The Wood-turning Cruise

A few days ago, I came home from what has likely been the most exciting bit of my holiday this year. My wonderful girlfriend Maren usually works on a ship in the summers, and that ship would be hosting the so-called "wood-turning cruise". On this cruise, that is organized by a norwegian tool company to promote and sell their wares along the norwegian coast, some of the worlds top wood turners are gathered on the ship to do demonstrations and instructions for the passengers and the visitors in all the ports that the ship docks at along the way from Stavanger to Cape North and back. Maren got me a "volunteer"-job on this cruise, so that in exchange for a few hours of work each day I could come along on board and see Norway and all the woodworking. Now we are back from these great 14 days and it has been really good.

 The ship, ms Gann, is a schoolship where during the year students live who are in training to become sailors. During the summer the ship organizes and hosts different cruises and events, among which this turning cruise to cape north, that feels like it was cut out for me specifically. When I was not at work in the kiosk at the panorama-bar of the ship (Awesome view. Best. Office. Ever.), I was down in the workshop looking at demonstrations and talking to people. I admired the work of Richard Raffan, who makes lovely bowls and absolutely stunning lidded boxes.

Richard Raffan at work.

A gentleman who made this trip really special is Terry Martin, who saw me lingering around his lathe, studying how he turned his bowls, and then asked me if I`d like a go. He taught me the beginnings of how to hold a turning gouge, and let me work on the bowl that he was doing. He is a very passionate teacher who has done some great work searching for and preserving the craft of woodturning in China.

Terry Martin working on a bowl.

 After he finished the bowl that we had worked on, he kindly gave it to me. I was chuffed with it, of course, and wanted to return the gesture, so I awkwardly gave him the eating spoon from my previous blogpost it return. Hardly a match for a bowl from a master, but I wanted to give something I made in return.

The bowl from Terry.

At some point during the end of the trip, when most of the paying passengers had had their turns, and I found some hours that were convenient workwise, I managed to sign up for a timeslot at the lathes myself. There were these hours you could sign up for, and if you brought wood then tuition and use of tools and lathes was free. Here, with what I learned from terry, and some really good instructions and help from the instructors there I finally did what was on my to-do-list for a long time. Turn a bowl. In fact, I turned two!

Here I (in blue) receive instructions from instuctor Colwin (in red)

Here are the bowls I turned, and Terry`s bowl on the right. The small bowl on the left is intended to be an ale-bowl. It is made out of cherry wood, and the design is a bit inspired by work of Julian Heath, and Jarrod Stonedahl. The one in the middle is in fact my first bowl, and it turned out ok considering that a lot of "redesigning" had to be done after I sent it flying off the lathe and through the room with an idiotic cut. It gave me a right fright, that! Despite this I really enjoyed turning wood, and am very excited to see what I can do with greenwood in the future, when I acquire a lathe (notice the use of when, not if!).

All of this, combined with sailing past the most beautiful views one can dream of and visiting all these lovely towns along the norwegian coast was pretty exciting for me. Yet, they aren`t the most exciting thing that has happened on this trip. The most exciting thing happened on Cape North, where, being the northernmost people on mainland europe at that time, Maren and me got engaged. We have been together for four and a half year, and she has been absolutely wonderful. Getting engaged to her on cape north was something that I had been thinking about, and although I messed it all up a bit and things didn`t go according to how I should have planned them, she said yes. Even though I always have woodchips on my socks, or can be forgetful about what is in the oven when I am reading blogs. She is truly fantastic and I am a very lucky that she thinks I am too.

  

Maren and me being the northernmost people on Mainland Europe.

 

Learning from mistakes, and how I do not do it.

With Maren being gone to work, I find myself with ample time to carve here. And I have been taking and enjoying that time. Having finished the cup from my last blogpost, I figured I`d make a spoon to go with it. So far so good. 

The process of these went quite smoothly, and I was feeling good about it, so the next day I made a small cup and a teaspoon to add to what I began to call "the royal family", due to the crownlike decoration I carved on the handles.

But my production-run of royal family-members seems to have stopped there. The axe giveth, and the axe taketh away. Since then I have broken all the things I attempted with poor axework. This cup here was the first thing to go. Just before I was to start smoothing it out and putting the final bevels on the rim and edges, I noticed the pressure crack in the wall. This crack must have formed way earlier on in the process, when I was carving out the handle. For that purpost I had to chop in the direction of the bowl, but in doing so I started a crack that is now unstoppable, except maybe with glue.

Not too bad, these things happen, and at the very least it would teach me a lesson of care with the axe, right? Well, apparently my learning curve is not so steep... I chopped two spoons in half today that I was carving because the chance of them succeeding would be way larger than for yet another cup. I have learned my lesson now though, I hope. Tomorrow another day, with more wood to turn into kindling! Things to watch out for? 1. Carve the delicate neck on a spoon with a knife, not with a sharp 1 Kg lump of steel on a stick. 2. Kuksa-handles may require stop-cuts. 3. Learn from the mistakes, then the time is not (entirely) wasted.  

