The Wild Blue Yonder

Feeling Blue.

The Arm Chair Traveller

I am not one to usually sit about, I like to keep on the move. Years of being on the road touring driving coaches and even long before that my lone motorbike rides up and down the east coast. Family holidays only ever did one out here with mum & dad to Tuggerah. With my own family there were a few camping trips, holidays and weekends away when they were all involved with BMX. Sue's and my first big one was to Rockhampton we had borrowed my mates Sandman panel van he had borrowed the motorbike sadly he got no pleasure out of it the battery died 2nd day. Camping during my years in Boys Brigade and CEBS prior that. I guess a long boat trip from England to Australia............nope that didn't start the itch either for I recall journey's with my parents, steam train journeys with Grand parents even an odd ride on a motorbike with an Uncle all back in the UK it wasn't far but I recall some of it. Especially the hot exhaust.
So why now an armchair traveller? Well I have been following a friends journey/treck in search of family history through the UK, Scotland and even skirting by near where I was born. The photography is great and worth a 1000 words. Thanks Alan & Helen for sharing.

It Followed Us Home

Can never pass by a roadside rubbish clean up without scanning to see what's there both Sue and I find sometimes a labour of love to restore/repair or scavenge parts off. Most recently was this rather sad looking table well made for its day just sadly neglected over time. The centre join has opened up, a few cracks starting to appear, 2 of the legs are warped/twisted.



Weather and time has made the surface look drab and tatty, it has been disassembled and stored for now. First plan of attack will be the 2 legs which need the most attention, then the top sanding etc.

Universal Cutting Frame for Ornamental Turning

I started making a Rose Engine (this is not mine) 3 or 4 years ago with help from the fellows at Ornamental  Turners, well it is still sitting on my shelf in limbo 1/2 done. Space is my problem and to many other projects I seem to keep taking on or picking up.

After using and seeing various Universal Cutting frames made to do OT work, I bit the bullet and decided one more project would not get in the way, cause to much hassle, oh was I wrong. Progress has been made regardless with the equipment I have at home an borrowed.

The Universal cutting frame I am basing my build on is that of Ray Levy's he did an article in Woodturning Issue No19.

I am using 6010 series aluminium for the swivel blocks and motor support blocks as I am making two of each. One with 1" for each support shaft and  spindle. The other will be 1" and 20mm. I will go into why as time goes by and I progress with the build. I started with cutting the blocks 2"x2"x3". The shafts where bought as is and just cut to length on my 4x6 metal bandsaw as were the initial cut for the aluminium, I cut the smaller block off on a hand mitre saw.
I used a 1" holesaw to drill the 1"x1" holes as I wanted to retain the removed piece for another project. The 2nd 1" and 20mm I drilled normally stepping up but hand reaming to finished size.This is where the frustration came in after buying a new set of reduced shank drill bits sizes14mm to 25mm and finding not one was correct in diameter all undersized even worse was the was no 18 but two well close to 19mm's in the box. Rang Tool King who miked all the boxes they had to find all were the same, I will be returning them at Mudgee Field days. I had already borrowed the reamers from a friend thank goodness.

To true up the swivel blocks etc I used my bench drill as a mill with a sanding disc attached, a finer finish is yet to be done.

Both Swivel blocks

1"x20mm swivel block

20mmx1"dia bore swivel block

 

Motor Support blocks plus a few extra

Double Trouble, a Hoody & pair of Sox

For our grand-daughter Bianca's 2nd birthday a pink zippered  hoodie. Not an easy task when you have no pattern to go by and only a few quick measurements taken from a hoodie that you think might fit her. For Ray a pair of socks. Just when it gets really cold, these wollen socks should keep his feet warm.







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OM The Piece Within

 I was seconded into making some missing Sitar string tension knobs for a Tamil Sitar Alan is repairing a cracked Gourd on (Alan says turning makes him dizzy). I used NSW Rosewood adorned with False Ivory which was obtained through 043turning. I found the False Ivory very different to turn each piece I took the small knob from was in itself a different texture. One chipped quite easily while another almost peeled away.

 

 While on the subject of things from the the region at a recent Trend Timbers open day Richard Clark the owner had recently returned with what he called his tiny bit of wood.

Shades Of Red

There is nothing quite like making something for someone you know so I was delighted to be able to make this scarf for the sister of a friend. I had only the criteria of colour and fibre to go. Since the colour was to be red (who said there aren't a million shades of red) I thought that the recipient have some input . Janice lives in the United States and since Kool Aid is not only readily available there but is also much favoured for dyeing yarn  I asked that she could provide some packets for this process bearing in mind that there are various flavours of red.
I soaked some spun yarn for a short while in a mild detergent solution before adding the concentrated Kool Aid solution. The wool and angora had the cherry flavour added while the alpaca had the wild cheery added. At the same time I over dyed some wool with cochineal to give it more depth of colour since it seemed a little washed out.

