No LEDs. Nothing to do with electronics at all. Just wood.
This is for Lawrence’s wife. I made a cherry rolling pin for Cort a couple of years ago; and when I described it to Gail, she was very interested. She said she preferred hers with a maple stripe in it, and I finished it yesterday.
If you think cherry wood should be redder because that’s what you’ve seen in furniture stores . . . let me tell you that what you’ve seen bears as much resemblance to real cherry wood as a maraschino does to a real cherry: They’re both full of dye and completely unnatural. With exposure to light, this cherry will darken to a lovely, deeper brown shade within a few weeks, further highlighting the difference between the cherry and the maple. No bright red about it.
Glue-Up
I started a while back by gluing up the block. I have a large supply of short, narrow cherry and maple pieces from a long-lost high school classmate (who turns out to be Ron-the-TV-guy’s brother-in-law; lots of connections in a small town) who worked at a cabinet shop and got all the rails and stiles when they closed, then got tired of storing them and cheerfully sold them to me for a song.
The cherry and maple were both flat-sawn, so they showed broad grain patterns on their faces and tight (boring) grain on the edges. I didn’t like the way the maple edge grain looked sandwiched between the cherry; so I sliced the maple into thirds, rotated the slender sticks 90°, edge-glued them back together to put face grain on the outside, and planed it flat again. Then I glued up the block — from the end, you can still see three maple squares sandwiched between two solid cherry pieces. And (like many of my projects), it then sat a while.
Turning
This weekend I returned home from a conference, played a rock concert to benefit the high school robotics team, finished my obligations to the world, and finally had some time to myself. Electronics is great, but it’s awfully cerebral; and yesterday afternoon it was nice to give the mind a rest and do something visceral.
I’m not a particularly good wood turner, and my results are due entirely to patience rather than skill, but I enjoy the process. I finally got to use the new roughing gouge that I got last Christmas, and boy, was it a treat. The little picture doesn’t do it justice — the gouge is huge, with a 2″ scoop shown in the picture. It cleaned up the blank quickly and with minimal chatter, and I was actually able to use it for the whole turning. I should probably have used a sharper tool at the end, because I had some slightly torn grain on the figured portions of the cherry, but it sanded out nicely.
Finishing
After sanding down to 1600 grit, I cut the ends free, removed it from the lathe, and started coating it with food-safe oil. I kept coming back to it all evening to add more oil, and I think I’ve put on about as much as it’s going to take right now.
This morning, I got to re-experience one of the pleasures of woodworking with which non-woodworkers are probably unfamiliar: the wonderful smell of fresh-cut cherry still permeating my garage as I left for work. And yes, the smell of cut cherry is distinctly different than the smell of fresh-cut maple, oak, and walnut, and completely different than the smell of pitch from softwood (pine, fir).
Schedule permitting, I’ll be able to take it to Gail tomorrow night.
Thanks for sharing, that looks like some nice wood to work with. I used to make miniature baseball bats on a steam powered wood lathe. It is great fun to make the chips fly and end up with something fun and/or useful.
Thank you. The picture doesn’t do justice to the beauty of the rolling pin.
The kids had better leave it alone.