Buzz Off!

I hate wasps, and I know I’m not alone.They are attracted to the wood at this time of year, because they use it to build their nests. I’ve been inundated with the little blighters though. So much so I had to abandon ship yesterday. I used an entire can of Raid in 2 days. I estimate I killed about 60 of the little devils yesterday.

I did manage to do some turning too though. One of the dog walkers we walk with left a branch outside the shed. I’m not 100% sure, but I suspect it is leylandii.
I cut it into more manageable pieces and did a wee test turn with it.

The grain is pretty nice. This is straight off the lathe with no finish on it.

I also did a wee tooth fairy bell from a cutting of laburnum. It’s not finished either and hasn’t had the bell part fitted.

I normally do these with a tight fit between bottom & top. On this one I think it looks like it has a little nose and its eyes shut, so I left a gap to look like a mouth.

Inside the bell. Laburnum has really good grain patterns and colouring.

And the bottom smoothed off after removing the mounting tenon.
I will finish it with polyurethane to seal it, as laburnum is very toxic.

I finally fitted a speed indicator to my lathe, about 4 or so years after buying the components to fit the Myford lathe. This is something I feel is lacking with the Axminster hobby lathes. I found an instructable where a bicycle computer is used as a speed indicator.
The RPM of the lathe is worked out as 100x the speed shown in MPH.

For example 4.9MPH works out as 490 RPM.
I really should take some photos to show how it’s done in case anyone wants to copy it on a similar lathe.

Best of all, I replaced my wireless router in the shed after the last one died. I think it’s the dust and heat that did for the last one. Hopefully this one will last a bit longer.

By all accounts none of this should work. I have the shed connected to the internet via a powerline adapter which is connected via my extension cable which is in the region of 60m long. Plugging these powerline adapters into anything other than a wall socket is not recommended, apparently.
I don’t care. It works.