I've been experimenting with a few new items, mainly as extras for a stall at a Christmas Craft Fair. I'm still restricted to fairly small items (until the doc clears me for the bigger stuff) so have been making a few vases that I drill out the core of, then just clean up the inside and shape the outside, popping a 10fl oz glass liner in so that they can be used with water. I drench the inside with melamine, which is also used on the outside, then cut back and waxed with micro-crystaline. This one's from some waney edged scraps that I bought off a local timber yard, after they'd cut 4" slabs of walnut from a big tree that they'd felled, so there's a good mix of heart and sap wood.
I also managed to get some 4x4 brown oak from the same timber yard, and it's been partially worked and stacked in the attic over the workshop for several months, so I've now started using it to make cup-cake-shaped trinket boxes, using 18mm slices of burr for the lids, plus a little burr button to represent the cherry on top. I've let the lids overhand slightly, to suggest the icing on the top of the cake!
...and finally, I've got several of those second-quality blackwood cones that were originally cut to make clarinet horns. Just because they're seconds doesn't mean that they don't work well for this sort of job, as they often get rejected because the grain is too pronounced.
...and I've just realised that there's a strand of cotton from the polishing mop, stuck around the little finial on this one. Where's that pair of tweezers?
The vases vary between 8" and 10" tall, generally out of 4" stock, the brown oak box is 4" plus the button, and the blackwood is 5" plus the finial.
C&C always welcome...Les
