{"id":8958,"date":"2009-11-12T10:48:42","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T14:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woodworkersguide.com\/?p=2127"},"modified":"2009-11-12T10:48:42","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T14:48:42","slug":"christmas-ornamenting-with-the-awa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ravenview.com\/christmas-ornamenting-with-the-awa\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Ornamenting With The AWA"},"content":{"rendered":"
This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association took on a different spin. A spin, indeed!<\/p>\n
We were treated to a woodturning demo by our past chairman, Cecil Canam, who showed us how he turns a variety of Christmas ornaments. After all, it is the season!<\/p>\n
Cecil focused on two varieties of ornaments, one using a pen blank and the other using a Christmas ornament kit. <\/p>\n
Using a Tulipwood pen blank he turned an ornament in a style that is referred to as an ‘icicle’. While there are no specific rules for the design the goal is to make the ornament long and slender with decorative turning. Since it is turned similar to a finial the same cautions apply. Because of its small diameter special care has to be taken not to break it while turning. <\/p>\n
Here you can see that all that’s left to do is add of a screw eye and ribbon to the top and the Christmas icicle will be ready for the tree:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Next, Cecil used a miniature Christmas ornament kit to turn a shorter, more robust style ornament that is adorned with 24K gold plated embellishments:<\/p>\n
The finished ornament is about 2 1\/2″ long and the wood that he used was a stabilized dyed Maple burl. Stabilization enhances the wood’s beauty by adding contrast to grain and figuring, and makes soft, spalted or burl woods easier to work with by strengthening them.<\/p>\n
The ornament kit includes all of the 24K gold parts and it is similar in construction and turning procedure to a pen kit. The kits are available for purchase from a variety of suppliers of woodturning supplies including here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here are some photos of several other ornaments that Cecil had on display:<\/p>\n And a couple of more photos of the turning and finishing process:<\/p>\n