It's about time to get my 2021 page online, since it is already February 2022. I don't even want to talk about the state of the world for the past year, except to say that I am grateful to be retired and a bit of an introvert, so staying at home was not very difficult.

What was a problem that it was not possible to get what I made into any kind of marketplace and keeping it all becomes a problem. Like - where do you put it? The crawl space boxes are full. Thankfully, I was finally able to get a few things back into the galleries, and I hope to participate in the Crafted show at the Art Gallery this year, something I have missed in 2020 and 2021. Maybe it is time to try selling online, but I hate all the packing and shipping involved. Not my schtick, I'm afraid.

2021 was a laid-back year, but I am still surprised at all the stuff I was able to do. So, I hope a few of the items I have to show you and talk about will hold your interest. By now you are completely aware that, for me, the story is as important as the creation.

I did manage to put a short tutorial in here about how to make bulk threaded inserts.

Again, I will say, join me on this trip through 2021 and I hope it can be a little relief and distraction from real life for a moment or two.

I love hearing from you, so feel free to let me know you were here.

Let's start with the end of the year first. Gnomes or elves, or whatever you want to call them. These little people are fun to make, and the little guy to the right is the first one. The little group is a family picture of the ones I could find hiding about the house. Some of them escaped to the houses of friends and family. In the bottom right is some of the elders and you can note there is a bit of sparseness to the hair on some of them, and perhaps a mismatch of hair color between eyebrows and hair, common on aging men. The little man bottom right of the photo is special. His little hat is made of shavings from a thuya bowl I was making and set in resin. He is about 3" tall.

I was intrigued by some of the work I saw on the World of Woodturners, particularly some of the ginko turnings of Bill Clark. So, I thought I would try a little design of my own and came up with this set of three - 6", 5" and 4" in diameter. The design is identical on all three. The design was purely out of my head, and I decided to add some color to these. The dark green box and the red colors on the lids were mixed up of various inks and dyes until I got the shades I wanted and black shoe dye was used for the blacks. The caps on the lids are ebony and the white finials are holly.

I got a phone call and subsequent photo from a lady who said her sister had a rolling pin that her grandfather had turned for her grandmother. But it was given to her sister, and she would like to have one like it. It had to be maple, and the dimensions had to be exactly the same as the original. And the handles had to be the same piece of wood. The pin on the left is the result. Then she said she wanted one for her daughter, but not the same. So, I turned another one of cherry, but it is not shown. I thought I might as well use some pieces of wood I had lying around to make a few more, and the three on the right are the result. They are smaller, and a wee one for the grandkid to use if anyone ever buys them. But they were fun to make.

2021 was the year of the peppermill for me. I have seen hundreds of peppermills, and made many, and they all seem the same. Maybe because they are intended for function, makers have not really thought of them as art opportunities. I have begun trying to think outside the normal box for peppermill design, and some of these may show that. In previous years I did mills that retained bark and branch nubs poking out the side of them, or made from seed pods, but the overall shapes were still similar. The top left is a departure from normal. I saw a video of someone restoring a hundreds year old anvil. It was a square piece of steel with a tapered stem that was stuck into a hole drilled into a stump. The flat top became the anvil. He was restoring both the anvil and the hammer. When I saw that, I thought "why not design a peppermill like two anvils end to end, and square? And then, instead of a normal top make a top that looks like the hammerhead?" Ergo, this design. The inside is round but follows the shape of the outside. I got it very thin in a couple of spots (could almost see through it) so I had to cheat a bit and build up the inside with some epoxy for strength. And when it was done, I thought the sides could use some embellishment, so I went to work with the burning pen. Then, the hammer head did not seem right, so I textured it and stained it black. The top right one was inspired by a box made by Bill Clark on the World of Woodturners site. I loved the shape and colors of the box and thought they might work on a peppermill. And especially with oak. And why not put it on feet? So, this is what I arrived at and it has been a hit with everyone who sees it. I have more ideas in store for this kind of mill but need to find the wood to make them. This mill is 8" tall. Bottom left is a 10" peppermill made of pear and walnut. I had pre-drilled the interior of the round blank to get rid of the pith in the center and separated the top from the base. Then it was set aside to dry with the two parts in the same bag. After a year the bottom was fine, but the top had a vertical split down the side. I thought it was ruined, but then decided to glue a wedge of walnut into the split and add walnut as accents for the foot and between the "feeted" base and the top. Then simply let the color of the wood do the rest. The piece on the bottom right was once an oak fencepost on my brother's farm. I got it from him, probably 20 years ago, and just ran across it again. I left it natural as far as the shape and surface is concerned, but since I had just done the other oak piece with some green on it - and I like green - I dyed this one too and put a black top on it. The rustic look, with the split down the side and square feet, is intentional. It's different, but is smooth and effective as a pepper grinder. I always turn the centers of my mills. The normal mills are made by just drilling out in the center and leaving it that way. Mine are turned and sanded smooth and follow the outside shape. It's just a matter of pride for me and attention to detail, and it makes a mill with way more capacity. That makes a huge difference considering the rapidity with which we go through pepper in our house.

