Whiskey and Bog Oak?
This was originally posted on my other blog - The Dailey Grind
Recently I made eight Katahdin ballpoint pens all from Oak. So what is so special about that, you ask. Well, six of them were made from barrel staves from whiskey barrels. And the other two? Those two were made from ancient bog oak from eastern Europe.
The bog oak wood was carbon dated to be approximately 5,600 years old. Can you imagine the changes that have taken place with our world since those trees sprouted from an acorn?
The other six pens were made from barrel staves that were used in the actual production of whiskey. Two were made from Jim Beam staves, two more were made from Makers Mark bourbon whiskey staves and the last two were made from Jack Daniels staves.
Each of the pens had their own unique smell when I was turning them.
Left to right in the picture above, the Katahdin pens are Jim Beam, Makers Mark, Jack Daniels and the last two are the ancient bog oak pens.
- Kim Dailey
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Custom Bottle Openers
A couple weeks before Father’s Day I was asked to make some custom acrylic handled bottle openers. Not a problem, I can do this and the primary color was to be orange. Once a again not a problem or so I thought.
I decided that a good secondary color would be yellow or gold. So Mary (my lovely wife and assistant) and I got to mixing up the Alumilite. I poured parts A & B and Mary stirred them together. I added orange coloring to the Alumilite and it turned red. Wait red? So I put in more orange coloring and it was still red. More coloring, still red. I added gold flakes to the other clear Alumilite that we had stirred up and that was gold. We were running out of time. We have seven minutes from the time that part A and B start being mixed together until the mixture has to be in the mold and under air pressure or else the urethane acrylic starts to harden and the air bubbles are too big and will leave voids in the acrylic. The air pressure makes the air bubbles so small that they aren’t a problem. I realize that seven minutes sounds like plenty of time but it can get intense especially if things don’t seem to be going quite as planned.
So we are at five and a half minutes and things aren’t looking good. Actually they are looking great but it’s red and not orange. We pour the colors into the mold and mix them together to get some swirls working for us. We just made it under the allotted time and the proof will be once they are turned.
The next day I took the block out from under pressure and, yup, it’s still red and gold. I cut the block up into the 4 blanks that I needed and the block is still showing red and gold but the shavings that were created during the cutting process are orange. Well all right, now things are looking up.
I start to turn the first handle and the handle looks like it’s red and gold but the shavings on the floor, the lathe and me are orange and gold. I get the handle done and polished up and it’s a beautiful red and gold but not orange, unlike my shop. These shavings are clinging to everything. You can see every place that I walked because I am leaving behind a trail of orange shavings.
We show the customer two of the openers to see what she thinks of them, and luckily for us, she loved them. They really are spectacular. The coloring has a lot of depth to it and if you rotate the handles in the light things seem to change and shift.
- Kim Dailey
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May Flowers - Limited Edition Haynes Mill
Meet the limited edition 8 inch Haynes pepper mill made in May Flowers laminated Birch veneer.- Kim Dailey
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Day 3 and I found a cool app
Jed and I for day three and the app that I used to put together this cool video.- Kim Dailey
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Apprenticeship day 2
Our apprenticeship got off to unexpected start. Actually it was a stall but we are now going full speed ahead.- Kim Dailey
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We have been chosen for CAP 2019
Back in December, Jed Malcore and I applied to become one of five teams for the Craft Apprentice Program. Each team consists of a master (me) and an apprentice (Jed) who have to work together for a minimum of 100 hours from the months of March through September. In our application and follow-up interview, we had to describe how we envisioned the apprenticeship working and our expectations for it. We had decided to concentrate on bowls and hollow forms for our apprenticeship.
We must have done well enough because we have been selected to be one of the teams. I'm excited to see where we end up and I'm also excited to see where the other four teams end up. I am positive that we are all going to learn a lot from this experience.
You can see our profile on the CAP website by clicking here and see all of the other teams and past participants by clicking here.
