I like the finished handle on the left. The knot hole looks a little bit shallow but it might just be optical illusion. I've made a few handles and still have to do the math several times to figure proper depth.
He checks them with calipers before he puts on a finish, but since each is hand turned, they are all unique. At this point, he is well over 500 brushes.
Good weather, skiing has been covid-cancelled, so I am grabbing opportunities to drag the lathe into the driveway and turn shave gear. This time it was a few covers for my Old Spice mugs and shave bowls. I stacked up some pieces of century old fir beams and joists from my demolished porch a decade ago. I finally cut some blanks out of finer grained pieces and turned my first disc-shaped objects. My cut off chisel got a workout. Pictured below are five of them. I tried to save some of the character of the old rough sawn timber. The outsides were black and splintery with age and weather. There were plenty of cracks, old nail holes, soft spots and pitch pockets to either avoid or incorporate. Finished with beeswax and walnut oil. Instant antiques!
Very cool. The wood looks great. And I like the accent rings. Do the have a step down on the underside to fit in the cup?
The step downs were the most annoying part. I wanted good fits. The mugs are not perfectly round and the shorter (newest production mugs) have tapers. Plus the step down was inaccessible during turning, so I couldn’t fit the mugs over the work in progress. I could only check the step down dimensions using outside calipers. My first step down was oversize, but that lid I put to use on my stainless soap sample cup. I went for variety in the side profiles, too, some to match my idea of what would accent the mug, and some just for the heck of it.
If you make more I wonder if you could do the step down first then flip it over and do the top. Or do you not have the right Chuck for it?
I’m available for adoption if I can work in your shop.... and maybe get access to your woodpile! BTW, I’m not telling how deeply @GAW9576 drilled the knot hole in the olive wood handle he gave me. However, it did require a big cork spacer just to loft it short and scrubby!
Between the taper, the thinness of the step down, and the soft wood, I did not think to even try a chuck. On a hardwood blank, I might need new jaws for my chuck for those diameters. I don’t own any bowl turning jaws. If I needed to make bunches of thin disc-like objects I would be looking for a better setup. I turned these lids with the worse side of the blank (surface cracks, bad splinters, thick black weathering) screwed to a faceplate. There was so much waste built into the blanks that I didn’t mind throwing a lot of ‘wood’ (speaking loosely) into the burn box. Incidentally, some of the black crust on the outer surfaces smelled pretty weird when I was taking it down. I was glad to be turning outside to avoid breathing any of the dust.
I made that handle for loft experimentation purposes. I hope you are enjoying it. Cork is a great idea for a spacer. I'll have to keep that in mind. I've thought of doing a shave bowl. I've only ever turned 1 very small bow and that was in a class.
I love that brush! The olive wood is amazing and your finish is perfect. I rotate about 8 brushes through the cabinet above my shaving sink. Except that brush. It never leaves the den. I just give it two or three days to dry completely, then I use it again. I’m nosing around, trying to decide what glass or plastic item to use to line a shave bowl. If I turn it out of that century-old fir I better keep it dry inside, even with a robust finish applied.
If you completely coat the whole thing i think you would be fine. Especially with proper care. If you line it you are more likely to have issues because water can get stuck between the lining in the wood. My Grandma had some really cool woven wooden laminated bowls. They lasted forever. Wish I knew what they where finished with and where they went. I would like a set of them.
Very nice. Not having the Mugs handy would make fitting very tough. Good job doing it without. With bowls that have matching lids, I always just fit the bowl to the lid while the lid is still on the lathe.
Thanks! Three of my mugs have very similar dimensions, so I just duplicated the step down/taper on two of those lids. Making my oversize chess set gave me a lot of practice on duplicating. If I get ambitious about bowls and lids I had best get some appropriate jaws for my chuck.
I've liked the Gem Jr. Bar Elite handle since the first time I saw it. I've been thinking about making a similarly shaped handle for myself and finally got around to making it today. The brass thread is removable to fit a variety of razor types.
That is awesome. Did you use a pen blank, or did you pour the resin yourself? Did you buy a threaded bolt or did you repurpose a threaded top from another handle?