2011 December Challenge ( Rules and requirements )

[Blister]

Hi everyone, Time for our December Challenge bringing the first year of the UKworkshop challenge to a conclusion after the Judging,

This will then reveal the Overall Winner of the Challenge.

A change for this month with the Judging

Each person who enters a piece of work for the December challenges will be allowed to score their personal choice top 5 places

Awarding 1st place down to 5th place

Please PM me you selection of the top 5 so I can collate the information,

I will ask Richard for his results as well adding Richard’s results to your results to come up with a winner for December

So the Judging will be from the entrants and Richard combined

December Rules and requirements

To create a Christmas related item

This can be a Snowman ( Snowperson :lol: ) a Christmas tree or group of items making a scene
Must be as festive as possible

Max diameter of 12”
Max height 12”
Any wood type
Must be lathe turned
Also allowed are , cotton wool, tinsel and glitter to enhance your entry ( But you must still be able to see that its made from wood :wink:

Must be new work for this challenge

NO Critique or comments on any work until January Please, After the Judging and results.

Please state wood type if known and a little about how you made it and what finish you used ( this helps the judge )

Please post 3 images of your work
1 side profile
1 showing the item / items looking down ( general view )
1 close up of any finer detail you would like the judge to see

Image size please use image size 640 x 480 0.3 mp, same previous months

Please notify me your entries are ready by 10 pm on the 21st December after this time the thread will be locked

Entry’s to be uploaded from 10pm on 21st up until 10pm on the 23rd Dec. after this time the thread will be locked for Judging

Results will be given on 31st December

SO ONLY 3 WEEKS for this months challenge,

Please PM me any day your personal choice's before 30th ( CUT OFF DAY ) so I can post the results on 31st

this time scale gives us all time off over Xmas to ponder the results :mrgreen:

 

[Melinda_dd]

Ok so here is my poor excuse for my December Challenge entry

It's not what I planned on, but I mullered my entry at just after 9 tonight so this is all I could muster

I'm quite embarrassed to submit it, but hey, a points a point. I had set myself the goal of 12 points this year, but due to lathe problems I had to drop 2 points... so I'm hoping for lots of forgetfulness in putting the pictures on!!

It's made from spalted beech, turned on my K10 chuck with a spindle gauge, sanded to 320 abranet :evil: and finished with 2 coats of friction polish.
It's going to go on the Christmas tree as it's only 2" tall.... brace yourselves......

Merry Christmas Everyone!
And thanks to Mr Blister and everyone else for making this challenge all that it has been this year. I've totally enjoyed it massively =D>

 

[nev]

I am not very good with 'ideas' , i'd prefer to be told what to make but nevertheless here goes. Originally going to be a set of three, but i have a splitter! so i will submit one yewman candlestick holder.
made from er... yew and i did try and do as much with the skew as possible but did revert to the spindle gouge after much frustration.
so 2, 4 and 6 inches tall and finished with 400, MM, brasso, and a carnuba stick. and try and imagine it with a red candle...

and a merry Xmas, Happy Hanukkah, Eid, Yule, Shawwal or whatever you celebrate to all.

 

[duncanh]

So here's my entry and, like some of the other months, I really pushed myself to try something new to me. It's pretty much safe to say that this was an exercise in bloody minded determination and I didn't particlarly enjoy it as the level of concentration required was massive! I could only really turn for an hour or so at a time before I needed a rest.
This project was one of the first things that crossed my mind when the challenge was announced and I decided to stick with it to see if I ended up with a decent result. I almost gave in and considered just entering my prototype.

Start off with a cube of wood (10cm for me), as regular as possible. Mark the centres of 5 of the faces. The unmarked face should be end grain.
Mount it in powergrip jaws opended to max, protecting hold points with thickish lino (each time the cube is remounted move the lino along slightly as it's only just thick enough. Repeated used will leave marks on the wood). Mount the face without the centre mark facing outwards and cut decorative grooves on face.
Remove cube and mount with one of the side-grain faces outwards. Use the centre mark to ensure accurate alignment.
Cut recess 2cm into face, at a slight taper. Make a template of this taper so other faces will match. Mark the centre point in case face needs returning.
Remove cube and remount with the opposite face outwards and repeat.
Repeat these 2 recesses on the remaining side grain faces.

Mount the cube with the remaining untouched face outwards. Hollow down until you reach a point where the side holes are breaking through. This is the maximum height of the tree, although I went slightly further as it looked better. I think that, technically, the tree should be shaped from the wide part of the base to the tip as it's standard spindle turning. I got a better finish turning from tip to base. Add decorative grooves. In the end I rubber gold gilt cream into these.

Now the really tricky part!
Grind some new cranked tool tips for my hollowing tool as the stem is created using a reverse hollowing technique (to the right instead of the usual left). The bit under the tree base to the trunk is the trickiest.
After many close calls, sweating and swearing, texture the base.

