A couple of the pieces I mentioned

Below is a couple of the pieces I've turned lately. I've been kinda shocked at how well they turned out. The first piece is a Lacewood piece that I turned and carved. For the first time putting a twist and tail on a turning I thought it turned out well. The piece is about 4 inches long and maybe an inch or two wide.

This is a side shot showing the shape and tail.


Another view showing a better angle of the tail

And then a Front view showing the hollowing and flow of it.


The second pieces is another of the Bruce Perry shapes I like to mess with. I'm doing an online Secret Santa exchange and turned the below piece for my recipient. Hope he enjoys it. This chunk of maple had some great curly grain to it and really turned out nice.

My wife pointed out that this one does look better standing on edge..
A side view for a better look at the vessel and wave profile.

Thanksgiving fun

For thanksgiving, as we do most years, we went up to the Cabin to spend with my parents. Tammy was excited because we finally got to see some snow. (something we haven't hardly seen any of this year). It allowed the kids (Big and Small) to play on their 4 wheelers, eat good food and hang out with the Family. Tammy and Grandma got some reading in and Grandpa and I spent some time laying out wood spirit's to carve.


Grandma and the kids playing a game of Candyland.

Just enough snow for some sledding behind the 4 wheeler, I think Kayti enjoyed this more than Troy. She had some much fun she didn't want to come in, even when she was really cold. :-)

And catching up on some pictures from the Summer

Calisthenics for the 5 and 3 year old.
Now it's time to do some riding.... and hold on for dear life if you don't have the helmet.


Aren't they cute together?
Rock on, and No pictures please :-)
My two darlings playing in the water.
And the ornery one looks up at me
They all get in on the fun.

Isn't Fall great

Ya know, here we are in November. It's still in the 70's. And I had another chance to pick up all the leaves around the yard, and had two wonderful helpers around to help me. Man I love fall in Colorado.

A little Kayti Bug Leaf compactor.

So we have to have a Cool Dude Troy compactor here too.


That's a big pile of leaves... wait it moved?!?!?

Umm, yea, to many options on this one huh? :-)


Getting ready to jump, if Daddy would just let us.

2008 Loveland Wood Turning Symposium

Sorry for the way overdue write up on this year's Loveland Woodturning symposium. It's amazing how time gets away from you.

This year's Symposium had a great lineup of Demonstrators. Some of the Demonstrators included Mike Mahoney, Stuart Batty, Clay Foster, Molly Winton, Pete Holtus, Lee Carter, Steve Gotchall and Phil Lackey. The Event lasted 2 days, September 13th and 14th with a Dinner/Banquet and Auction Saturday evening.

One of the great features of this years Symposium was the Hands on Room was not only open to everyone, but it had a project going on during each of the rotations. This allowed participants to try and usually complete a project during a rotation that they were able to leave with. Some of the projects were Turning Talc, making Spurtles and Spatulas, Globes for Christmas Ornaments, Tops, and a Slim line pen. I thought this was a great idea and really gave everyone who wanted the opportunity to try their hand at turning during this 2 day event.




For the First rotation I chose to watch Molly Winton's "JMaking and use of home-made brands and Commercial Pyrography Pens" I ended up with the best seat in the house as we needed a camera operator for the room. Molly gave a great demo on how she designs the various wood burning tips, uses them and make custom handles for them as well. She also discussed the commerical brand burners and hand pieces avaible for wood turning

Here Molly is starting off, showing the woodburner she uses for demo's as well as her kit for woodburning.

She also brought several of her outstanding pieces along to show as examples of the various styles and designs she uses on her turnings.


For the Next Rotation, I sat in on a local instructor's demo - Doug Schneiter. Doug does alot of hollw form's that have natural voids in them and walked through the steps of doing so for his rotation. Below is him roughing out the piece on a Jet mini.


A close up shot after he had formed and hollowed the piece, still on the lathe.

The third rotation I watched was by Phil Lackey on adding interest to a piece. He explained his influences of bird carving and decorating and that flow into his turnings. During the demo he laid out a spiral pattern on a hollow form and showed how he did the piercing design. He discussed how he tries to vary where and how he's piercing to ensure variety and why he settled on the style of carver he did. Below are some of the pieces he brought to show.

The final rotation of the day I got to sit in on a demo by Clay Foster. I've been in awe of Clay's design, flow and creativity in his woodturning so I was very excited at the opportunity to get to see his demonstration. For this demonstration he showed and explained how he uses egg shells, printers ink or mud and map gas for creating different sytles or patterns in his work.
Below Clay is holding one of his turnins that he covered with egg shells to give it what I'd call a ceramic look. Behind him is the map he used to point out Crum, Texas, where he's from.


Here he's showing how he lays out a pattern in mud, then uses the torch to burn in the design
and the mud protects and then falls off of the form.

Applying the mud
The end result.

Sunday Morning, Molly and Clay did a critique of many of the pieces in the instant gallery. Below they discuss the design and flow of a Bruce Perry turning.


