Welcome to the "Lathest" News!
This newsletter is a collaboration between Brian McEvoy and Gordon Langer. It will be issued on a regular basis to provide "Tips and Tricks" to woodturners of all skill levels. While you have the option of unsubscribing to our newsletter, we hope you will find the information useful and informative. Your feedback is welcome! Let us know what you might want us to discuss in future newsletters.
This article features our experience with "Marbling" (no, not playing with marbles) a technique the paper and fabric industry has used for years, and which can also be used for embellishing wooden forms. We had a lot of fun learning about the process and had a blast trying it out. We hope this article inspires you to give it a try.
As we announced in the August newsletter, our 3rd DVD is almost ready and we are taking pre-orders -check out our websites and U-Tube. It has turned out to be a 2-DVD set and has over 252 minutes of embellishing techniques. The techniques we cover include Woodburning, Texturing, Piercing and Airbrushing on four separate projects shown from start to finish.
Sincerely,
Brian McEvoy, One Good Turn Gordon Langer, Langer Craftworks |
Marbling
By Brian McEvoy & Gordon Langer
Brian recently had the pleasure of demonstrating in Saskatoon at their biannual symposium hosted by Michael Hosaluk. The high point for us was the hour or so that was spent with Mary Thouin who was demonstrating marbling on wood. We were both enthralled with the process and couldn't wait to return to our shops and give it a go, with nothing more than Mary's article from the Fall 2002 issue of American Woodturner and a few notes we took in her class.
For those of you who haven't heard of the process, it is really nothing more than manipulating acrylic paint on the surface of a thickened water solution and then gently dipping your turning into the solution which in turn picks up the paint that you've floated on the surface. There are a number of steps before and after the dipping part but essentially it's that simple. We would encourage you to read Mary's article where she walks you through the process step by step.
Here is a brief summary of the steps we took and as you can see by the photo above, achieved some very beautiful and unique pieces. The first step is to get the acrylic paint you wish to use to the consistency of cream.
Once you have the paint ready the fun really begins. Using an eye dropper, start adding small droplets of paint onto the thickened water solution.
Once you have placed the colours you want to use on the thickened water solution it's time to pull the colours together and make a pattern. This can be done using whisks, sticks or a combination of both. Really almost anything can be used to bring the colours into a pleasing pattern.
Now its time to "dunk" your work, which has been primed with alum. Here you can see a two pice hollow form about ready to be "dunked" in the colour bath.
Carefully and slowly continue to submerge the entire form so that the entire area you wish to have covered with paint is submerged. We used a balloon as a stopper to prevent paint from entering the interior of the vessel.
Slowly remove the now completely submerged vessel from the paint and you can start to see the unique result of this technique.
Next, simply wash off the excess paint in lukewarm tap water and the process is nearly complete.
From here, you need to let the paint dry and the vessel is ready for a lacquer finish.
We can't emphasize enough how much fun it is. Mary described it perfectly when she said it was mesmerizing and spontaneous. When experimenting with liquid mask to create the Sudal style ribbon vases, Brian used a balloon to plug the top so the paint solution wouldn't flow inside. Where there was a lot of air to displace inside the turning when dipping, he filled the balloon with water. Over the course of the week or so playing, a number of new challenges presented themselves.
The next time we marble, we'll keep an accurate record of the process and pass it on in a newsletter; in the meantime if you can't wait to get started, we encourage you to read Mary's article.
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Deep Vessel Boring Tools
Our Deep Vessel Boring Tools have just arrived and we are in the process of unloading them. For those of you who have shown interest in these tools, they should be ready for delivery soon. We will let you know as soon as they are ready for shipping.
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