Dwell Video about Our Corian Project

During my senior year our design class worked with the DuPont material Corian to express beauty in various ways. Of over twenty projects a select few were selected to show in Philadelphia's Center For Architecture during Design Philadelphia. Umote, my sushi serving tray was among nine items selected for this show, and also featured in a video published by the popular design magazine Dwell. Enjoy the presentation about our process, I'm very happy with the video they put out. I'm also excited that they were able to include my clip about the manufacturing of my sushi tray.

P.S. I'm the guy with the short hair, grey button shirt, and the lip ring.

Pencils, I'm now a pencil turner...Oh boy

As you may or may not know (you will now) I have had a love affair with lathe since sometime in October in 9th grade. Woodturning, metalturning, ornamental work, threadcutting etc. it's all cool. I've read, tried, jigged and watched a lot about lathes, I even have plans to cast a small treadle lathe and offer kits in various stages of completion, (long term project, don't hold your breath). The one thing I'd never had an inkling to try my hand at was pen/pencil turning, that is until one fateful day in Buffalo. Now I'm hooked. Not because pen turning is a fad (maybe it is I don't know) or that I need a pen (they have stores for that). It's that they are so tricky to do.

While waiting for a barrel trimmer (tool used to trim the ends of pen blanks flush to the brass tubes, Jeff) I ordered, I was getting antsy. I wanted to make a wooden writing implement, I wanted to use CA as a finish and practicing on scrap wasn't cutting it. I found Don Ward's Pentel Conversion Article and decided to make the tools/mandrel/jamb chucks needed and give it a shot.

I figured out you don't just give a tiny-thin-walled-wooden-tube-with-three-different-concentric-holes a "shot". You give it, much breakage, deliberation, assessment, coupla' colorful words, and three shots. Then you figure it out.

The only thing I did substantially different from the article above was to use a blank about 1" longer than needed and glue it to the jamb chuck I made earlier. I also reverse the setup from the article, using the Morse taper mandrel in the tailstock, and the other mandrel in a chuck (or second Morse taper I guess) in the headstock. That means I drive the blank from the butt end and instead of a live center I use a waxed steel mandrel (acts like a dead center, without splitting the thin wall) on the tailstock side. The steel part is the rest of the 5/32" drill bit as described in the article. Enough talking though time for pictures, if memory serves this is a piece of Cocobolo.   

A trip to Buffalo...means more tools.

So there seems to be something magical about Buffalo, NY. I'm sure it's some combination of the blistery weather, enjoyable company, and holiday cheer that has me heading home with a bunch of new goodies.

I'll talk about them in turn as they come up in the next few posts, but what I'm really excited to share is the Sorby Micro Spindle Set. It was on sale at Rockler, and I had gift money to burn. I wanted something for doing small work, as fortune would have it I'd also fall into pen turning in the store and I think it will really show it's colors there. I also grabbed the micro hollowing tool in addition to the spindle set. Here's a picture,

Also in the picture is one of several pen kits I picked up, eagle eyes will notice the pen kit is from Woodcraft, while I mention Rockler earlier. I stopped at Woodcraft on the way home, they had Euro pen kits on sale, and I don't discriminate.

I've written a full review, with a video over at Sawmill Creek if you care to look at that.