check your kerbside salvage for borers!

"Andy McArdle" wrote in news:42b411cd$0$23468$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

This seems to be a good place to ask this question:

What are the opinions regarding insecticide on wood awaiting conversion to art?

I ask, because I brought home a load of walnut this week, which had been sitting a while. In bucking up the logs, and removing the bark, I have dislodged communities of various bugs, beetles and critters of genus and species I don't see in my gardens very often. SWMBO is _not_ pleased.

Unlike George, I do not raise roundrock and bindweed, likely because I have a much smaller patch of paradise to tend. SWMBO takes great care to raise roses, along with the vegetables. She would prefer that I not introduce additional critters into her carefully crafted eco-micro-system.

Can I spray these bowls-to-be with some effective chemical, reducing the current crop, and not ruin the potential? Some of this wood has clearly transitioned to firewood status, but the sapwood was most likely destined for that calling anyway?

Patriarch, wondering the true cost of this 'free' wood...

"Andy McArdle" wrote in news:42b411cd$0$23468$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

ANY prize/praise is a good prize, if you respect those who awarded it.

Long distance pat on the back awarded!

Patriarch

Thank you. I'm still feeling a warm, fuzzy glow. When I first walked into the showroom and saw the quality of the other items on display my heart sank and I didn't particularly want to find where mine had been displayed.

I'd only entered because other members at my local club (a consistent prizewinner in particular) kept nudging me until I felt obliged and now I'm glad they did! It just goes to show that the old adage about judging the merits of your own work is true. This time, anyway.

- Andy

"Andy McArdle" wrote in news:42b43bcb$0$18513$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

I'm thinking that 18 months with a lathe is backed up with maybe 30 years of working with and understanding what makes a balanced, flowing piece of work. I see a lot of technically proficient, but artisticly 'challenged' work. A good, experienced eye for balance and flow really helps.

Patriarch

[---8 I'm thinking that 18 months with a lathe is backed up with maybe 30 years

Not quite 30 years bashing wood, but close. Strewth, it makes me feel old when I think of it like that. :\

I have found that as often as not the wood really does tell me what it wants to be... it can be disconcerting to sit for hours sketching a bowl form, chuck a raw blank and end up with a long stemmed goblet. But during the process of turning it just seems to happen and I don't really care, either way gives me as much enjoyment and I can still use the sketches some other time.

It may mark me as a noobie but I don't want to be a production turner [shudder] and I /do/ want to get the best out of any given piece of timber.

- Andy

"Andy McArdle" wrote in news:42b4427d$0$26484$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

When I was but a lad, I had the opportunity to learn with a really good potter, who was but a middling art teacher in other disciplines. So I learned what he had to teach me about pottery, while I was in high school. Those early lessons in classic form have stayed, although I have taken time from art/craft to raise a family and have a tech career as well.

I'm still learning quite a bit about what the wood will allow, but the ceramic forms translate pretty well to this medium.

Patriarch

Hi there Patriarch

Looks like everybody is trying to kill all the bugs, IMO there are still as many as before, and just a lot of people with allergies cancers etc., I'm afraid you'll kill yourself before all the bugs are gone, you know there will be houses and shops and bugs long after we are gone.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Patriarch wrote:

Unfortunately, I failed woodwork at school (issues with the teacher rather than anything directly related to the subject) and gave it away as a bad joke. My majors were in the hard sciences, so I didn't learn much in the way of classic forms. I regret that now, as my life took one of those odd turns and my education is irrelevant to what I enjoy nowadays, apart from being able to calculate board feet or appropriate angles in joinery.

I found that to be succesful I had to learn what people liked. Since then I've done a lot of reading, and hopefully, learning but really all it's done is explain why people like what they do.

I try to design using principles such as the Golden Mean but at the end of the day my eye has always had the final say. I guess 'tis a case of you don't need to know Newton's Laws to be able to fall down. ;]

- Andy