This is a set of mills, one pepper (the dark one, of course) and one salt (the light one, of course). The mechanisms in these are made of ceramic, and therefore either can be used for salt. Metal mechanisms cannot be used for salt as the salt with eat at the metal.

The dark one is walnut with maple accents, and the light one is the reverse of that. Also, I made the pepper one a bit larger to further define the differences in them. There is really no decoration on them other than a couple of burn lines, and the feet.

The right-hand photo is another natural edge apple peppermill where the bark was left intact in places. This one is 8" tall.

Last four peppermills, I promise. Top left is an 8" mill of osage orange, which I found, rather surprisingly, at a local Windsor Plywood. They do not often carry this sort of wood. It is in the design of the anvil peppermill above and was an attempt to change it up a little with a round center and squared off base and top. Not sure if I like it. Top right is a more traditional style but with a little design just to add some interest. I burned some lines with a wire and then used a texturing tool, that I got from Terry Scott in New Zealand, to put some knurled texture between the lines. I like the effect of the texturing, although I have not used it much. The bottom two are wormy apple. At a club meeting someone had left a large chunk of wood at the door and when I left, I asked about it. I was told someone had brought it but no one wanted it because it had holes in it. I jumped at the chance to take it, since wormy wood is one way of just letting nature do the artwork for you. These two mills came from that piece of wood. Both have walnut accents on the top and base, and both have Crush Grind ceramic mechanisms in them. The one on the bottom right has the silver screw on top hidden in a wooden apple block. I have never liked the silver knob on top of peppermills, and when one is trying to make a bit of an art piece the last thing needed is a shiny distraction at the top of the piece. From now on, most of my mills will have that wooden screw hidden.

This pear vase ran into a bit of trouble. Not my making, but nature's making. As wood dries it shrinks, and it shrinks more across the fibers of the wood than along them. In other words, the soda straws of wood get smaller in diameter while the length stays the same. Therefore, wood often will split along the grain, and fruit woods shrink more than most. Which explains the photo on the left. This is the piece on the lathe after it had been turned to a rough shape 18 months earlier and left to dry. The split almost divided it in two. It was almost thrown away and I decided to turn the split into a design opportunity. The photo on the right is after it was finished. I laced it up with leather and the piece totally transformed into a very nice and desirable vase. It is about 11" tall.

Here are a couple of small hollow forms that really are a favorite of mine to turn. I guess I was enchanted with this form early on in my turning journey because of dear Wally Dickerman, who did so many of these so perfectly. Another person who inspired me to turn these was Art Liestman. The one on the left is Manitoba maple, about 3.5" high. These are very, very thin and light and feel almost like a glass ornament when you pick them up. The little cap on top is made of thuya shavings mixed with epoxy. This one travelled to New Zealand in a Christmas swap last year, to Richard Neighbor. The one on the right is a bit of wormy apple, the same wood that I used to make two of the peppermills shown earlier on this page. The cap on top is made of ebony. This one is also about 3.5" and it found its way to Philip Streeting in Great Britain. In the next panel below I will show what I got from them in return.

