Another simple turning job, potato masher.

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Oddly enough I've been looking for some damaged beyond use bowls balls to turn into the heads for carving mallets. It's the only cheap source of lignum vitae I can think of. So far the prle on boots have wanted silly money for even totally knackered ones. One guy actually gave me a lecture about how it lignum vitae was a non renewable resource coming from fossilised trees under the ocean.... I politely thanked him and moved on from the overpriced wrecks...

i know the tree/wood is covered by CITES now so getting it legally is difficult and for the things I want to make old bowls balls look like the best option.

ATB

Tom
 
Hard stuff to get. I heard that a couple of tons of it were pinched a few years back from a dock where it had been stored as it was going to be used as pilings for a dock that was going in.
I had a nice architects ruler made from it a few years back. Still have a rosewood one somewhere. Lovely wood. Good luck in the search.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 
Cheers! I've a small carving mallet from LV and would like a heavier one , also a docker for some stone carving I'd like to do and I'd like a piece to make the head for the pestle I need to make to go with the giant stone kitchen mortar we dug out of the garden.

Had I quick go at a prototype oat rolling pin, I had a not quite big enough scrap of green sycamore spare so used that. I'll search out a wider, longer piece of seasoned beech or other denser wood for a final version. Ill also have the gaps between the crushing rings much smaller and sharpen the gouges first, I should have done them before I started, oops.

For scale the handles are only 3 inches long. This ones not based on any particular extant example.

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Still, it's worth keeping so ill soak it in walnut oil to try and stop it cracking/warping.

ATB

Tom
 
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Fair to say those spuds are going to shake in their mud boots when they see those ooming over head!

Good job. ;)

(pipe still not arrived btw..)
 
That's a booger, it was posted in Oxford, which is most of the way to you from Lancashire to give it a chance of arriving intact ( it was well wrapped and packed tight in sawdust anyway ). That was what two weeks back? a shame that as it was a pre war one and the only one like it I had. I didn't bother keeping the proof of postage so I can't try and claim the value back off of the incompetents either. The other item I posted at the same time arrived three days later in Notts fine.

ATB

Tom
 
Damn.. bloody useless royal fail again.

I've neveer smoked a clay and have been so exicted to try it. I assumed it was just delayed in transit. Maybe wait a while longer just incase it is still in the system?
 
Perhaps they took exception to the sawdust and sent it to be opened? Could delayed but surely not for two weeks? I could easly put a bog standard cutty, wrapped in bubble wrap this time, in a bit of tube and try again?

ATB

Tom
 

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