Dennis has been making acorn boxes just big enough to store a special piece of jewelry or any memento about the diameter of a quarter.
Acorn boxes benefit from a threaded lid, because the top is larger than the bottom. Dennis cuts threads in the traditional English way, by using chasing tools and a good sense of rhythm.
Threads are always cut in very hard oily woods so that they do not crumble with use. These bases are boxwood, and the tops are turned from blackwood, cocobolo, and mopani.
Remember: mighty oaks start as a small acorn.
February 28, 2012 – 8:00 am
Just in time for the Ides of March, Dennis will demonstrate turning a canteen for the Pikes Peak Woodturners on March 7th. Vessels for water are usually called canteens, while those for other spirits may be known as flasks. When made from white oak, the wooden canteen is capable of either function.
Dennis learned the canteen form from Chris Stott. Chris makes a vessel about 3 1/2″ tall, which is illustrated in his book of Turned Boxes. It is considered a box by woodturner standards because it is turned in the spindle (or end grain) orientation. This form, however, also requires turning on the other axis, so it is technically a multi-axis turning. Canteens do not appear very often in exhibits and club galleries, although both Dennis and Nick Cook teach the canteen in demonstrations and classes.
Dennis turns the canteens with contrast wood inserts, threaded lids, and lids of various shapes. There are many opportunities for decorating the inserts, which gives the canteen project many opportunities for experimentation and decoration. The steps for making the canteen are listed on the ‘Project’ tab on this site.
October 15, 2011 – 9:34 am
Bigger bowls come from large trees with solid wood. Dennis picked up sections of a big hard maple from Missouri two years ago. He rough-turned the bowls and let them dry two years. The finish turned bowls have uniform wall thicknesses. The inlaid bands are turquoise, malachite, lapis, and pipestone.
How simple the form, and how varied the shape! One of these captures and holds its contents, and the other opens out to the dome of the sky. They are 15-17″ in diameter:
Dennis is back in the shop with a new group of bowls well before his scheduled recovery in August. He has already been to Missouri to pick up a new load of fresh logs. This time, the Paige Lumber Co. secured both cherry and persimmon wood. Dennis turns natural edge bowls from the persimmon while it is very wet. Here is a group of bowls drying on the windowsill (on the shady side of the house, of course).
You may remember American persimmon as a substitute for ebony. It was often used for golf club heads because of the hardness of the wood. Dennis has found that the wood holds a very clean cut when wet, and stays a beautiful creamy white. The bark is extremely dark, deep, and appears on the tree in big chunks. These chunks yield the lovely scallops on the bowls.
The curve of the bowls is an ‘ogee’ curve, which is a type of stretched-out S-curve used by cabinet makers for mouldings, and by woodturners for balusters and other architectural elements. This lovely curve emphasizes the bark edge, and creates the oval shape where Dennis has been cutting air instead of wood. It is a fascinating puzzle for everyone who has difficulty picturing the bowl inside the tree.
January 17, 2011 – 7:09 pm
Dennis has been on injured reserve since the Liggett family reunion in December 2010. The grandsons proved to be remarkably capable tennis table players. All woodturning projects are now on hold until the defiant rotators can be rewound this spring.
There is a video project waiting in England, fresh cherry logs on the ground in Missouri, and numerous masterpieces locked in the wood shop’s lumber supply. Nevertheless, Dennis has figured out that he can still do some small diameter spindle work. Magic wands, to be exact. Two grandchildren had broken their Harry Potter wands (made last year for Halloween), two more had wands on order, and then son James requested a gift for a co-worker with a difficult new assignment. Instructions for the Harry Potter wands are vague enough to allow changes in wood and general design. The photo is an early prototype which has found a home in the Liggett kitchen as a general purpose cooking wand.
November 14, 2010 – 2:36 pm
For 2010, Dennis has chosen a colorful roof, perch, and finial to highlight this simple bird house turned from Colorado Aspen. A variety of colors creates a luscious mixture in bright candy colors.
The birdhouses are a limited production run, which will be available at the LoMere coffee house in Monument, or from Dennis: 719-481-8754.
