Sycamore bowl

I'm pretty proud of the shape of this bowl that I turned from a piece of sycamore. The rim has a slight inward curve, which was a little challenging, and its foot helps it to sit up from the table.  I turned the rim using a very pointy spindle gouge to be able to get the angle, then switched to a stubby bowl gouge and scraper for further down.

500,000 downloads

My Battery Watcher app just hit 500,000 downloads.  The download rate has slowed down quite a lot recently as I've not had any time to devote to updating it but I'm still amazed that it was so successful!

Cherry bowl

Cherry bowl, a photo by fasaxc on Flickr.

Had a good time on the lathe yesterday. I turned this bowl from cherry. My first try at a decorative rim went quite well and I was pretty happy with the shape.

Unlike the previous two bowls that I attempted out of zebrawood, it neither smells bad (zebrawood smells like cheese), nor did it explode and go flying off the lathe!

Some of my recent projects

Here are some of my recent pieces of woodwork.

Pair of random-strip chopping boards:



I was really proud of how these turned out. Here's what I did:

• Start with boards of different coloured wood.  I used walnut, purpleheart and maple.
• Plane them all to the same thickness.  Tip: run all the boards through the planer without changing its height, you won't be able to find the precise height a second time.
• Rip to random widths using the table saw.  Start by ripping thin widths ff the side while the board is still wide; it's much easier than trying to split a thin strip into two.
• Spend plenty of time arranging the pieces for the best effect.  I think I spent more than 30 minutes on this step and I feel like it paid off.
• Glue and clamp (I used Titebond III).  Tip: the ten-minute working time of the glue passes very quickly; try a dry fit first and consider gluing the board up in two halves and then gluing them together.  I wasn't quite quick enough on the bigger board and the first joint wasn't as tight as it should be.
• Plane the glued up board.
• Cross-cut on the table saw to trim the ends.
• Use round-over bit in the table router to round over the corners. Tips: 
• If your boards are as thin as mine, use the fence rather than a bearing to set the round-over distance.  If you don't, the bearing will be in empty space when you flip the boards over to do the second side.
• Do the endgrain first.
• Follow the piece with a scrap block to prevent tearout.
• Sand to desired grit.
• Finish with butchers block oil.

Christmas snowman ornament:

 

This is one of my favourite turnings.  I finally got the hang of cutting beads and then finished him off with a pyro pen and a purpleheart hat.

A bowl and turned apple:

New wood turnings

I just got back from Techshop with some new wood turnings.  I've been experimenting with turning fruit and more mushrooms.

A bit more information in this instructable.

Ditto for the mushroom.

There's something very satisfying about turning wood.

New Instructable: easy chopping board

I just wrote up a new Instructable showing how to make this simple chopping board.

Schematic for wireless sensor node

I just added a schematic for my wireless sensor node to my github.  If you actually want to build one of them then it'd come in handy.  Next time I build a node I'll try to put together a step-by-step for the build on stripboard.

The TMP36 is driven directly by the ATTiny so that it can be powered down when not in use. The 0.1uF capacitor smoothes the power to the TMP36, increasing its accuracy.

The transmitter is powered via a basic NPN switching transistor (any similar part would do as long as it can sink the current for the transmitter). The 10uF cap provides for the transient high current used for transmission. The 2k resistor prevents too much current from flowing through the base to the emitter of the transistor (it only takes a small current to saturate the transistor so any extra current isn't helpful and can be harmful).