Ready for the dye solution

Dark Cherry solution for the alpaca yarn

Fortunately the kitchen sink is stainless steel or there may have been some problems with the Kool Aid staining the sink a bright red. Rubber gloves saved the hands when handling the concentrated Kool Aid packets.

It didn't take long to dye the fibre in the microwave which is dedicated for non food use - either dyeing fibre or drying wood when Ray has a piece which hasn't had enough time to dry out properly before turning it and it fits into this fairly large microwave.

When all the dye has been taken up, the jars are removed and left to cool completely before receiving their final rinse and being left out to dry suspended from the clothes line.


The wool and angora fibre looks as though it has absorbed the dye liquid well but when removed from the glass jar some of the fibre remained white. This gave a slightly mottled effect but probably resulted from having the fibre too crowded in the jar.

A nice breeze meant that drying took very little time.

An old two shaft loom threaded up for weaving

All seven skeins of red yarn used in the scarf

Dyed mohair spun on a bottom whorl drop spindle made by Ray.

The loom is threaded up with random warp threads from the skeins spun. In no particular order they consist of Silk, Mohair, Wool combined with malamute, Wool combined with angora, Alpaca and Camel.The weft yarn is the wool that was over dyed with the cochineal. The loom here is set up without a reed which felt very odd to use as usually the reed is used to beat the work down but in this case the reed was too fine for some of the threads and would have worn them down to almost nothing causing breakages.
 A wide toothed comb was used to beat the weft down. The finished product was fulled in the washing machine for a few minutes then hung out to dry.

Wool of Many Colours III Mobius & Helix Scarf

In the first 2 posts on Wool of Many Colours post one & post two  the process of turning  fibre into yarn and yarn into skeins to create the following Mobius and Helix Scarf for this years Scarf Exchange.

A Moebius is a band which has one face so that if you were to draw a line along its centre, you would end up back where you started without having lifted your pen at all, while a Helix is more like a coil and has two distinct faces.



The scarf uses the now very popular helix design which is also known as a ruffle scarf. The pattern was recently published in the Spin Off magazine. Here I used two balls which I had organised so that the colours would progress and then mirror back on themselves. This isn't an exact duplications as with any hand dyeing, there are slight variations in the bands of colour but I came as close as I could. The moebius was worked in a similar manner with the colours progressing through out though I was a little more difficult as there is a distinct lace pattern in this moebius which isn't normally used. A plain garter stitch is more common but I like a challenge. Here I have to credit Brigit Freyer from www.die-wolllust.de for her pattern "Wave of color". When I came to knitting this moebius, the number of stitches called for was insufficient for the size of garment I had intended to make so another two pattern repeats were added. This meant that I ran out of yarn before finishing the lace edging. Fortunately there was enough fibre left that I could spin up enough to finish. I hope that whoever receives it like what I have done with the fibre.

"Wave of Color" moebius. I like the way the colours graduate and end with the orange and yellow. It makes me think of flames licking around the edges of the moebius.

Helix scarf.

Rough Cut

I first went timber shopping with my dad about 1963 to a sawmill somewhere around Hurstville/Kinsgrove where we were living at the time. I loved the scents of fresh cut wood the various colours available, texture and grains.

I don't think my love for real wood has changed in all those years. Mal from Boutique Timbers has some amazing timbers to choose from his latest cut is some beautiful Dark Jarrah I hope to see some of this at the June 17th to 19th Sydney Working with Wood Show

The Ornamental Turners Group will also be there as usual demonstrating their craft.

Cole Jaw Extention

Cole Jaw Extension set 

I recently made a set of extension's for my Cole Jaw  of which i have two sets one made of Aluminium at Ornamental Turners and a steel set from Gary Pye . I made the extension set out of 16mm MDF to take the diameter to 500mm. I made a template out of 10mm MDF first. marking the main mounting holes. These were drilled with a small drill bit, then truing up the outer edge on the lathe.

Rear View of Cole Jaws

Normal Cole Jaws in use

 Cole Jaws are an add on set of jaws to a chuck to hold larger bowls or odd shapes usually for finishing the base. They are not so damaging to the work itself as buttons are used to hold the job securely.  Speeds of the lathe should be kept to no more than about 600 rpm with diameter's of this size 500mm+. I didn't get a photo of the jaws cut into quarters as I plain forgot to take it, or with the button holes drilled.  Although these were marked out and centre punched, I past the first set onto Pat a mate and as he needs to true them to his Cole jaws before drilling the radius mounting holes.