The Warped Woodturner (TWW) is a local artist traveling his artist's journey in a suburb of Springbrook, WI (pop. 536). TWW's creative calling is to use a wood lathe to make useless objects from locally-sequestered organic carbon for tourists to bring back to the city to give to people they had to buy something for but do not like that much. His target market is the senior citizens since their vision is not as good as it used to be so cannot see the defects as well. His marketing jingle is: “Bowls as simple as their creator”.

Sunday, February 05, 2023

Thursday, January 05, 2023

Turning without a band saw

 

Purpose: This is a description of the way one woodturner finally figured out how to mount wood on a lathe not able to go slower than 400 rpm without the wood bouncing around dangerously at times and doing so without buying a big bandsaw. 

To do this yourself you need to have, buy or build:
    • an electric chainsaw and heavy extension cord (if needed)
    • something to hold short logs on the floor for cutting
    • a stand capable of holding logs cut lengthwise
    • common sense


An electric chainsaw works best since it stops right away unlike a gas one. You can also use it inside. 




You need something to hold the short logs like this. It has held more than its share of logs and shows it.



Mark the cuts and cut with chainsaw. 




Flip the log over, cut and select the one you want to mount on the lathe.




Next, mark the side of the blank where the faceplate goes (if you are using one) to guide your cutting.  The plastic cover from a 5 gallon pail works well. 


This is the type of stand you can use to cut the blank round. Notice the floor flanges. They are similar to faceplates.  


     
For the bottom of the blank where you screw the floor flange on use small screws.  The holes can leave marks on the bottom of a bowl if they penetrate beyond on where the tenon goes. 





Mount the square blank to the stand and cautiously cut the line you drew earlier remembering where the chain is compared to your legs. 








Mount the rounded blank on the lathe. 



Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Holiday thank you message

 Thank you for remembering Shirley. I have read her your messages over the phone or taken your cards over to her room at Water's Edge Care Center.  Not much changed in 2022 except for building a pole barn and buying some land on a swampy lake to merge with our lot (now we have a lake place) to play the Medicaid game for when Shirley's LTC insurance runs out in four years. Hope you survive the snow and can dig yourselves out in Spring. (OK I know a few of you do not not know what snow looks like any more) . What follows is our year in pictures. 

Shirley is about the same.


Shirley's Christmas present is an original oriental painting
done by a former coworker of Bruce's. 
  


Bruce came home from the cabin one Saturday
and did nor feel like zipping up the doors in the dark.
That night there were some strong winds that shredded
the plastic. The temporary garage was there to protect
the mobility van from hail.
 *
  
Three days or so after the garage shredded a big hail
 storm came up from the 'cities' and cost the
insurance companies $7,000 to fix the hail damage
to Shirley's van and about $17,000 for a new roof. 


The new pole barn under construction. 


The food plots are showing some progress but the deer all
find safer places to eat during the hunting season.
 

The imaginary bowl business may be entering a new phase
 with a distributor agreeing to sell the bowls at consignment
at various craft shows. So far none have sold. 



This is Bruce's Christmas present.  He uses it to get sympathy
 from all the young women in the nursing home. 

Wishing all of you a great 2023.


Shirley and Bruce 

no news is good news (unless they unpublish it)

 Recently, the gods of goodness at this blog unpublished a blog with the title above. 

Since nobody reads this blog the blogger is not sure how anyone could have been offended.  The problem is the blogger has no recollection of the contents of the post and cannot find the unpublished post either. What would Franz Kafka think if he were alive and using the Internet today?

Here is what they said: 




Tuesday, December 06, 2022

Monday, November 21, 2022

Large ethnically-insensitive bowl order just arrived



TWW Enterprises proudly announces a large order of ethnically-insensitive calabash bowls due for delivery on April Fool's Day (promised year not available currently). 
Work has begun.

TWW promises the bowls
will not be as full of defective
blotches as this one is. They
will be made of boring birch


Saturday, November 19, 2022

Lying fallow no longer -- NEWS


 'Sorry for the long delay in keeping this useless web site up to date but the wait is over. Here are some happenings:

  • TWW is currently working through a pile of birch wood from the clearing of the site for the pole barn on his land (done in honor of Medicaid spenddown). Much time was spent on the owner's portion of the work this summer so bowls had to wait.
  • There are about 40 bowls crying and drying out  and TWW hopes to have another 40 done by the end of January just in time for the bowls currently dying to be ready for finishing.
  • TWW Enterprises has reached an agreement with some people who own an antique store for selling his questionable merchandise on consignment and the proceeds then sent to the Bass Lake Association as donations.
  • The terms and conditions page on this site is being updated to handle the change in the business model to accommodate the money laundering scheme
  • Finally, in spite of recent requests TWW Enterprises has no plans to accept cryptocurrency until TWW can figure out what they are. 'Sorry if any members of the younger generations are disappointed by this.

Past posts you fortunately may have missed

Garbin Monraine Foundation Pledge Week Donor Levels

Donation Levels

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Weather at the cabin

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