Yes, I could have cheated and just glued a tree into a hollowed cube but that would be admitting defeat and there'd be no satisfaction.

Wood: unknown.
Size: 10cm cube
Finish: none yet (ran out of time as away tomorrow) but will be paste wax.

 

[j1mbr0wn]

I have went for the Xmas scene with my attempt this month and had a whole lot of fun with it as well.

Starting with the snowman he is made from 1 piece of sycamore turned to a shape that i liked and stands about 10" tall. Then sanded to 320 and finished with 3 coats of sanding sealer. Scarf was made specially by Joanne (GF) for this challenge.

Eyes mouth and buttons are made from Irish Bog Oak (spare pen blank) and the nose from oak. The hat is also oak and is almost 2" and a nice even 2mm in thickness. Oak pipe made in 2 pieces then small hole drilled and glued.

The brush was 1 piece if 1" square oak i left the brush head square and cut of the ends and used my dremel to cut the groove to take the bristles from a wee brush that i get as freebies from work.

Arms were from the tree outside my dads door (hope no one misses the small branch )

The tree is made from bird cherry about 6" tall made from 1 piece with some natural edges which made it look kinda nice.

We both had some fun making up the wee xmas scene with the tinsel and bobbles, overboard!!! maybe but a good laugh was had by all.

Good luck everybody and a merry Xmas to all.

 

[gregmcateer]

Sorry, All.
My entry is;
a) late and therefore disqualified
b) pretty rubbish.
but
c) my first ever entry, so I thought I should post it at least to show willing!!

1 Pine 4" high and 1 window frame off-cut of wood unknown 3" high. Turned between centres then the 'branches' cut with a skew on edge whilst the base is off-centre in three positions. Unfinished at my daughter's insistence.

Greg

 

[Wood spoiler]

Here's my festive (festering????) - no definitely festive contribution.

The Snowman is a single piece of Holly (what else???) with various adornments. The arms are from our hedgerow and the ear just the natural marking of the wood! The hat is black walnut. The nose is redwood and the eyes an exotic blackwood which exact species escapes me. A bit early for the alcohol induced memory loss so I must just be getting old!

The trees are beech

The snowman stands 8 1/2" tall whilst the tallest tree is just under 6"

Merry wotnots and all that ....

Have a good one!

 

[Hudson Carpentry]

A very to the minute entry. Didn't realise the deadline was early this month, Also on the only day left after realising the early deadline the wet stone grinder switch is broken so can't sharpen tools.

Anyhow. Here is my entry.

Turned between centres measuring about 4" tall to 1 1/2 diameter. Skew mainly used but the gouge did the leg work with a parting tool. The finish is paint :roll: and friction polish.

As you can see them pesky kids from down the way have stolen his arms.
Sorry about quality of pics. I used my phone and the flash kept washing the body out.

 

[monkeybiter]

A small Christmas scene;

Base looked nice until I hit the woodworm holes, had to keep shaving a little more off until I found a reasonable surface. Two coats of danish with denibbing seems to have brought it up nicely.

The tree is an Oak offcut, roughing gouge/skew with ridges then textured with a rotary wire brush to look more tree-like.

The snowmen and the angel are skew turned from some dowel cannibalised from a stop-motion cine camera frame my grand-dad built about 60 years ago. The angels wings are not turned (homer) but are Oak planed to 0.7mm.

The faces are pyro'd with my best soldering iron :roll: . The figures are all loose pinned in place with 1/8" dowelling.

The snowmen are approx 30mm tall.

Happy Christmas!

 

[Haldane]

Both my pieces made from some branch wood found at the back of the shed, the tree is sycamore, approx 9" tall coloured with chesnut stain and finished with sanding sealer and woodwax22. The snowman is applewood approx 3 1/2" tall finished with sanding sealer and woodwax.

Dave

 

[dennisk]

I wanted to make an icicle with a red top and long red bottom,but I managed to screw that up. The black walnut has a hole in it for the stub tenons on the maple and then the maple has holes in it for the stub tenons on the bloodwood. Well things were going alright until I cut into the tenon on the long bloodwood and suddenly the icicle was a tree ornament. No sanding, just spindle gouge and skew. Finished with lacquer.
Thanks to Blister and all judges and everyone else involved, this has been a lot of fun, and looking forward to next year.Have a Merry and a Happy!!

 

[Blister]

Here is my offering

A forest of Xmas trees

All made from different wood types , some sanded , sanding sealer , and polish

some left with no finish

One left with the grain lifted to make it look more natural

:ho2
:ho2
:ho2

:deer
:deer
:deer

:ho2
:ho2
:ho2

 

[Silverbirch]

Here is my festive scene.
Base is MDF, decorated with textured ceiling paint, acrylic and glitter. Snowman is birch, textured with a rotary tool, pyro`ed scarf, and painted with acrylics. The fir trees are oak :? , dyed green, incised with a rotary burr, with padauk trunks.
Width 12 inches
Height 9 inches.
Ian