Happy new year to everybody. Haven't posted anything for a while, but thought I would post a couple of pictures of some recent experiments. Last spring we had to fell a large ash tree in the field behind my house, so I have taken the opportunity to plough through endless lumps of it and try some new things. I have really enjoyed turning this ash green, and have trying to cut blanks from the logs so that the distortion on drying makes for some interesting shapes. I have also been trying to get thinner walls on my vessels, been doing some hand carving, and trying to finish work straight off the tool with minimal sanding and no finish on anything. My current best effort is a large vessel with a 3mm wall thickness (close up picture of the top of the vessel is below)
What I have learnt is that I still need to find a good way of deep hollowing vessels. I suspect I might need some longer tools, as some of the deeper vessels (up to 18") have pretty much maxed out the capabilities of my current tools/skill level. Any helpful suggestions are always appreciated. I have been using a Crown revolution midi ring tool which tends to clog up frequently as the timber is green, and also a Weidemann ring tool which is very effective, but rewards any slight lack of total attention to the job as you get deeper into a vessel with some almighty catches...!
