Stickley, a major proponent of the “Arts and Crafts” home building and furnishing. The log house, built in 1911, is one of the most significant landmarks of the American Arts and Crafts movement, and the site, which consists of 26 acres of the original 650-acre tract, has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is well worth a visit!

The White Ash tree was right in the front garden of the house and would clearly have known Gustav Stickley well and would have welcomed him with open limbs on his arrival at the farm in 1908. I am also sure that Stickley and his family must have become great friends with this magnificent specimen and sheltered on the lawn under its shade.

I cut a section and counted the annual rings and estimate that the tree sprouted 104 years ago, in 1896.

My son Mark was a great help cutting up the logs and sealing all the end grains. In the picture you can see a lot of blanks courtesy of many friends including Davey Willans, Henri Noualhac, Rosemary Pickett.

It is great to have such a plentiful supply of different woods.

The white ash was the first to get onto the lathe and it was a real pleasure to turn. A fairly soft wood, especially in its wet state.

This large oval bowl had a large spigot turned on its base to fit the large gripped jaws on the Axminster Chuck. Even with this very strong hold the piece can flying out of the lath as the wood split off completely. Luckily no damage done and will need to find a new way to remount the piece.

A great day of turning and a huge pile of shavings. It took about eight large garbage bin loads to clean out the workshop.

At least five nice large bowls turned and double bagged to dry. We will see in about 5 months time whether there has been any cracking. Hopefully they will all survive and the best will be finished and donated to the Craftsman Farms.

What the Woodworkers Guide has to say about White Ash

Characteristics: Most people probably know white ash quite well. They’ve hefted it, grasped it in their hands, and worked with it for hours. Anyone who has ever dug a hole with a spade, gathered leaves with a rake, or chopped weeds with a hoe has touched white ash. The tough, resilient wood leads hickory for handles on non-striking tools. Although white ash indeed classifies as utilitarian, it bests all woods in a sporting role.

Workability: You can use white ash for any woodworking project that you would red oak: chairs, tables, desks, and cabinets. Although durable to exposure from the elements, it won’t, however, weather as well as white oak in outdoor projects. Carvers and woodturners view white ash the same as red oak. Its hardness and coarse grain make it difficult to work.

Common Uses: Wooden baseball bats (still the mainstay in pro leagues) have always been made of white ash. Before man-made fibers, it was also the wood of choice for tennis rackets and skis. You’ll also find white ash as hockey sticks, polo mallets, oars and paddles, and playground equipment. Chair makers also prefer white ash due to its bending ease. And its workability, plus good looks, make white ash one of the top commercial woods in the furniture and cabinet industries.

In early April 2000 I took them all out of the cool part of the basement and opened then up in the warm workshop. This is always an interesting stage of any project as you do not know what the drying and warping process has done to your roughed out pieces. Fortunately for me only the one large bowl on the right of the picture had cracks in the end grain. All the others had warped, but no cracks.

I trued up the chuck spigot and re-chucked one of the platters in my Axminster four jaw chuck using the expandable spigot jaws. These can can be used on a spigot that is anywhere from 8 cm to 10.5 cm wide.

As you can see from the picture the bark remained fully attached to the platter, which is always a concern. I had left the piece about 1 inch thick to allow of distortion during the drying process and still allow plenty of thickness for the final turning.

I used both a half and quarter inch bowl gouge to do the internal cuts. The tough part is to keep the bark on, and to do this you must come into the bowl from the outside inwards and with the flute of the gouge moving in the direction of the cut. I have heard this described as discovering the edge of the bowl with the gouge.

I then power sanded the inside, working through the grits to 320.

Once I had the inside perfect I did almost all the outside while the piece was held in the Axminster four jaw chuck. Then I removed it from that chuck and mounted it on a leather backed, plywood jam chuck, shown in the picture. At this stage you need to take gentle cuts as the piece is only being held by friction against the leather.

In this reversed position you can finish sanding the bottom and also remove all signs of the chucking method. This is not always necessary, but I feel it adds a lot to a piece and shows that the artist really cares about his work. In the picture below you can see that I have used an old sanding disk between the tale stock and the piece to prevent it marking the surface while I do some touching up.

Once the piece is fully sanded I used either a signature branding iron or a permanent marking pen to sign, type and date the piece. In this case the piece is for the friend who gave me the wood and is signed to thank him.

The piece is then given two coats of Waterlox or Danish oil one day apart and allowed to dry in the workshop for a few days for the finish to harden completely.

I then attach my buffing wheels directly to the lathe and start the three step Beal’s buffing process. The first buff is with the Tripoli compound and this is the one that really does the work of removing all the sanding marks and really brings the piece to a high finish. After the Tripoli, I move to the White Diamond and then on to the Carnauba Wax which give it a very deep shine and also a hard durable finish.

You can see that during the process I still ware my dust helmet and my protective gloves as I have through bitter experience found that both are very necessary.

Here, you can see the finished product. Black Walnut is a very interesting wood with lots of its own character. This is one wood that you must really allow to talk to you and not try to force it into something that you have predefined.

At the end of the chain sawing process I had a number of very interesting pieces.

These were transferred one at a time to the lathe and green turned, to the shape that in my view best suited the piece of wood and brought out the beauty of what nature had created.

By the end of the day I had about 7 rough forms.

These then got put into double paper bags and labeled with their date and content and stored in a cool place. In about 4 to 6 months we will get them out and put them in the warm workshop and after about 8 to 12 months they will be ready for the final turning.

What the Woodworkers Guide has to say about American Walnut (Juglans Nigra)

Characteristics: A tough wood with even but rather coarse texture, usually straight-grained but can be wavy. The sapwood is light in color, contrasting with rich dark-brown to purplish-black heartwood. the wood is strong, moderately durable and has good steam-bending properties.

Workability: It works well with hand and machine tools and glues well.

Common Uses: Furniture, gun stocks, interior joinery, musical instruments, turnery, carving, plywood, veneer.