Hand made from wood, fibre, clay, porcelain, glass, wool, leather, metals.....

Thank you Mellisa, we think that too. I will be going to a shop today, I hope and I have no idea just how to price it?

It was certainly 'interesting' to turn

John,

I just went to your website https://johnamandiers.​wixsite.com/johns-w-o-w-1

This block you made amazes me how you turned a spherical ball inside this block of wood is magical!!

The sphere diameter is MUCH LARGER than the holes on the outside of the block by maybe 1/2 inch?

Jonzjob wrote in post #19266245
You cracked it PH and Charles if you look at his photo you can see that the cage/cube is held steady by 3 clamps. 2 are clamped on the lathe bars either side of the cube and one across the top to squeeze the clamp arms on to the cube to hold it in place. Then the ball is held between 2 cups to spin it inside the cube

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It's a bit fiddly but not too much and a bit of care goes a long way. And it can and does go wrong at times

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It doesn't pay to try to take liberties

This shows the method of holding the cube whilst the ball is being perfected and I am sure that I did a work in progress somewhere on here?

Thank you Charles. They are fun to do and they don't always work I have had a couple go BANG on me, at which point I usually say "golly-gosh", or something like that, a couple of times

I discovered afterwards that the block I was trying to work had a tiny crack in it. Well, that's my excuse anyway

Jonzjob wrote in post #19265899
Well I start with a cube Charles and turn the 'holes' in each face. I made a small pattern to get a rough idea of the shape needed

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When all 6 faces are turned the ball starts to appear and you can see the gap through the 'legs' of the cube

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Found it. This is where the sequence starts Charles if you remember?

Jonzjob wrote in post #19281890
Found it. This is where the sequence starts Charles if you remember?

Thank you for reminding me you had already posted these pictures!!

Jonzjob wrote in post #19281626
I have never had any interest in doing anything with resins, apart from bits and bobs on my model RC gliders, and I think that nature can never be bettered by mankind, she has been doing things for a bit of a long time and is good at it. So, unless it were to reinforce the lump it isn't an option for me.

I feel the same about colouring the wood except for the odd bit of staining occasionally on wooden toys. Even the idea of turning pens in resin hasn't ever interested me, although I have seen some very nice examples of resin pens. It's just not my style really and I leave that to others.

That's correct OH. It is a yarn bowl and the ball of yarn is held in the bowl so it doesn't decide to do a runner in use when the yarn is pulled out of the hole. Thank you for your ideas though Infrared Guy. I always try to listen even if I don't adopt ideas put forward. I have learnt a hell of a lot from listening.

One of the things I have said before about the wonder of turning is that although you can see the form of a spinning bit

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You can't see the detail until it's stopped and that's always a surprise

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That's what makes it magical

I love turned burls and spalted wood: I agree that they don't need any fillers, they are beautiful, the magic in them is in the design of nature. I always admire the skill and strength it takes to turn a piece of wood like this without breaking your arms from kickback, or breaking the bowl itself.

Thank you Grey Swan. Your comment about kickback reminded me of the song 'Love Hurts'. If it hurts then you must be doing it wrong

It's the same with turning something out of balance. You have to get the speed to a place where it's not pitching the lathe all over the place and causing a lot of vibration, the faster the better. Then the trick is to go very slowly and carefully to take off the unbalanced parts. I try to take off as much as I can on my bandsaw before mounting it on the lathe. And as it becomes more balanced the speed can be increased, little by little. The faster, to a certain degree, you can get it spinning the easier it becomes. There are catches at times and as yet I have never had a gouge ripped out of my hands. I could go on, but

It's an exact approximation as to how thick/thin to take the walls of a bowl and takes very scientific guessing to stop before it goes BANG! I always stop in time, sometimes But I try to get the walls fairly thin as I think it looks more elegant that a big heavy lump. The guess work with spalted wood? Err on the safe side and make it a bit thicker is what I have learned.

I have just finished doing 3 more pens and got to thinking about how many I have made? The conclusion was that I have no idea, but I bought our MacBook Pro 13 in 2010 almost completely with the proceeds!

These are the 3 just finished. They are made from Accoya and the Celtic knot is walnut

When my wife was into ceramics ...

Jonzjob wrote in post #19283068
I have just finished doing 3 more pens and got to thinking about how many I have made? The conclusion was that I have no idea, but I bought our MacBook Pro 13 in 2010 almost completely with the proceeds!

These are the 3 just finished. They are made from Accoya and the Celtic knot is walnut

And these I made some while ago

I will do a bit of a work in progress for the Celtic Cross when I get a few minutes

Very nice work John. Always admire the work that goes into miniatures and very small turning

Jerry-R wrote in post #19283125
When my wife was into ceramics ...

Beautifully made Jerry.
She is very accomplished.
I gather it's still in your possession?

That is a very impressive piece Jerry.

When she was into ceramics? It's a real shame if she isn't doing it now. She is/was very good at it!

How I do the Celtic knot in my pens. I use a very simple jig to cut the pen blanks to the right length

Then when I am sure the hole hasn't wandered in the blank I can strat to cut the 45º slots for the contrasting wood

From there I drill out the contrasting wood that now blocks the hole and it goes onto the special lathe jig