Pendants -- new material?

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AlanZ

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2009
Messages
266
Location
Oradell, NJ
I mentioned to Richard Joyner (Sailing_away) that my wife and I were going teach a pendant turning workshop at our local club this week (Hudson Valley Woodturners).

The hands on workshop was this past Thursday. We had two lathes, and two complete pendant backer plate rigs on Ruth Niles' mandrels.

Now for the pendants in the photo. One was planned, and one a spur of the moment project.

The walnut pendant in the photo was made to show the simple offset turning techniques that I was going to demonstrate, and would pass it around to the group before the demo, so they could see what the end result would be.

While I was waiting to start the demonstration, I saw that someone brought some material that I had not considered making into a pendant before. Well, she actually brought them as snacks, but I liked the "Grain" pattern. I quietly swiped one of these new 'pendant blanks'.

While other folk were doing their "show and tell" portion of the evening, I used a twist drill to enlarge one of the existing holes, and threaded a necklace through it.

When I began the session, I showed the walnut pendant and explained what I was going to teach.

I then showed some other wood pendants... zebrawood, marblewood, and mentioned that I liked the grain on them, and that very little adornment was necessary.

Then I showed them the morsel I just created, and they got a good laugh.

Strange thing was, that my wife didn't know I was going to do this, but when I told her just before our demo began, she said that she was thinking of doing exactly the same thing. It's scary how we think alike sometimes.

It was nice to have a turning demo that wasn't yet another bowl, box, or spindle turning demo. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning the techniques and checking out cool new toys (errrr, tools).

Some think the pendants we make are lovely. The one I made that evening was... delicious.
 

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AlanZ

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2009
Messages
266
Location
Oradell, NJ
Actually, didn't have to slave that much.

  • The holes were pre-existing, only one needed to be enlarged.
  • The face of the pendant came pre-sculpted and pre-finished. No need for a rose engine or texturing tool to create the pattern.
  • The back of the pendant was also prefinished... a solid coat of milk chocolate.
The most difficult part was making sure it didn't disappear before I had a chance to make it one of the evening's consumables.
 
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