Mal's Boutique Timbers

Its good to see that Mal Ward from Boutique Timbers has his own Blog site now easier to find and point others in his direction. I have bought a small amount of timbers of Mal and his brother Greg, scented NSW Rosewood, a few small burls, Huon Pine. They seem to stock a fair range of large slabs also.




The first time I saw their timber selection was at The Sydney Timber and Woodworking Show 2005. The rain had given the timber a soaking but with it brilliant colours.

Mal frequents a number of shows large and small, Newcastle is another one and Kiama Wood Crafts Group's yearly weekend event .

I bought this Rosewood some time back yet still to do anything with it, it looks a bit of old fire wood till it was cut. A reasonable size small slab was broken down to these turning blanks and lengths. A small nut bowl for a friend made from some of it.

The recent handles for the wedding gift  also made from some of this Rosewood.

This last show at Kiama they had some stunning timbers, slabs,  planks, burls and blanks. I bought a nice piece of Huon Pine (not shown here).

A number of the members from OTGA Ornamental Turners and Blue Mountains Woodturners often buy from Mal as well.

Feathered Friends and slithering things

We called into see my Uncle Kevin at Lapstone in the Blue Mountains. While there I decided to take a few photo's of his beautiful birds. They were making quite a racket as I approached the cages I saw what I first thought to be a garden drip hose. To find it had a red belly and it was about 3 to 4 foot long a baby Red Belly Black snake  He was more afraid of Kevin than we were of him, they are not to be toyed with a bite can cause serious illness and a visit to hospital.

Some brilliant colours amongst the finches a variety of birds in an ideal bush setting.

3 Bags Full

Its nice to be given anything for free especially if you can use it. Thanks goes to a family relation Maree and John and friends of theirs who raise Aplaca's for the 3 bags of fibre.

One bale of white which I thought when going through the top layer would mostly end up in the bin but will become doggy beds, this was skirting and legs. Then as I went further down it became a situation of my bags for sorting 1 for doggy bed - 1 for spinning - 1 I called cloud 9 it is heavenly soft.

 The half bale is all coloured Alpaca and needs further sorting as there are more than 3 or 4 colours ranging from fawn to black.

This the smallest bag is yet untouched.
The bales have been a priority so they can  returned for the next shearing.

Hebridean Spinning Wheel restoration A Work In progress Part 1

Finaly a start on the 200+ year old spinning wheel (see story here ).

Being a member of the Ornamental Turners I approached one of the members David Liard for some expertise in turning threads to repair and re-make the tensioning knob. David took the job on without hesitation and informed me when he'd handed the completed job back that he had only just restored/repaired a similar wheel recently. The old knob seen on the left was broken just above where the thread finishes. David drilled both parts and inserted a dowel and glued it together. The new one was made as the threaded section of the old one is so worn it would not have worked in adjusting the wheel tension.

I set about copying a new castle ( the old part seen below) for the maiden carrier using English Oak as David has done also, to keep the wheel as original as possible I will also repair the broken parts.

Matching the colour and years of use ( think they prefer patina) was to be less difficult than I first envisaged the process took a while but it slowly came about to a match. Its difficult to reproduce 200 years of dirt and grime Lanolin from grease wool.

The Yoke which support the Castle was split it has been soaked in a soapy water solution for about  1hour and a large hose clamp fitted to try bring it back as close as possible to be able to glue and pin it together.

A Joint Wedding Present

A good family friend, our youngest son's best man was to be married, we wanted to give Jack and Hope something we had both made.

Sue set the loom up and produced a Table Setting 4 place mats and a table runner.
Warp and weft are of natural coloured linen set up in a colour and weave threading but using a thick and thin combination instead of contrasting colours to give a textured fabric. The patterning is subtle but also intriguing. The weaving was enjoyable and I would like to do a little more of this pattern and even try out some other colour and weave patterns though not in linen.

I turned NSW scented Rosewood handles for some untensiles, Salad servers, Bread knife, Cheese knife and a Cheese combo knife.

A New Handle on Things

I heard a fellow once extoling the virtues of his hammer " I've had that hammer since new its only had three new handles and one new head".

Not so this hammer yes I've had it since new, but its only had .........yes this is its thrid new handle, but its the first one I have turned since my school days. The head would be 30+ years old. The new handle is Sydney Blue Gum and style of the handle is suited to my use.

It was practice for an up and coming project on a smaller scale in Oval Turning or offset turning.

Rosewood Bowl and Amazing find

This Rosewood bowl has sat around the bench waiting for a lid, I began to worry about damaging it so finaly finished it with out one. Everyone who has seen it says make a lid. What do you think? I was going to use a contrasting wood such as Jacaranda.

In processing some more NSW scented Rosewood for another job I cut a piece in half to find true heart. It has now been put aside for another purpose.

Weaving Broken Twill

Sue was in the mood to weave so set up this Broken Twill in preparation for another project.
Normally there is no big deal with setting up the warp for the next weaving project but in this case the reed had been out of the loom for several months awaiting cleaning after more than usual wear on the wool and silk warp used for the last stole. Rust needed to be removed and so there would be no traces left in the next project - a natural coloured linen table runner and placemats set, I wove this stole. The warp was a white and maroon synthetic yarn which a friend had kindly given me when she finally let go of her weaving equipment. The weft was the last of the white wool yarn I bought from Carol Olde's mill when she was still in Taminda, the industrial area of Tamworth.

A New Years Project

Enter the New Year and we had some friends over for dinner during the break. Alan brought me a restoration project he'd rescued from his neighbour who was having a clean out of the garage. It was destined for the skip. Alan assure it could be fixed, he obviously has faith in me not sure why.

The piece was/is a family heirloom 200+ year old Hebridean Spinning wheel the owners descendants had brought it with them from Scotland. A well used wheel in its day. It was missing a leg, broken adjustment knob used to tension the drive belt, one of the tower supports for the maiden was also broken.

This wheel looks to be hand worked rough hewn form English Oak the underside of the base is as it would have been when created.

I'll post progress reports on restoration as I go.

This what it should look like

In the mean time to see a complete Hebridean Wheel visit Spinning Fishwife's Blog and some additional photo's


Ray

A few more Presents

I hadn't realised its been so long since the last update so I am going to have to backstep a little and fill in.

 

Prior Christmas I made or was making quite a few things. Bottle Stoppers these were placed on the Christmas Eve Table as first in best dressed snapped up quickly.

A small Jarrah Chopping Board for Sue this is old growth forest Jarrah escued from a home renovation.

A Radiata Pine Book Case for Sue's craft room. Its been a while since I have done through mortise and tennons (used for the bottom shelf) and box joints (used for the top shelf). The two shelves are held in by shelf pins maing them adjustable. , I prefer to drill these individualy no jig, I made a simple jig to aligne them. I have always had better luck in lining them up and depth setting.