A Bowl for the Newly Weds

My darling wife has cousins, nieces and nephews just like the rest of us.

And they sometimes get married. Recently we were invited to a city far, far away for the wedding of one of her very lovely nieces. As it is to be in a city far, far away, I decided not to go, but offered to make something as a wedding present.

After much dithering and several false starts I acquired a lump of African mahogany (khaya senelganesis). Despite the foreign sounding name the tree from which it came grew right here in Darwin ( or close thereto).

The African mahogany is a naturalised Territorian. I have two very sturdy examples in my own backyard.

But despite being on terms of some familiarity with the tree I had not previously used it as for turning, although I had seem some examples of work by others, and knew it could produce very worthwhile results.

So here it is: a lidded bowl, approx 21cm diameter. the lid is formed to take dips, biscuits, cheese etc in two separate sections.

I made a somewhat similar bowl for aforementioned wife, in pine. I assume she did not dislike it too much, as she suggested the design for the wedding bowl.

So here it is: the wedding bowl, African mahogany, orange oil finish (hence the satiny finish), and note the colour of the timber. NO, I did not spill beetroot on the wood!

Clock setting - olive wood

Like most things in life woodturning is more fun when shared with someone else.

This clock setting, done in double harness with Tom while on holiday. His lathe, his wood (olive wood - beautiful stuff), but I claim the idea.

Not a bad result from a piece of wood languishing in a box of bts and pieces.
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A Lute - at last

Finally, I justify the name of the blog.

This is a lute.

Go on, look it up in your dictionary. It is, by definition, a lute. Sure it doesn't look much like the picture from medieval England of the King's lute-player, with a multi-stringed instument, with a weird bent-back peg-board.

It's more in the historical line of middle Eastern or even Chinese lutes, which pre-date the Pommie version by quite a few centuries.But I can't really claim it's that either, it's just a thing that grew out of the wood, like a wood-turned mushroom.

technically: 4 stringed, (bronze wire), strung to zither pins at both ends, sound chamber is a turned bowl of pinus radiata, rod is glue laminated jarrah/cypress pine.

It is non-fretted.

One night I was worrying about how to fix the fret-board, when a voice boomed out of the night sky, and said "Dooooon't fret!"

So I didn't.


But I'm thinking the voice may have misled me, because the lute would be more useful as a musical instrument if it was fretted, so I'm thinking about fitting a fret-board.

Or perhaps make another lute next year, fixing all the mistakes that I currently pass off as design features, and make that one a proper fretted lute.
We will see.

All the best from vsquared

Rest in peace. Scott

An old mate died recently. Because one tends to feel pretty useless at times like that I offered to make an Urn for his ashes.

It ended in 3 urns, not one. The lower photo is the main one.

I'm not entirely happy about any of them, but I did my best.

New guinea rosewood, finished with Rustins plastic.

All three made from the one rather umipressive branch, so at least it was a good use of resources.

Bowls - not bad actually

Top picture - black wattle bowl - very simple but timber is beautiful Nice colour and grain, hey.

Pictures 2 and 3 - bowl - domesticus robusticus - also known as hard timber I found lying around at home.

Colourful pens

Pen blanks from man made material can make interesting pens.

Certainly people seem to like them.

But it'll never replace wood, as far as enjoying the process of turning goes.

The reddish brown one, all by itself, is red gum.

Bowls - different shapes, sizes, timbers

Three new bowls, none of them quite finished.

I'm in the throes of re-inventing the lute, (or one of its many forms), and each of these bowls started out as a sound-bowl or part of a sound chamber for the lutes (there are to be two).

In the photo with three bowls, the one on front left. New Guinea Rosewood, was to be a sound-bowl, i.e no lid, but it has gradually lost favour and will probably end up just a bowl, for peanuts and popcorn perhaps.

The dark one at the back, Darwin black wattle, was to be the bottom of the sound chamber for lute no. 2, but it also is probably not going to get the job.

The one on the right, pinus radiata, is now favourite to be the open sound bowl, and the sound chamber will probably also be in pinus. I have two blanks prepared for the sound chamber, and with luck will turn them this coming weekend.

Why all the changes? Probably I'm not good at planning, and projects get made up as we go along. Change is inevitable. Sometimes, change is good. Sometimes, its just easier to change than to finish what we started.

The lonely photo in the left corner is the black wattle. We have been fighting for two weeks now, as it really did not want to become a bowl, and declared it was willing to self-destruct at 2500rpm if necessary.

But I was too clever for it, and although it is now 20% glue, we have declared an honourable draw, and it is a bowl.

(NB It is not yet finished, and if you look closely it is still in the chuck, destined to go back on the lathe within a couple of days. Hara-kiri is still possible. I will report further. For those who are interested in detail, the finish is olive oil, and looks great. I'll keep up the oiling until saturation is reached.)

all the best

vsquared