To Everything, Turn…Turn…Turn

Alan's Turning Log – Adventures in Wood Turning

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I am a novice turner and woodworker, who can chew up many hours chewing up wood. I am also very good at spending money on my hobby.

Category: Experiments

  • New Change of Command Pens – Stage 1

    It has been some time since I posted anything to this blog.  I have been rather busy through the summer with work and didn’t feel much like working in the shop in the few hours that I had off.  My office had another Change of Command in August and I decided, once again, to make…

  • New Acrylic

    I haven’t made a pen with acrylic for quite some time and thought that it was time.  I came home sick from work this morning and slept for several hours.  When I woke up I was still feeling a bit poorly, so to take my mind off my stomach, I went down into the shop. …

  • End Result of Latest Segmented Pen

    Here are  few photos of the end result of what I have dubbed the “Lazy S” Design segmented pen.  Then I have placed a photo or two of both of the recent segmented pens together.  Which is your favourite? And here is a short video. Finally, the pens together.

  • New Segmented Pen

    You might call this a companion to the last pen posted last week.  I had seen a different segmented pen design on a forum a little while ago and Mack C posted a couple of pictures on how he created the design.  I decided that, after the knot design, this would be the next one…

  • New Experiment, No Mistakes, Continuing Education

    Since the debacle yesterday where I caught the gouge and blew out the blank at the knot, I decided to try again right away.  I did a couple of things differently.  First, I set up a stop block on my mitre guage on my bladerunner and, before I made a cut, I inserted a saw…

  • New Experiment, New Mistake, New Education

    Quite some time ago, I tried my hand at creating a “knot” design in a block of wood.  I was limited back then because I was trying to make the cuts in the blank with a handsaw.  My cover picture is the result of that trial.  It turned out reasonably well, but the “strands” in…

  • First Bowl

    Actually it turned out shaped more like a pot than a bowl, but it represents my first attempt at end grain turning and hollowing.  I picked up a piece of Orange Agate (aka Macacauba) and turned it down.  There are a few things that I need to figure out before I do some more bowls.…

  • Zebrawood

    A friend gave me a couple of offcuts of Zebrawood from a project that he had done.  By my reckoning, I could get 4 pen blanks out of these pieces.  My niece who ordered the Creamsicle Acrylic, also wanted a pen and pencil in Zebrawood.  I have a book that discusses the dramatically different pens…

  • Single Cross Artist’s Sketch Pencil

    A few days ago I glued up a Mun Ebony blank with some slices of 1/4 inch Maple to see if I could actually produce a pen with this type of glue-up.  One of the difficulties I face is that of alignment.  Because I am using only a handsaw, I have tremendous difficulty in cutting…

  • New segmenting Experiment

    I need to make another Artist sketch pencil for the father of one of the staff at work for Christmas.  We had decided on one made of Mun Ebony and yesterday was going to be the day.  I found a blank and when I started looking at it, I realized that it was quite a…