Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Doug Leite

>A friend of mine took a rod of between 1/4"-3/8" dia. and just ground a nice radius, like half of a ball, on one end. He used this with a small hammer to put dimples all around some pieces he turned, then proceeded as you stated.You can't be too aggressive in the depth or shape, as you don't want to break, or damage, any fibers in the process. Those were unique pieces with the "goose bump" effect that he got. I always wanted to try that, but I forgot all about it. Post your efforts.

Aloha

Doug

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Anthony

>I wonder if you could use leather stamping tools?They are steel stamps that come in a veriety of shapes.Just a thought.

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Dinyar Chavda

>Hi Arch:

I had read the same description, and did try it once with just using a center-punch. I was not too hapy with the results, as you really have to get the depressions pretty close to equal, and that is difficult to do--you have to pick a pieve of wood that has fairly uniform density(?) where you are going to punch, and then apply equal force at each punch. If you don't, it looks like a bunch of mistakes!

Also, it is really advisable to make a design before you start to punch, even if it is going to be random--again, I didn't, and it looked like what the big bad wolf was trying to do in the e-mail I sent you this morning.

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Dinyar Chavda

>Arch:

I just googled "ukibori", and one the the pages it brought up was Janel Jacobson's site, and a very subtle example of ukibori. She used to do incredibly beautiful work in porcelain, and has now switched to wood. You can see her ukibori frog at http://www.janeljacobson.com/carvings/303.html . I guess it shows how good the technique looks when done subtly.

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

John Lucas

>Arc

it might work. I tried hammering dents with a ground over rod and found the results too uneven as mentioned before. I bought one of the spring loaded center punches and ground the tip over. This worked much better.

The letters and designs might work but they don't punch very deep. If the punches arent' consistenly in depth you will cut off part of the letter or design when you sand or cut away the waste wood.

The other problem I had with this method was the raised grain from the steam. It's time consuming to sand off the raised grain because the pimples get in the way and you can't power sand.

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Richard Allen

>Hi Arch

That sounds like a terrific idea. Having read the other responses, a couple of things come to mind.

The Japanese tend to turn endgrain bowls. With an endgrain bowl the density of the wood would tend to be the same all the way around. Our side grained turned bowls would exhibit different resistance to punching, sanding and "puffing" when steaming. All this to say that the effect would likely be more easily controlled on an endgrain bowl of the rim of a bowl or platter.

The raising of the grain is a concern. I am not sure how you would deal with that. Could the dimples be turned into pimples with some other sort of steaming? I am thinking steaming some other fluid, though I am at a loss as to what other fluid might work.

Good Luck

Richard

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Brad Vietje

>Richard raises (ha-ha) a good point...

The specific examples in Michael O'Donnell's book are conical jewelry boxes, turned in end-grain (spindle) orientation. Thus, the density of the wood would be pretty consistant in most straight grained pieces of most wood species. I suspect finer grained woods like Maple would be better than a coarse wood like Ash to preserve detail.

He also uses a spring-loaded engineer's punch to get consistant imprints -- where does one get such a beasty ?

Safe Spinning,

Brad Vietje

Thetford, VT

OH, BTW: if you haven't stumbled upon this yet, accidentally touching the Esc button (say, by tossing a catalog on the desk) makes the entire message dissappear... consistantly, too...OOPS !

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Fred Holder

>I purchased my spring loaded engineer's punch at Harbor Freight. It probably wouldn't stand up too well at punching metal, but it works great on wood.

Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Robert Cox

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Re: Texturing with Ukibori pimples

Don Evans

>Brad:

They are more commonly called "automatic center punches" and most any hardware, Lowes or Home Depot will have them.

Don