Four Corn Cob Pens
Yes, corn cob pens! I’ve made a dozen or so of these over the years, they are very popular around here. We recently brought a bunch of pens in to Legacy Outfitters, a store in Logansport that sells items made by local artists and craftsmen, and several of them sold. One of these was a corn cob pen. The customer who bought it asked if I could make three more. So here they are being made.
Here are a handful of pens we turned.
Kitchen Island Legs
One of the things about little local craft shows is that you might not sell much. You might spend a lot of money on a booth. You sit there all day peopling. You have to pack and unpack and sometimes drive down many a long and winding road. And it all seems like you do it for nothing. I won’t try to tell you that you will always make back what you spent on the booth, drive, and all the food you ate at the venue. It takes some tweaking to find your market and what types of events work best for you. That being said even though you don’t sell at the event you need to get busy handing out your cards, talking to people, make sure that you have interesting things for them to look at and talk to you about.
Two Bolt Action Pens
As I mentioned in this article, Sam likes the acrylic pen blanks. He’s wanted to turn these for a while, so we did a little reorganizing in the shop, and made our turning area a little bigger.
We brought the Rikon lathe down from the basement studio, and set it up next to the Jet lathe. We set up the counter next to his lathe with all of the pen turning equipment and supplies. Continue reading
The Big Shop
When we were first planning out the new shop a major consideration was size. The idea of a shop started in a rental townhouse which had a barely functional one car garage. It was big enough to hold the small pool table that I and my two brothers-in-law were rebuilding. That table was not salvageable but it built a relationship between us that has stood the test of time.
Cherry Sphere
One thing I’ve wanted to try turning for a long time is a sphere. I love the simple elegance of them. It seems to me that if you are turning things round on a lathe, the ultimate round is a sphere. Sounded like a good project to try in the Small Shop.
My first sphere is the cherry sphere above. I did not photograph the creation of this one, as it was a learning experience. But all in all, it was very successful. I learned a lot and was very pleased with the results.
I like turning rolling pins. Maybe it’s because of the unique challenges they present, like making a perfectly uniform cylinder. Maybe it’s because Marisa makes many fabulous baked creations with them, like pizzas, pies, and potica.
I made this one because we didn’t have one in Michigan. This became the first project I made in the Small Shop.
Cherry Rolling Pin
So you’ve seen the big shop. After taking a job in Lansing, MI, I rented a townhouse. It didn’t have much room for a shop, so I made due.
The mechanical/laundry room in the basement is 21 feet by 8 1/2 feet. This room houses the furnace, water heater, washer and dryer, and a deep sink. The ceiling may be 8 feet, but the pipes and ducting hang down to 6 feet 10 inches. There won’t be any breaking down of any sheet goods in here. And my 52″ SawStop will NOT be going in here.
Small Shop Bench
Rather than ignore the elephant in the room lets just clear the air, three years between posts is too long. I’ll briefly explain the why and then update you on what is going on in the now.
Right around the time of my last post the company I worked for decided to reduce overhead by reducing staff. It was a surprise both professionally and personally, not the hey it’s your birthday and we threw you a party kind of surprise either.
I took a job in another state and we had every intention of selling and moving. The shop was actually a big part of our final decision to not sell. Since building it we invested a lot of ourselves into getting it finished just so. We decided it was better to spend our time working in the shop than building a new shop and being a couple of years out before we could really work in it.
Finished Bowl
Part one of this series showed me cutting some large oak crotches to eventually be used for bowl blanks.
Part two showed the roughing out of the first bowl from these flitches.
In this part, I finally finish the bowl. Continue reading
