3 Pages on Making The Nice One

Great job, Charlie!

I bookmarked your site and found it to be a fantastic reference. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience with the rest of us.

Bob

Thanks. So have you tried turned lidded boxes yet?

I tend to jump around with my woodworking, working with one type of piece, trying different methods until I find one that works for me. When I've got it down pretty well I drop it and go look for something completely different to make. Problem was that when I'd get back to something I'd done before I often had forgotten some of the details of a successful method or procedure. So, while I was learning how to make - let's say a Blurfle - I'd do Notes To Myself. Doing them helps me understand a process/ procedure / method better. The first pass at doing the instructions usually has critical holes in them. As I follow the instructions I'll see the "holes" and since the things I'd just learned are still fresh in my mind they're easy to fill in. After 3 or 4 revisions I've got a set of step by step instructions for making a Blurfle. If, or when, I get back to making Blurfles I don't have to go through the trial - and error - process again. This frees me up to make entirely NEW mistakes ;)

Once I've got a set of instructions that works for me it doesn't take much effort to turn them into a few web pages. Again, I do that for me. I "misplace" things in the physical world. BUT - if they make it to my computer and then to the Web, I can't lose them. The fact that this stuff may be useful to others is just gravy. I'll add some encouraging words to the instructions and hopefully get someone to try something they didn't think they could do.

Now if you go through some of these instructions you may think to yourself "This guy must think I'm an idiot. Why else would he include so much detail about things that are so obvious?" Well, I've found that a lot of the "basics", the "everybody knows that" common knowledge is often what's missing in other instructions. I'd rather have more information than not enough information. A missing critical step can mean the difference between success and failure. And, while success leads to success, failure is often the end of trying.

So - if you use any of my "instructions" - please make a note of any gaps, ambiguities or stuff that just seems wrong. Send them along to me and I'll fix things and get the revisions out on the Web. That way you and I will benefit - and the next guy / gal as well.

charlie b

Really nice work, charlie. And while others may have seen a small, double lidded box, I had not. I have seen nested forms, but again nothing like you posted. It is great that you took the time to post illustrated instructions - that is certainly more than I could ever do.

One thing I didn't see that I think would be important... what kind of wood did you use?. It looks like Cocobolo or something along those lines, but so many woods look the same on a web page. Something close grained and hard, I'll wager.

Robert

Could be cocobolo, but then again it could be either Honduran or Brazilian rosewood. It looks very much by the chinese furniture I inherited - which is supposed to be rosewood. I got this stuff out of one of the "exotics" cut offs bins at Global Wood Source here in San Jose ("Heart of Silly Cone Valley"). Turned two lidded boxes out of one chunk 4x4 by maybe a foot long - with sapwood on one corner. I had some stuff that I used a few years ago that works like this wood - told that was "kingwood". Common names are almost useless since they're often local names and some wood suppliers play fast and loose with what they call the wood they want to sell you.

Whatever it is, it's fairly dense, dulls edges moderately fast and the chips smell vaguely like cinnamon. It takes a really nice polish and people have mistaken them for polished cabachon stones. Turns really nicely and you can do some pretty fine turning with it - the Teenie Weenie Tiny Top for example. Hard maple will let you do really fine, delicate stuff as well.

The outside finial on The Nice One I think is Strawberry Guava. I had two trees in the front yard that were supposed to remain bushes I'm told. The previous owner had let them go and I had the messiest trees (next to female ginko) on the block - two thirty gallon garbage cans worth of 1/2" to 3/4" red on the outside mushy yellow orange on the inside berries. You couldn't rake them, shovel them or even hose them up because they turned to mush when you touched them. Finally got around to cutting them down - but bandsawed up some of the logettes. The stuff turns wonderfully and the grain is very fine, the color uniform and bland.

charlie b

Charlie Nice job on the pages. I know what you mean about the common names of woods. One of the things I wanted from out trip to Thailand was some local wood to turn. Just about impossible to find. However I got some "tool handles" at one of the markets. They were each a trapezoidal piece of wood about an inch thick, twelve or so inches long, and tapering from one and a half to one inch. When I asked what kind of wood they were I was told mai pai. Helps me not a bit but I figured I could get three or four pen blanks out of each so I got five for 100 baht. Call it $3.50. What would I have to lose? Now I know I should have gotten more. It looks like rosewood, turns like rosewood, smells like rosewood and tastes like rosewood (never mind). Seems like rosewood to me. Any one got rosewood pen blanks for sale at thirty cents apiece?

Um yeah ... I can see the "Buy It Now" price on eBay ... 30 cents each ... local pickup only. ;-)

That said, I found some katalox pretty cheaply. It's 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 x

24". I figure that, with some judicious resawing on the band saw, it should make about 16 pens. If I like it, I'll load up on it. If I don't, I'm out $5.70 per stick ... roughly 35 cents each. The (heavily waxed) picture and description make it sound roughly like a cross between rosewood, blackwood and purpleheart. I'll know sometime in the next week.

I'm trying to widen out on my wood varieties. I haven't seen katalox at the normal retail places, so that was a big plus. It probably causes tumors to form on inanimate objects.

Additionally, I stumbled on some truly gorgeous heavily curled hickory recently. Roughly 1/8" curls from end to end. I've already bought all that I can afford, but I think that Bill Bowman still has a hundred or so sticks left. Do an eBay search for curly hickory. He has a store called The Rivers Edge Exotics. He & Sabrina have treated me right through 3 transactions so far.

Bill