A Shed Full of Smells

I bought a piece of camphor laurel from Brodies Timber at Inver near Dunkeld last week. There were a few cracks in it from the drying process, which I poured thin CA glue into. This, I decided, wanted to be a square bowl. I like square bowls, I don’t like sanding them though.

I like it. The wings are sanded to 180 grit, while the rest is sanded to 500 grit.  I have yet to put a finish on it because it still smells amazing. The camphor smell fades as the oils dry, but until then I just like picking it up and sniffing it.

As much as I would like to, I don’t yet have a means of holding this shape to turn the spigot off’f the bottom.

Some of the cracked parts are still visible, but I like to keep cracks where possible.
I’m toying with the idea of trying Olbas oil as a finish to see whether the smell lingers longer. My worry is the olbas has a mineral oil base which may go sticky.

I also turned a pen from a scrap piece of oak. I have turned plenty oak pens in the past, but this one was turned cross-grain rather than along the grain.

This makes the pen much harder to turm, but I think the effect is worth the effort. The CA glue finish took around 5 coats and needed sanding in between coats because it lifted the end grain.
This is a stylus pen for use with smart phones/tablets.

I had a really gnarly piece of oak, which was a leftover from one of the oak plates I made recently. This was filled with copious amounts of powdered copper, epoxy adhesive, and thick CA glue.
The blank was far from square, but I still like the rugged look, and I am amazed it didn’t blow apart on the lathe.

There is a huge chunk missing from one side where it was completely rotted out. I see this as part of the rich tapestry presented by timber. You never know what you are going to get.

Back to work on Monday though, and I can’t plan on taking any more time off because both myself and my good lady are waiting for dates to go in for surgery. I need to be careful not to score any injuries because that would prevent any surgery going ahead.