Thank you. Hopefully my friend is happy with the next one. I sure am happy with this one. But i can appreciate the supper high gloss of a good CA finish too.
My lathe is stored for the winter, but I had a handle I turned from a small scrap. I just wanted to see how my black walnut blanks would behave under the chisel. As is often the case, I liked the grain and the curves, so decided to drill it and set a small knot. That didn’t go well, but I didn’t toss it into the fireplace. During the rare holiday quiet moments I hand sanded out the damage, finished the drilling, and gave it a walnut oil finish. The damage control softened all the transitions. Now it is less a ‘chisel handle’ profile and more in the traditional style of shaving brush handles. Handle is about 48mm tall. Lofted to a scrubby 45mm with a little ‘18mm’ boar knot. Small base and a big glue bump on that knot - it is just over 21mm where it enters the handle. It is set so deep, I didn’t even glue it. Fatip Piccolo for scale.
As I mentioned a while ago, my son makes brushes for craft fairs. This was a part of his display at his School's winter craft fair, just before Christmas. He had about 80 shaving brushes ready for this show.
Very nice! The two styles that catch my attention are reminiscent or a vintage Stag and Rubberset (top row, second from the right) and (second row, fourth from the right).
A friend on here asked me to make a Green resin handle for him. I poured some small amounts to play with transparency, colour, etc. I made them combined with some different types of handles. I’ll start his Omega 10098 clone soon, as long as he likes this resin. It is a metallic look, but I’m pleased with it. The small one was done on purpose as a travel brush as I got a small Omega knot a few years ago from @BaylorGator. The middle is the most ‘translucent’ of the 3 and the large one I decided to keep and put an APShaveCo Badger/Boar mix in it. Did one test lather with the two to make sure they stayed put. All worked out fine: The two on the left are in Maple, the large one is Sapele. Also made a lather bowl. Poculi and Walnut. The buttons are for lather making. It is kind of my thing in these. I showed the Walnut base as it was rounded to to be easy to grab to hold onto, as that is the way I designed it to be used: Not the best pics, but you get the general idea...
First off, I'm not a turner. I've often thought I'd like to give it a whirl, but I"m limited by room for a lathe and finances for a good start. But that's not my reason for posting today. I'm going to be cutting back to a stump 4-5 ft high a Yoshino Cherry tree that has died out, in my wife's flower garden. A Yoshino is the species there are a lot of in Washington, DC. I'm pretty sure it was grafted onto some type of root stock? It came from a large commercial landscape yard. "Would the limbs, etc. that I"m going to be cutting off work for turning brush handles? And not being a turner, I have no way of knowing, but thought I'd ask before I just cut it into pieces and put it to the curb for the town chipper to dispose of. Let me know folks. Do I have something someone might be interested in, or is this type of thing not suited for this? Wikipedia page for Yoshino Cherry trees.
Since the last brush I made him wasn't quite what he was hoping for I made another brush for my friend. Luckily he had bought one of the knots for me and one for him so I kept the first one. This brush like the first is made from black Linen material soaked in polyester resin sprinkled with aluminum shavings then crammed into a plastic spice jar to make the blank. There were some voids in the blank because I don't have a pressure chamber. Once I got the blank turned to rough shape I filled the voids with more aluminum shavings and CA glue then finished turning and sanding. Then quite a few layers of CA finish went on. And lots of sanding and polishing. I'm pretty confident this brush is what he was hoping for. I look forward to giving it to him.
I will post some pictures when it's taken down. Hopefully soon! I've got bushes/shrubs/etc. to trim first so I'm good to go for their upcoming growing season. "Then" the Yoshino gets it's turn next. When you say pictures, what do you, as a turner, need to see to tell if it's something you would/could use? While you're at it, talk to me about the size that works? Otherwise, I'd just be "cutting" for my convenience and to facilitate the process.
If you post a picture of the standing tree I can draw on it and suggest spots that may be particularly interesting then repost. Otherwise cut it into manageable size pieces and post some pictures of the cut ends. But keep in mind that there was ever storm damage to the tree the grain around where it healed would be particularly interesting and if there are any knots in the tree or where a branch connects to the trunk a lot of times there are some neat swirly grain patterns.