Woodturners will note that each house has 5 turned elements: upper finial, roof, body, perch, and lower finial.
August 20, 2010 – 7:18 pm
Stuart Mortimer returned to Colorado in September with woodturning demonstrations and classes in Colorado Springs, Denver, and Ft. Collins, and five sessions for the Rocky Mountain Woodturners Symposium. Stuart’s visit coincided with a renewal of interest in spindle turning, as well as end-grain forms such as traditional boxes and hollow forms.
In the photo, he is turning a lid to fit to a box base. The wood is American osage orange, one of Stuart’s favorite woods.
Stuart is best-known for his innovative ways to achieve the precision of traditional twisted spindles and twisted hollow forms, open-twist finials, and specialty twists such as the pig-tail and lace edge. He is an expert carver on turnings as well, and he teaches quick and effective techniques for hollowing turnings for carved detail. To see current work from the Mortimer woodshop, visit www.stuartmortimer.com.
Stuart made a variety of turnings while he was in Colorado. Some of the demonstration pieces were auctioned at the Symposium.
The Pikes Peak Woodturners will auction several more at meetings in October or November. Ths auction will include two finished pieces–a goblet with a twisted stem, and the box from the demonstration in Manitou Springs. For more information about the PPW auction, call Dennis 719-481-8754
December 17, 2009 – 7:57 pm
Some folks have inquired about purchasing one of the natural edge bowls. Dennis makes them in batches from freshly-cut trees, so the inventory of bowls depends upon the availability of good trees. For this winter, bowls from cherry and ash are for sale in the M.A. Doran Gallery in Tulsa, OK, during the Holiday Sale which runs through January 2nd.
Dennis will look for new trees during January in order to produce another batch of bowls with bark. Generally, he is able to find cherry or ash in northwest Missouri, which has more hardwood trees than Colorado. The winter-cut trees hold the bark better. This is one of those works of art that takes both art and science! When you see a natural edge bowl that you like, get it, because the grainlines will probably never be repeated in a subsequent bowl. These are unique collaborations between the woodturner and Mother Nature.
Caring for a natural edge bowl: It’s best to keep it out of direct sunlight, which will darken the wood. Choose only light-weight, non-liquid contents! If the surface needs polishing, use a high-quality paste wax, applied very thinly and delicately rubbed out. The original finish was ‘Renaissance Wax.’ Contact Dennis if you have questions about caring for any of your woodturnings.
December 1, 2009 – 10:18 am
For 2009, Dennis has made a traditional icycle ornament with sea urchin shells and holly.
The urchins are a delicate seashell that has been stabilized and painted with iridescent paints. The finials are turned in three pieces too conserve holly, which is a very white, and relatively scarce wood. The ornaments are 6″ tall, with shells up to 2″ wide.
The urchins are sometimes used upside down by woodturners, but Dennis prefers the Victorian look of the rightside-up shell.
Merry Christmas to All, and to All a long night in the woodshop!
November 30, 2009 – 5:25 pm
Dennis returned to Grateley, England with his new (woodturner) wife, Kay, to spend a week with his mentor, Stuart Mortimer. It was the Mortimer goblet with the twisted stem that first lured Dennis into the mysteries of the woodturning craft. Stuart has continued to invent, refine, and hone the skills of working with spiral hollow forms. He has both enlarged and reduced the size of his work, and expanded his investigations with spiral turning into other materials–pewter and precious metals. Stuart set up two lathes in his workshop for Dennis and Kay to practice making spiral hollow forms.
The photo illustrates Stuart’s response to some bad noises coming from the Liggett lathes. While Dennis and Kay turned, hollowed, carved, and sanded, Stuart worked on several of his own projects: a huge goblet, two burl bowls for a local fundraiser, and photos for a magazine interview. Neighborhood woodturners came by to pick up turning blanks, and to get help with things like refinishing a guitar.
The shop was filled with forms in various stages of completion. Kay took several photos of the various ‘still life’ opportunities in the shop, pictured below after some photoshopping. Looking at Stuart Mortimer’s hollow forms in various stages is something like studying the drawings and studies that lead to paintings by Picasso or Matisse. The forms have their own charm, in addition to the promise of the final product.