These are the two pieces I received in the swaps for the hollow forms I showed in the previous panel. The little hollow form at the front looks like it is made of metal, but it is turned of wood by Philip Streeting in Great Britian. After turning, he uses a special reactive metal paint which gives it a old, rusted metal look. This is a special piece in my little collection, and I am so pleased to have it. The metallic leaf is what I got from Richard Neighbor in New Zealand. Turned and carved and painted, it is a remarkable work of art and, as the down under expression goes, I am "chuffed" to have it on my shelves.

		Last year I showed a bunch of little bowls made from scraps I have left over from other projects. It is a perfect way to experiment with shapes and form for bowls, and I often encourage my students to do small bowls for practice. I also found, at the various craft shows and sales events, that little bowls are snapped up. Whether people use them for nuts or for dry ingredients when cooking or for holding other small objects, I don't know. In our house, all of the above. One of the little bowls found a special place in the life of our little dog. Tiny Dolly was freaked out by the pinging sound of her metal bowl, so I gave her a tiny cherry bowl of wood. It is her regular bowl now, and in the next panel I have posted a photo of how it looks after one year of use. No matter, it is HERS. Anyway, this is an hour or two of fun, turning these little guys. They are all under 4"

Here is Dolly's little dog dish. Every woodturner starts out their turning journey making what is jokingly called a "dog dish", which is usually a large flat bottom shallow bowl with straight sides. Sort of like a small frying pan. But this one is after turning for 20 years already. It is 3.5" across. As you can see, she has done a little bit to "personalize" her little dish and make sure it stands out from the crowd and no one else can claim it.

Here is an orb box of big leaf maple burl. The name is obvious from its shape, but the difficulty to produce the form is not obvious. The idea is to have the flow of the orb continuous throughout the break caused by the bead and fitting of the lid. This was the first (and only) one I have done, and I am fairly pleased with the results. It took me forever to decide what to use for a handle on top, and finally I thought of using the maple leaf shape itself, with a burned outline. This box is about 4" in diameter and is finished with tung oil and buffed. The photo on the right just shows it open and in a different light.

Another form inspired by the ginko pieces of Bill Clark on the World of Woodturners site. I absolutely loved the forms he was doing and decided to try something similar. This hollow form is about 11" tall overall and is made of birch. The design with the leaves is purely my own, just drawn on by hand, and then hours and hours of burning with a small point on the wood burner. There is no dye on this piece. I spent hours trying different things for the finial (or handle) on top of the lid, and finally decided on what looks like a modified propellor. I ended up being very pleased with the total result even though I had to resist the urging of my wife and friends to not pyrograph the entire piece.

		The top photo is a maple leaf box about 5" in diameter. The only finish is Krylon matte spray finish, so it looks like there is no finish at all. But it is protected. For the lid, I used oak, but then heavily wire brushed it to take away some of the softer wood in the grain. Then dyed it black and used the same matte finish on it. For the top, I used a small round piece of African ebony, which was polished, and used the other half of the maple leaf from the piece in the previous panel, and just dyed it red to correspond with some of the reds in the maple box. The little box on the right is 4" across and is very similar to many others I have made. They are often used as pet urns. Two of our little Poms are in boxes just like this. This one is special, as it is made of Thuya burl wood, which is a rare wood and very expensive. As is the ebony lid.