And for the Last demo I managed to catch the rotation with Mike Mahoney showing the Mcnaughton coring techniques. He discussed the value of this system, especially for him as it enables him to get the most wood usage from a single, very expensive, piece of wood.

And for the Final Closing words, our organizers - Allen Jensen and Trent Bosch.






(Posted on 11/19)

2008 Loveland Wood Turning Symposium - Instant Gallery

Honestly I took way to many pics to have out here in a blog, both you and I would get bored. So if you really want to see more, take a look at my Flickr galleries for more pictures

Symposium pictures

Instant Gallery pics.

I have included below some of the pieces that stood out to me in the Instant Gallery.

First is a Piece by Stuart Batty. It's made of blackwood and as the natural edge as well as the winged square shape with the bowl turned in it... It's all 1 piece and just amazing looking in the thinness of the piece and quality of the finish and wood.


This was my favorite piece in the show. Done by Paul Stafford who's known for his turnings that incorporate a shape and zipper to look as if it's being zipped open or shut. Below he did something entirely different and I loved it. He turned, carved and then painted an aspen grove. There are multiple layers to this piece and amazing piercing and painting details to make it really look like he's captured the aspen grove. He also has it mounted on a revolving base so that you can admire it from all directions.


Another turning I enjoyed was one by David Nittman, He's very well known for his basket illusions he makes in his turnings, and I really enjoyed the natural edge bottom to this piece.
Here is 4 bowls by Dan Bailey. He plated the bottom of them with brass and gave a really great look to the 4 different shapes and styles.

A really neat Viking ?!? Sailing ship wood turning by Bruce Perry. Very original.

Some Recent work

I hadn't had the chance to post any of my work recently, so thought I'd share some recent woodturning pics from my shop.

Below is my first 3 attempts at making scoops. The White one (sorry for the bad pic) is maple and the other two are from walnut I had laying around. Each scoop is about 4-5"'s long and around a Teaspoon to Table spoon size.


Next is a walnut bowl that I'm very proud of. My Friend Chris and his Dad had this wood sitting around and gave to me for some turning wood. It's a very Hefty looking bowl which I think works with the wood. Approx 14" across.
Another shot from the side, sitting on the drying stand

This is some pics of a Honey Locust bowl I had turned. I had turned this bowl green (wet/just cut) then left it to dry. When I went back a few months later to check that it was dry it had developed a bad crack in the side. Not wanting to give up on the piece, I cut it (below) and made a Walnut Band for it. I think it turned out well.
Finished bowl... the walnut band sits proud of the shape, but follows the same lines.
Side view.

This is a piece I started making and while still on the lathe (about 1/3 done) my Father in Law claimed it. The natural Edge and carved feet all worked really well together on this piece. Made from Elm.
Better view of the feet that were carved into the bottom.
Another side view with better color/lighting

Below is another Elm piece where I was trying something new. Instead of a cut band around the bowl, I went for a recessed one and burned in dark. I think my execution on that aspect could have been better, but I liked the overall form. Approx 8" wide , 5" high.
Side view, showing the recess. I'm thinking the band should have followed the same line as the outside edge?!?!
This is a very nice Pueblo shaped Vessel out of elm that I turned. I like the look and feel of it, it has just enough heft to match the look of the vase and it turned out very very smooth. Approx 12" high, 7" across
Top View from opposite side
Side view, for shape.

Tammy's new dedicated Blog.

With Tammy getting more and more into her cakes, she's starting her own blog. I'll post in on my links on the side too, but as a post, here is where you'll find her future cakes.


TJ's Happy Cakes

June 08 Cake Challenge - Comcast

This is the challenge I went to watch yesterday. It was Mystery Client, Triplets 18th birthday coming up. The competitors only get 5 minutes to interview the triplets to come up with a design so some of them got it spot on, some missed the mark. The only thing the triplets have in common is a love for the movie business, one wants to be an actor, one a director and the only girl wants to be a screenwriter. They usually do a murder mystery dinner for their birthdays but that wasn’t information they shared with all of the teams really.

While the teams were sketching theirs I sketched mine too and I think someone ought to have used mine… J

Here are the finished cakes, Normans won. The white curls are shaved chocolate and the cake had the 3 of them made in little characters on it with their interests beside them.

Bronwen’s cake was a little too bright for the triplets tastes, although it had some very cool aspects, like the circle cakes around it, moved, they all spun around the rest of the cake. The stripes on the bottom cake represented the directors megaphone, film strip, etc.


Jason’s cake had each tier divided equally into 3 parts so that each of the triplets got their very own equal section, but they separated some and didn’t stay together. There wasn’t much representation of their interests on the cake.



This was Cindy’s first cake challenge and she did really well overall, didn’t bite off more than she could complete and played it pretty safe. She could have done more to represent each of the triplets interests, and should have covered her cake board. But she did blown sugar globes which was very cool.



As always, I had a great time, networked with other decorators, and learned a lot. Found out I can call myself a Sugar Artist/Cake Artist/Cake Designer/Cake Decorator without having the Pastry Art or Pastry Chef degree.