AWGB Woodturning Forum
General Category => Gallery => Topic started by: willstewart on September 01, 2019, 11:37:23 AM
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This really owes more to the wood (spalted beech) than to the woodturning but may be of interest - design as requested by a nephew & his fiancée!
Diameter 370mm, base laminated softwood ply (screw detachable so the top could be used as a board). (Top) coating hard wax oil - needed to be vegan and food safe but could be refinished with any suitable oil.
A fabrication detail - the beech top is of uneven hardness and it is tricky to get a very good finish even with very sharp tools. So more sanding than usual, which leaves it slightly uneven, though not enough to be an issue. And yes - for those who abhor chucking points the (of course necessary anyway) base recessed circle is also dovetailed for a chuck...
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The plain design of the top shows off the character of the wood very well. I looked at the photos before reading the post and initially I thought 'I don't like the screws' thinking they should be hidden, but I see that it is intended to be used as a chopping board after the 'big day' so I think that this is a very practical approach to take. Nice to think that the piece will serve two very different functions, and will probably be in daily use for many years. The more I think of it, the more I like it :)
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My only concern would be that a chopping board, which will need frequent cleaning, has three holes in the bottom of it!
Les
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Les makes a good point there. Perhaps, since it is for your relative, you could offer to remove the stand - after the wedding - and plug the holes with dowels?
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Good points, and there are also screw holes in the top under the base from the faceplate used to turn it! But we were thinking more of a cheeseboard and I suppose even a chopping board is often used one sided. She apparently normally oils her boards with olive oil. But I will be ready if they need the holes filled!
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Personally I am not keen on this piece.I would not be happy using a spalted piece of wood for food, it may well be perfectly safe but I would not like to do so. There is no need to have screw holes in the piece at all, the bottom could have been hot glued on and then removed or just glued on and turned away afterwards. Sorry willstewart but this piece is not to my likeing.
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I think I am with John (BHT) on this one. Apart from the fact that chopping food on a piece of wood infested by a fungus isn't appealing, there is also a practical issue. As you mentioned already, the spalted wood varies in hardness across the surface. This will result very rapidly in a mechanical destruction, especially since most people don't know how to keep their kitchen knives sharp and use excessive force.
There is a very good reason why the better chopping boards are all made to have end grain on the cutting surface.
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Sorry. I am the same opinion. The spaltiong shouldn't be a health problem but I dout it will last very long as a chopping board however sharp your knives are. Not keen on the plywood aesthetically personally sorry.
Pete
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Good points and I never intended it to be a chopping board - cheese maybe. The recipient showed an example she liked with the laminated ply (all of the stand in that case) and is happy. I have used ply this way before and think the effect is interesting but a matter of taste I guess! As long as they like it that seems fine. They are also to get the candlesticks I showed earlier (though they do not know that yet).
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Willstewart as they say " the customer is always right" although sometime the customer can be wrong but they are still right. ??? ???
A few years ago I turned an Ash plate, although the shape was good I had (for some unknown reason) finished it with green food dye.I then sanded it to just leave the green in the grain and the result was absolutely hideous ;D ;D. For over 2 years I carted this thing around from show to show, each time on packing it away I threatened to push it through the bandsaw and let the M-in-L have it for firewood. My better half kept telling me that someone will buy it. I was accepted into a craft co-operative and guess which piece was the first to sell? This just reinforces my belief that some people have no taste whatsoever. ;D ;D ;D
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Fact: somewhere, someone will like what you consider hideous, wrong, bad design etc. Only factor that can let you down I find is bad workmanship.
Pete
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Not sure I agree Pete, the wrong colour can play havoc!!
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True but again personal taste comes in.
Pete
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Now I do wonder what happened the first time John's customer cut up something juicy on that board...
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@BHT - a nice story! And it prompted me to try something I have wondered about. I had a small oak bowl that I 'limed' (with lime wax so probably not actually lime) and got quite a nice effect. Having gone on before about ultramarine acrylic paint (Winsor & N 'professional') being a pigment (synthetic lapis) rather than a dye which would seep I tried re-finishing the oak bowl with this, after re-finishing the surface (a bit more than sanding as the white goes into the grain). After coating with paint and wiping off and re-fine-sanding and waxing this is the effect. Interesting anyway! FWIW there will probably be other pigment-based paints such as ochre, though probably not vermilion, which would have been made with the mercury compound cinnabar! Before-and-after pics attached.
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Willstewart I can honestly say that the blue works so much better than hideous green ;D ;D ;D
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For completeness - with pyroed inscription. The pyro (by my daughter) did need care as the different parts of the wood are different (I supplied test samples). Of course this will be under the cake but visible later (as requested).
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Very neat pyro, well done to your daughter.
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To get that clarity on spalted wood is really clever.
Pete