Vacation. Icecream, camping and carving.

I am currently spending some really good time celebrating my vacation, as usual in Norway. I had planned on doing a lot of carving but it just has not really happened yet. I have been busy doing many lovely things though. The country in summer is so nice. There are loads and loads of wild berries on the bushes, and the fjords are bursting with fish. We have therefore done loads of berry picking and a bit of fishing. We have had fun processing the berries into icecreams, and into syrups. Raspberry-Yoghurt icecream is a great thing.

We have not only been making raspberry-icecream, but have been playing around with many flavours since we picked up a nice little machine.

Besides spending time on good foods, we have also been hiking and swimming quite a bit. It has been excellent weather here. On one hike my girlfriend Maren and me came across a lovely place with a bit of field next to a stream that ran out into the fjord. I resolved to go back there to test a tent that we bought in a sale. A McKinley Vega for €30,-. I could not not buy it. It will serve very nicely while my actual tent and most of my camping gear is in the Netherlands. A trip report of my camping trip can be found here. Since Maren is working this week, it was my first ever solo-camping trip, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It is awfully nice to spend a night next to a fire, sipping tea and watching the tide go in and the sun go down.

Of course I have not been completely idle on the carving-front. While being here I managed to get enough time set apart to carve a simple noggin/kuksa in birch. It has been made over several days, carving a bit whenever I had time. I am not entirely pleased with the rim, but I will leave it like this until it is dry and I can carve it more safely without the fibers tearing out. It is now sitting in a paperbag with some green wood shavings to slowly dry.

On Cherry-kuksas, France, and birchwood.

After the cracked alebowl of two weeks ago I started to work on a kuksa from the same cherrywood that the bowl was from. And while that one was drying and I had to wait before I could finish it without discoulouring (the cherrywood dries to a deep orange if you carve it this wet) I figured I`d start another one in the meantime. My sexy new axe makes such short work of hewing end-grain that shaping the cups has become much easier for me. And I enjoy that a lot. Combined with my adze I can now carve a kuksa over two days, where before it would take me many more. Also, the shape of my cups has improved a bit. I used to have a chunky bit of wall under the handle that I couldn`t seem to get rid of, but I can now hew it away nicely. When the cups had dried a bit in a box with shavings I oiled them wilth coleseed-oil and put them away for more drying.

These cups are rather large. The smaller one is nearing 2.5 deciliters, and the large one with chipcarving detail is around 4 deciliters. I am pleased with the colours of the wood, and with how the cups fall in my hand. The tooled finish could be better though. I`d like to be able to carve the inside smoother, with smaller toolmarks. That might come with more practice. 

Besides carving, I have been busy with what other people like to refer to as "the real life" as well. I have been working daily at my internship in the IBL MCB research group where I work on a project that focusses on developping a new method for single-molecule imaging and tracking in live cells. While I enjoy this work very much I am very happy that a few days ago, my summerholiday finally started! Right at the first day I went away from Life, the Universe and Everything and travelled to France where I met up with my parents and sister. In France I spent a few lovely days walking, eating cheeses, drinking wine, and most of all: carving besides the fire. I made a few things that trip.  A two-handled whisky cup (Quaich), a small kuksa-style cup and two spoons.

I have really enjoyed carving freshly felled birchwood. It carves so easily and it dries out so nice and hard. I hope to carve more of it in the time to come, when I get to swing my axe in Northern Europe again.

Things that crack in the night.

The phrase "A cracking bit of work" is usually well received. However, when my carvings decide to take that phrase literally, I am less pleased. Usually I am very strict in my drying-policy to prevent cracks but this time things went a bit different. I left the bowl out on the table to show it to someone. Just after I showed it, the world-cup game NL-MEX started. I thought: "I should tug the bowl back into the bag", but for some reason figured it could wait a while. The game had already started, and the bowl slipped from my mind for 90 exciting minutes. Then I thought of it again. I inspected it, and saw some thin black lines. It didn`t look very deep so I didn`t worry much and put the bowl in the bag where it belonged. The next morning the cracks had opened up to full grown work-demolishers.

When I posted my cracked bowl in a carving group on facebook, I got replies from Jarrod Stonedahl and Ingo Dyrkton. While I have to admit that it is somewhat intimidating to end up in a direct conversation with crasftsmen whom I regard as some of the popstars of the carving world, it is also very inspiring and helpful. Jarrod said that his bowls rarely crack, because they are so thin. Both agreed that my bowl probably cracked because it was too thick. At that point I knew what I had to do, but really did not want to: Split the bowl, and see how thick it is. I grabbed my hatchet, and before I could think too much about all the work that went into it I split it.

