Author: penwerkz

Below are some of the Yarn Bowls I have recently make…

A few months ago my sister Ann asked me if I could make her a rolling pin.

After making a sled for my table saw to hold the workpiece correctly here are the steps:

Holding the workpiece tightly to the sled make the first cut.

After making the cut the next step is to insert the contrasting wood into the cut.

It is vital that the wood inserted is exactly the same width as the blade used to cut the workpiece.

Next rotate and make the subsequent cuts and glue in the contrasting wood.

After all cuts have been made and glued up it’s time to turn the rolling pin.

The monthly challenge for the Orange County Woodturner’s Club was to make a segmented item of some sort. This is what I have made

I intend to enter this into the Orange County Fair this summer.

A bit over 4 years ago while going to our local Family History Center one evening I spotted a large stack of wood on the curb in front of a house on Crestview Ave.

On the way back home I stopped to see what the wood was and as soon as I recognized what it was put all I could in the back of the car, and went back early the next morning to rescue the rest of it.

Most of this I have turned and sold, but still have a couple of pieces left.

I decided to see what was inside one of the remaining pieces and this is what I found:

Norfolk Island Pine is amazing as after I have finished turning and sanding it I place it in a bucket full of Walnut Oil and let it soak for a few days. Once it is saturated with oil the wood slowly becomes translucent.

A couple of months a neighbor across the street had a perfectly healthy Live Oak removed from their front yard.

We were leaving to go set up at the Temecula Art & Street Painting Festival when the tree cutters were just getting started but I asked them for some of the larger pieces which they were kind enough to stack in our yard.

So far I have made 5 bowls like this which come out rather nice.

You just have to be REALLY CAREFUL doing these as you can end up with a few sprained finger like you read about.

I have several small bowls from this wood and then I got the idea to try a raw edge bowl from it.

A new event we went to was the SoCalEtsy Guild at the Galleria at Tyler in Riverside.

This is held on the fourth weekend of every month, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The spaces are much smaller than what we are used to, but at least are inside.

We arrived about 7:00 am and after figuring out which entrance to use and where to park we got everything brought in and set up.

While it was nice to be inside a nice air conditioned location sales were disappointing to put it mildly.

The lesson learned here is even though we were at the foot of the escalator most of the foot traffic was focused on where they were going and we might as well have been invisible.

While working in the back yard a couple of weeks ago I could hear someone’s car or truck being worked on in the alley behind the house.

I went to check and a neighbor behind us was working on a rather unique looking truck.

After telling me about the truck he also told me about some wood someone had dumped in a vacant lot near by and we climbed in and went for the wood.

There were two large pieces that we could just barely lift in to the truck. It appears to be from a large pine tree.

After checking on YouTube I learned this thing is one of the ultimate 4X4 vehicles out there.

You can see one in action: https://youtu.be/JOKIeaqtPzY