GaryMadore
Member
I ordered and received a Woodchuck Bowl Pro from Ken (bitshird) and feel the need to comment. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, so I think I'll do this in a couple of installments...
So, it arrived. It arrived in a box, well packed and everything was there. So far, so good.
I forgot to take a photo of it when it was first unwrapped, so I'll have to describe it. It was, um, long. And square. And shiny. And it had a thingy on the end. It was, in a word, magnificent.
What it needed was an equally magnificent handle. I had planned on crafting a laminated piece of art for it.... I was thinking of a couple of slabs of maple with a slab of purpleheart in the middle or something. I didn't care, really, as long as it was flashy. Because, as I said, that tool was darned sexy looking.
Anyway, I was cruisin' around the 'hood and happened to drive by a place that had a whole bunch of pallets stacked up out back. They were pretty much your regular, garden-variety pallets constructed of spruce 2x4s and 1x6s. Except for one. There was one (of COURSE it was at the bottom of the pile!) that looked different so I dug it out. Well, I didn't so much "dig it out" as "knock the pile over" but you get the idea.
I was not disappointed: This pallet weighed about 10 gazillion pounds (or was that kilos? Euros?) and was obviously contstructed of... well, some kind of wood. Heavy wood. Not spruce.
I bashed it apart, thew the skids in the back of my SUV and snuk off into the darkness.
I'll leave the rest of the story to photos:
The skids. One is whole, the other crosscut in half. The other half of the short piece was squared up a bit on the table saw and is already mounted on the lathe (the skinny piece on top is one of two shavings I took off to make the rectangular piece square and to centre the transition to heartwood).
The blank roughed down to round. Note the distinct 2-tone colour. I lost this when I stained it. Dang!
The blank again. You can see the holes (stains) left by the nails:
The finished unit. It's 18" from the tip of the ferrule to the bottom of the butt:
Closeup. Nice grain, methinks. Does it look like Ash?:
This is what I made the ferrule from. It's a plumbing fitting that I slathered with epoxy, cranked onto the tenon with a wrench, then remounted (the whole handle) on the lathe and filed down to a taper. No, it wasn't worth the effort, but it is unique...
So, that's about all I have to say about that... As soon as I mount a tip on it I'll make some shavings and report.
Thanks, Ken. I am going to order a pen pro, and most likely another of these - SOON!
Cheers!
Gary
So, it arrived. It arrived in a box, well packed and everything was there. So far, so good.
I forgot to take a photo of it when it was first unwrapped, so I'll have to describe it. It was, um, long. And square. And shiny. And it had a thingy on the end. It was, in a word, magnificent.
What it needed was an equally magnificent handle. I had planned on crafting a laminated piece of art for it.... I was thinking of a couple of slabs of maple with a slab of purpleheart in the middle or something. I didn't care, really, as long as it was flashy. Because, as I said, that tool was darned sexy looking.
Anyway, I was cruisin' around the 'hood and happened to drive by a place that had a whole bunch of pallets stacked up out back. They were pretty much your regular, garden-variety pallets constructed of spruce 2x4s and 1x6s. Except for one. There was one (of COURSE it was at the bottom of the pile!) that looked different so I dug it out. Well, I didn't so much "dig it out" as "knock the pile over" but you get the idea.
I was not disappointed: This pallet weighed about 10 gazillion pounds (or was that kilos? Euros?) and was obviously contstructed of... well, some kind of wood. Heavy wood. Not spruce.
I bashed it apart, thew the skids in the back of my SUV and snuk off into the darkness.
I'll leave the rest of the story to photos:
The skids. One is whole, the other crosscut in half. The other half of the short piece was squared up a bit on the table saw and is already mounted on the lathe (the skinny piece on top is one of two shavings I took off to make the rectangular piece square and to centre the transition to heartwood).
The blank roughed down to round. Note the distinct 2-tone colour. I lost this when I stained it. Dang!
The blank again. You can see the holes (stains) left by the nails:
The finished unit. It's 18" from the tip of the ferrule to the bottom of the butt:
Closeup. Nice grain, methinks. Does it look like Ash?:
This is what I made the ferrule from. It's a plumbing fitting that I slathered with epoxy, cranked onto the tenon with a wrench, then remounted (the whole handle) on the lathe and filed down to a taper. No, it wasn't worth the effort, but it is unique...
So, that's about all I have to say about that... As soon as I mount a tip on it I'll make some shavings and report.
Thanks, Ken. I am going to order a pen pro, and most likely another of these - SOON!
Cheers!
Gary
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