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Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998

A natural, durable finish with minimal coats and fuss popular among woodworkers, flooring professionals, and furniture makers

Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

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Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#1

Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

John K Jordan

My second experiment using basswood to turn a quick little ornament as per Brad Vietje's instruction. Used a smaller scrap of wood than the first one.

If you haven't seen it, the video is here:

https://vimeo.com/142137240

This was from a scrap of basswood, smaller than the first. Since I didn't have paint/markers that would work I tried colored pencils. Used a texturing tool on the tree before turning the off-center groves with a skew. No sanding used. I figured out how to hold this one to turn the bottom cleanly. Sprayed with satin lacquer, 5 mm eyelet screwed into the top.

Things I like: the profile, the texture, the color, the size, the weight.

Things I don't like: the base (too thick) and the torn edges. The tearout is all on places where the texturing tool crushed the wood grain. I think these could be prevented by applying some kind of finish like sanding sealer to "glue" the fibers before cutting the grooves. I may try that next time. (This seems to work well for chip-carved basswood.)

These are real easy to turn and very quick. Maybe I'll try one from a slightly more forgiving wood than basswood.

This is about 2.5" tall.


Thanks again, Brad!

JKJ

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#2

I love the texturing.   


Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#3

Brad Vietje

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

Brad Vietje

NICE John! I like the concave shape, and the texturing works very well.

There's a lot to play around with on these. I did make a few that were painted, and then I cut through the paint, but those require really steady V-cuts, since there's no way to clean them up later. All I had available was some white spray paint, and I only gave 'em a single coat. i suspect a brush-on paint, or more coats would look better than my initial attempts.

I want to try a few different sorts of paint for the grooves -- just set them aside to dry and go on to the next, cleaning them all up after a whole batch is dry. Maybe even fingernail polish -- who knows.

Glad you're having fun,

Brad

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#4

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

John K Jordan

I thought about applying gold leaf to the outside but I was afraid the result would look like it was made from plastic! I wonder if you can cut cleanly through gold leaf.

I suspect with good wood and sharp skew there would be no tearout on the groves and no need for a cleanup pass.

JKJ

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#5

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

john lucas

Yes you can cut through gold leaf, or copper, verigated, silver etc. I found the toe of sharp screw was the best tool for the V cuts but my detail gouge would also work.

Spray paint doesn't work very well if you want a glossy finish. Wood simply soaks it up unless it's very hard wood although it would show off the texture well.

On the last set I made before I took the lathe down last years I painted the grooves with regular water based artists paint and then made a final pass up the tree to clean up the lousy painting. I did make one using a copper looking paint on a walnut tree. Looked pretty nice.

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#6

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

jake niedling

John,

I decided to make one of Brad's Tree ornaments as well. I used basswood, but sprayed it with sealer before painting the grooves. I used a cheap water based paint from Walmart craft supplies which sells for about a $1. Painted the grooves, then re-cut the outside of the tree to clean up the paint. This stopped the bleeding of the color into the wood. Thanks Brad for a fun little project.

Jake


Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#7

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

John K Jordan

Nice, Jake. I actually started to do that last night (even bought the paint and some little brushes from Walmart!) but ran out of time.

I was planning to try spraying with satin lacquer, acrylic, and shellac sanding sealer to see which worked best.

I'll bring what I did get done to the meeting.

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

#8

Brad Vietje

Re: Another little "Brad Vietje" ornament

Brad Vietje

Excellent -- that's a beauty! Thanks for trying the sealing technique -- I need to try that myself. My older markers don't bleed, but they are running pretty close to empty. My newer fabric marking pens and staining pens have thinner ink, so they do bleed more than the old ones. Both have excellent brush tips, though.

Thanks for posting, and safe spinning,

Brad Vietje

Newbury, VT