Can't believe it's already another 2 months since I last did a blog entry but, Sarah and I have had a busy couple o' months - Sarah's been painting like mad and has done some beautiful signs, among other things. One of which is for me! I'm sure she'll post piccies soon but for now here's some other bits to keep you interested...

We went to a country fair a month or so ago, Tom & Ben were putting up a small section of timber frame for demo and had been gave a stall but didn't need it so they let us use it - we only had a few hours notice to get things ready and didn't exactly have much to take, but we threw a load of stuff together.

(Ben Gillespie checking the frame)

Funnily enough our stall was right next to our friends Doug Fitch & Paul Cook who were sharing a stall - Doug makes beautiful medieval pottery and Cookie (who has his workshop in one of the barns sharing our courtyard) is an amazing carver and makes some beautiful chairs. (We are supposed to be sharing links with Doug but, all in good time!)

(Paul displaying his carved Holly cross)

As I wasn't supposed to be doing much while my thumb healed I was pretty limited as to what I could do, but did manage to make some more Elm shelfs and had just finished a little Elm stool ( I say finished; lucky nobody tried to pick it up as the glue was still drying while we were on the stall!)

(The top of this stool is much squarer than I would normally choose but is an extremely stunning piece of elm)

I decided I would like to try my hand at turning wood so borrowed Cookie's lathe and gave it a go; really enjoyed it and knocked a few bits out quite quickly. It was really nice to make things which only took an hour each rather than a couple of days! Was getting quite into it before the drive bit on Paul's lathe broke (oops; sorry Paul - still waiting to get it fixed!)

The pictures below show some candlesticks, a couple of lamp bases and ( the thing which I'm most proud of;) an apple wood mallet.....

(The four on the left are Apple wood, 3 on the right are Ash)

(Left; Apple lamp base, right; Apple candlestick, middle; Oak lamp base - I've just started a dark Oak base to stop it being so top-heavy)

(Light weight Apple wood carvers' mallet)

I enjoyed it so much in fact that we decided to look for a lathe on Ebay....

And here it is, an absolute bargain for 100 squid!

With my thumb on the mend I managed to go back to the reclaimed \ Burr Oak coffee table - as soon as I placed the top on I decided it didn't look right and have started to look for an alternative piece, which I may have found in the form of a 4 inch thick slab of Elm that Jim has "kicking about" - unfortunately it is, (I'd estimate) the best part of 4 metres long and up to about 2 foot wide so moving it may be a problem....

(This 2 inch thick slab is almost dwarfed by the frame)

The frame itself is just in the last stages of sanding so while I took a break to ponder the question of the top I decided to do a small Oak lamp table, this was supposed to be a quick and easy little project but, me being me, I changed things along the way and decided to fit a draw to it. This is the fourth draw I've made now and whilst dovetail joints are quite simple when working with straight wood - they are extremely complicated when dealing with old, reclaimed and very warped wood.

(Oak lamp table with dove-tailed draw, very nice Burr Oak top)

Consequentially I took a break halfway through - to save both my sanity and my fingers, and made a large frame for a chalk drawing Sarah did for me last year. Although I haven't made any of these since x-mas, I had done quite a few and have really learnt the knack for making them quickly. This is the largest one I've made and enjoyed making one again so much that I carried on and made a couple more. The next was for a really sweet picture Sarah bought from a really nice couple in Cornwall, they offer holidays in Romany Gyspy wagons and drew the picture to advertise their holidays (Sorry, I cut the web address off to fit it in the frame but will see about posting a link to their site).

The next frame was for a mirror, I only had square mirrors but wanted to make a long frame so decided to make it a double frame. It took a while to get the angles right so it didn't give a 'funfair' reflection but I'm very happy with the result.

The next week will probably mostly be spent waxing and polishing but I'm very keen to try my new lathe so it shouldn't be long till I have some more stuff to show!