Christmas wood projects

[Micktoon]

Hi All , Just thought I would post a few photos of what I have been making for various Christmas presents . . . . . . . .. while I should have been rebuilding my lathe :palm:
The photos are not that good as taken on my mobile phone and to be honest I only took the odd in progress shots but you will get the general idea from them.

This is a full size wine bottle made out of an old fence post that had been lying around for ages, it is being dyed green in this shot and the block of wood lying on the lathe bed below the green bottle is the other half of the post , that will become the red bottle.



I am in a local woodturning club and this collection was my donation to the yearly sale the club has to raise funds , the colours are not good in the photo the bottles were brighter than they look here, the red and green ones are pine and I am not sure what the other one is , maybe apple ? or some fruit wood, they are life size to give you some idea of the sizes. The Christmas trees are various timbers, some with different types of wood for the pots and some all out the same bit of wood. The mice are stuck on with blue tack here just so they dont knock together while being transported really, they ended up with less blue tack so it could not be seen.



This is a closer shot of the mice on the cheese, they ended up looking better than this as I managed to get some map pins to do the eyes with, they are just burnt on here , they looked much better once they had their beady eyes fitted. The ears and tails are leather and the whiskers are cut from a paint brush.



This was the bigger project for my girlfriends present , a pine chest with dovetail joints..... everything that could go wrong, did go wrong doing this , so it took ages and there was some swearing going on I can tell you. All the mouldings / trims etc were routered out of solid wood, the dovetails ( with much hassle were made with a router on a woodrat ( its a sort of jig type thing that can do many types of joints with a router ). There was no real drawings or plan just knew what it was to look like and made it up as I went. This is the only photo whilst getting done , its finished but in bare wood here.



This is the Chest finished and in position , its storage and a coffee table, its dyed antique pine colour and finished with dark wax that gives it the aged look. The colour is darker than this photo shows. The Apple and Pear were also made to go with the chest they are Laburnum wood.



This photo is more like the true colour, I bought the brass handles but they were not really what I had in mind but all I could find, trying them on they looked to plain so I made the brass backing plates then attached the handles on top of them and they look much better. Anyway she loved it and it now has pride of place. Note all the new wood coasters on the top, it has been made clear by its new owner that if anyone dares to put cups etc on it they will be in big trouble :hammer:



So it looks like its back to the lathe at long last now :thumbup:

Cheers Mick.

[Mayhem]

Nice work all around Mick. I particularly like the grain on the yellow bottle.

[sasquatch]

Great work Mick, thanks for posting these fine projects.

Wondering, what country is Laburnum wood native too?

[f350ca]

Nice work Mick. You got a great finish on the turnings.

[DaveH]

Mick,
Really nice work , they all look beautiful.

I thought in the first photo you were using wood from an evergreen tree

DaveH

[stevec]

Gorgeous Mick!

On a humbler note.
   
It is wood and it was made for my wife for Christmas but she handles staining and Varathaneing.
The can of stain is Puritan Pine and, like Frank's Hot Sauce, we put that $hit on everything.

[EdK]

Mick,

The chest turned out very nice! I love the finish you put on it.

Ed

[doubleboost]

Very nice work Mick
I bet she was pleased with that
John

[Bill Gruby]

Very nice work. Are the turnings "French Polished?"

"Billy G"

[Micktoon]

I have found a few better pictures of the Christmas things I posted above and another wine bottle I made. This is a general shot but the colours are much more how they actually looked.



This it the light coloured mice made from Ash wood after the beady eyes were fitted, these eyes look much better than the burnt in eyes. The cheeses are just discs of wood turned to shape then dyed red, rounded holes made in them at random with a router and ball ended cutter, the the nibbled areas are done with a fine woodcarving gouge.



The darker mice made from mystery wood, not sure what it is , its similar to teak I think ? with the beady eyes fitted.



This is Rhudolph the mouse with his red nose he is made out of Pearwood. By chance a friends wife who is a nursery teacher bought this one from the Woodturners sale, she hides it somewhere in the classroom every day and the kids have to find it :lol:, she says they love looking for it.




This is the wine bottle I made for my Girlfriend out of Beechwood, her street is called Milton , hence the name , I printed off a couple of images from the internet then traced it onto the finished bottle then burnt in the design with a pyography pen, its like a soldering iron type thing It should be neater really but I need more practice with the pen and also to make some finer tips for it. The cork is actually not seperate and is integral part of the wood the rest of the bottle is made from but has not been finished or waxed and has has the black flecks burnt into it too , everyone who has seen it has tried to pull the cork out .....it looks more like a cork than a real cork ! :lol:



Cheers Mick :beer: