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The Mallet of many mistakes
In last months woodturning magazine there was a project-in-a-day feature for making a mallet. I caught my eye because the head of the mallet was made from lignum vitae, a very dense hard wood which is normally found in the balls used for lawn bowls. As it happens I was recently given a couple of…
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Internal inconsistency in films
This week Kat and I went to watch District 9. It got me thinking about the things I pick up on in films. I am a fan of many films that do not get great reviews. I like shallow films, big action, bit guns car chases, explosions etc. I don’t mind a lot of the…
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Nokia N900 announced at last.
Last year I wrote about my disturbing Nokia obsession. I had realised that I had become a Nokia fanboy, almost without noticing. I’ve always had Nokia phones, and they’ve always in my mind been better than the competition. A couple of years ago I found myself with a Nokia 770 internet tablet.
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Stripping paint from chairs – chair 2
With the first chair I tried a couple of approaches to stripping off the black paint. First I tried a hot air gun. Which was not terribly effective. So I moved on to paint stripper and wire wool.
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Making a chess set part 2 – The Bishop
Feeling good about how the king had gone, I set to work on the bishops.I decided that the thing to do would be to turn 2 head-to-head in a single length of wood. This would mean I only pay the ‘cost’ of work holding once for two pieces.
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Making a chess set. Part 1- The King
As a geek and a wood turner. One of the most obvious things to attempt to make on the lathe is a chess set.In fact it was probably one of the first things I thought of to work towards. I did a lot of research at the time, and found that chess designs are not…
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Refinishing chairs
For a long time I’ve not pulled my weight in the “cooking a meal for the family” stakes. Based solely on the excuse that I don’t have a dining table or chairs. So I’ve been content to go to my brothers’ houses and enjoy their hospitality, but when it came my turn it was always…
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Streptohedrons
A couple of months ago David Springett came to the Hampshire woodturners monthly meeting and gave a demonstration. Amongst the things he demonstrated were what he called ‘streptohedrons’