Hello from Colorado

[John Giem]

My name is John Giem and live in Fort Collins, Colorado. I am a retired engineer. I have been woodworking for as long as I can remember. Although I have a complete woodworking shop my main interests are in wood turning on a lathe and chip carving. I was first attracted to chip carving as a method of embellishing some of my woodturnings. I have a tendency to dig into the details of things and often try to do things differently, some succeed and then there are…

[Jim Johnson]

Hi, John – Welcome.  I am also a turner – do you have photos of your chip-carved turnings that you care to share?

Jim Johnson – Michigan

 

[John Giem]

[John Giem]

[John Giem]

[John Giem]

[John Giem]

Several of the above chip carved bowls were turned using wood blanks that had imperfections in them. I have found that when several items are on display offered for sale, the items that have more character in the wood (imperfections) will sell better than those turned from wood that does not contain any imperfections. While the bowls are still mounted on the lathe, I utilize the indexing feature of the lathe to place evenly spaced lines around the bowl from top to bottom. Then with the lathe running slowly, I draw lines around the circumference. This gives me a grid on the bowl that can then be used to sketch the pattern. One must use a soft pencil and draw lightly to avoid making grooves in the soft wood.  I’m not sure of the wood used in the top three bowls but I’m fairly sure that the bottom bowl is linden. All of them were harvested in the Fort Collins, Colorado area.

 

If anyone has further questions, feel free to ask.

[Jim Johnson]

Thanks for posting the pictures, John – unique way to combine turning and carving!  Doing the layout lines while the bowl is still on the lathe is a great tip!

Your comments about using a soft pencil is even more important on wood like pine and basswood – I found 4B leads for a mechanical pencil – about as soft as can be regularly found.

Those cross-grain cuts look tricky, but it ended up well.

Jim Johnson

[Marty Leenhouts]

Thanks for posting, John!

I’m always interested in different ways to display chip carving.

I’ve got several roughed out bowls I’ll get to one of these days 🙂

[Marty Leenhouts]

Thanks for posting, John!

I’m always interested in different ways to display chip carving.

I’ve got several roughed out bowls I’ll get to one of these days 🙂

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