I am quite pleased that I split the bowl, even though it was a horrible thing to have to do. I have now learnt two things: 1. It split because it was too thick. The wall is about two cm thick, while I should aim for about 1 cm. This should give the wood the flexibility to warp with the drying, and not split. 2. I have carved an even wall thickness, and I am quite pleased with that. It means I did at least something right.

To get over this cracking bowl, carving something else would surely be the remedy, so I started a cherry kuksa.  I have added a picture of the thing in a rough stage. With this kuksa I am focussing in thin walls, and also on bulk removal on the outside of the bowl, under the handle. That is where earlier kuksas have quite a bit of weight left, that give them a lumpy feeling. While the kuksa is now thin enough to dry without me worrying about it, I have still tugged it deeply into a bag with fresh woodshavings. I am not taking any risks with this one!

Winning

Last week I did something that is statistically unlikely. I played in the lottery for once, and actually won money. I have always said to myself that if I come upon unlabeled money (a very rare occasion for me) I`d allow myself to buy a carving axe. It just so happens that I won just enough money to buy the axe, and have some spare change for a beer in the pub. I feel rather lucky!

Today, the axe arrived and I immediately used it to carve a spoon. I have to get used to the extra weight: It is nearly twice as heavy as the wildlife hatchet. This resulted in a spoon getting nearly chopped in half at first. What started out as a serving spoon is now a small eater.

  But I had fun. In fact, I had so much fun that I`m also making an ale-bowl now. Progress on it is not that fast, but it is taking shape. I`ll start on the knifework tomorrow, and hope that I can get it finished this weekend, so that it is ready to drink some nice ales from during the worldcup matches in the coming weeks.

Serving spoon

I have been carving the red beech wood that I spoke about in my previous post. Unfortunately there are many hidden knots in the wood, rendering some pieces a bit useless. With this serving spoon it was nearly the same, but I went with it anyway. It has a nice crank, and I like the shape. The wood burnishes up very nicely too. The morning after I carved it I saw that there was a split running through the bowl, delaminating it. I had to emergency-carve it before work to save it. I thinned out the bowl a lot more than I would have usually dared. I hope it will hold up. I would not like this wood to go to waste. It will start its working life now, and we'll see how long it lives.

Red Beech in Clingendael

I think everybody has one: A favourite tree. Or, in my case, a list of favourite trees. Quite high up on my list is a massive red beech that grows in Clingendael, a park near my home. I have always loved this park for its old and iconic trees, and this beech is one of the prettiest and largest of all.  Two weeks ago I took a picture of this magnificent 200 year old tree, because I was afraid that the fungi that infest the tree would get the upperhand sooner rather than later.

 Unfortunately enough  we were right about the trees decreasing health, and yesterday we found out that wind has snapped off the largest sidebranche of the tree. Other branches have been supported with slings to protect the tree from losing more branches, but I am afraid that this is the beginning of the end of this beautiful old thing.

I was happy to see that some bits of wood from the fallen branche were still lying around. I collected a few pieces so that I could carve some spoons from it, and give the wood a second life. Today I made this eating spoon from the wood, and I took it back to take some photos of the spoon with the tree. 

The knife and spoon are lying on one of the many massive fungi that are growing on the tree.

Quite pleased with the side-profile of this eating spoon.

Out of the wood I have collected I hope to carve a few more eaters and perhaps a cooking spoon or two. It is a strange feeling, realizing that I might outlive something that I have known my whole life, and that generations have known their whole life before me. The spoons I will carve from this tree will therefore not leave my collection but will be a reminder of this tree if it ever decides to die before I do.

New tools require new skills.

Besides the lovely adze I got recently, I have also received a parcel in the mailbox containing a lefthanded spoon knife made by Robin Wood. I am lefthanded, and have always used a righthanded mora hook. You can imagine I was excited to finally have one that I could use the way a spoonknife should be used. 

I put a quick but solid handle on the blade, gave it a stropping and carved a spoon from some plum wood. The knife is very nice, but using a lefty for the first time was pretty awkward. Over time I have become adapted to using a right-handed blade in my left hand. Figuring out new grips will take me a couple of spoons, but judged by the way this blade can slice I think it will increase the quality of the tooled finish in my spoon-bowls. 

I also practiced with the adze and carved this little bowl from plum wood. The angle at which it cuts took a while to figure out but it wastes wood very nicely and it made carving this bowl a very fun project. I never really did bowls since the hollowing out was awkward and time-consuming, but those days are now over!

I am looking forward to getting some larger diameter wood, and throw both of my new shinies in the mix for some decent kuksa-carving.