Kelly Dunn, from Hawaii, is one of the finest woodturners around, and he has a keen understanding of the forms of the Hawaiian islands, especially the calabash and umeke forms. Kelly is a character and is renowned on the World of Woodturners for his unusual musings from the "armchair". Sometimes philosophy, sometimes, not. Kelly is a friend, and when he sent me the little lidded umeke of African ebony (top left photo), a tree that he planted and grew, I was absolutely delighted. It is perfect in every way, form, finish and proportions. And I will treasure it in my little collection of the work of others. So, I tried the form as well, but quite a bit larger, with a piece of Chinese elm from my neighbors back yard. Mine is 6" tall, and Kelly's is about 3.5" tall. I am pleased with my effort, but it certainly does not have the pizzazz of his little ebony piece. Oh well - try again. Bottom left is a tiny little purpleheart box with an ebony lid. You can see the size in relation to the quarter coin. On the right the little box is open. Just turned for fun, but people like little boxes.

I came across these in ceramic somewhere and thought they might make a nice and useful kitchen storage item. They are garlic savers, although we use them for ginger too. So, I made a few for Karen and for friends, and they liked them. The left photo is a bunch of them together of different woods, (cherry, birch, maple), and the single one on the right is maple with a walnut lid. You probably noticed that the forms are basically lidded umekes, as in the panel above, as the form seemed to lend itself well to this purpose. These are all between 4 and 5 inches in diameter.

Here is a whack of little boxes. First - A cocobolo box with a suction fit maple lid, 3.5" tall. Second - An ebony box with a cocobolo exterior. The cocobolo sleeve is about 1mm thick. Hand threaded lid, 4.5" tall. Third - A walnut box with a thuya exterior. The thuya sleeve is about 1mm thick. Suction fit lid, 4.5" tall. Fourth - Tiny little ebony box with a Manitoba Maple lid. Suction fit, barely 2" tall. Fifth - A cherry box with a walnut cap and using a threaded insert as the cherry is too soft to thread. 3.5" tall. Sixth - A similar box of elm using a threaded insert as the elm is too soft to thread. 3.5" tall. I have a separate page with a detailed description of how I make the threaded inserts in bulk. Click here for photos and instructions.

If you have seen previous years of my work, you know I have always enjoyed the challenges of turning this shape and form, and playing around with the finials on them. A lot of these have been used as urns. The one on the left is a 10" diameter form of spalted birch. "Spalt" is the dark staining that occurs in woods at the beginning of the decay process. Some woods take a long time to spalt, but birch, if left in a dark and damp place, will spalt in weeks, and be totally worthless a couple of weeks after that. You have to get it at the precise time. The small one on the right, about 4.5", looks like the same wood, but it is not. It is cottonwood, which is not often used for turning. But this had some spalting and nice color, so I decided to use it this way. The caps on both are of ebony, and the finials are a version of the lovely finials originated by Keith Burns. Keith was a fine woodturner and wonderful man who passed away in 2021 of Covid. He was a revered artist on the World of Woodturners site.

I kept seeing Jo Sonja iridescent paint being used on turnings and thought I would like to try it. Jo Sonja paint appears white but clears when it dries and leaves behind the iridescent colors. It is generally applied over a solid color background and either put on with a brush, under cling wrap to give it texture, or, as in this case, dropped on and then blown about through a soda straw to distribute it. Obviously different iridescent colors were used. Nothing out of the ordinary so far - until I priced out the paint. Whoa - way too expensive for an experiment. So, I looked for a solution. At the art store I found little jars of iridescent powder, and I bought some different colors. I took them home and mixed some with white paint. Stupidly, I forgot that white paint will always be white. It is opaque. I needed something that would dry clear. Aha - sanding sealer dries clear. So, I mixed up a bit of powder with sanding sealer and this is the result on a cherry platter. On the left are the two platters I did, and right just shows a closeup. After it was all dry it was sprayed with lacquer.

For the final entry of the year, here is a special turning. It is a wig stand, part of a project a number of our club members took on to lift the spirits and provide a useful art piece for those undergoing breast cancer treatments. I decided to make this one with a top and base of "Mappa" wood, which is a variety of poplar found in Austria. The spindle part is of cocobolo, a beautiful south American exotic wood. I hope this goes to brighten the day of someone who needs their day to be brighter.

 

 

 

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