Some recent bowls

[hockenbery]

I have been having a lot of fun the past few years exploring ways to use Sandcarving on wood turnings.

Below and in the following post are photos of three bowls. Two were finished in January and one in November. I make very few cut rim bowls but I had a few ideas that seemed to work better on bowls than on hollow forms. All have Sand carving elements. These are created by cutting an image from a sandblast resist which is put on the surface of the bowl while the background is sand blasted. The result is a well defined image you can see in the detail photos.

Below is a Maple bowl finished in January 14d x 7h Myan Mysteries
acrylic, sandcarved, waterlox, odies oil

 

[hockenbery]

Below is a maple bowl 13d x 4.5h
Phanton Fish sand carved , acrylic, waterlox, odies oil

 

[hockenbery]

Below is a cherry bowl 9d x 3.5h
Knot Bowl sand carved, , waterlox, odies oil

Also some photos of a small hollow form named
Anasazi. It is camphor 8d x 4h

Al

 

[Douglas Ladendorf]

I love these Al! It's a very interesting effect. What is the sandblast resist? Do you have a video of the process or any in-progress photos?

Doug

 

[James Seyfried]

They are all very nice Al! What do you use for a sandblasting medium?

 

[hockenbery]

I love these Al! It's a very interesting effect. What is the sandblast resist? Do you have a video of the process or any in-progress photos? Doug

No posted videos yet. Maybe in a couple of months.

I did a sand carving demo last month at the Florida symposium.
I showed these slides which give an overview of the process and list equipment and materials I use
http://fwshandouts.hockenbery.net/sandcarving.pdf

A new development Blastlite resist I use is out of stock at UScutter.com
There was a flood in the manufactures facility and the resist may not be back in stock until August.
This resist stretches and compresses to curved surfaces nicely.
I am investigating alternative resists

Fortunately for me I have a roll and half which will last me.

 

[hockenbery]

They are all very nice Al! What do you use for a sandblasting medium?

Course ground glass for those shown.
I have been experimenting with extra fine glass beads.

The glass artists achieve 3 dimensional looks with deep and shallow blasting and using different media.
I don't think wood is workable in the same way as glass to get the depth for 3 dimensional.
However blasting one part with extra fine does yield different textures in the surface.

Below is a possible lid for a Beads of Courage box - this photo is in the demo notes.
The panels in the wing are blasted with Extra fine the background with course ground glass.

 

[Zach LaPerriere]

Wow, great work, Al! Thanks for sharing. Intriguing.

Your sandcarved bowls bring the texture of ceramic bowls to wood. A great success.

 

[Jamie Straw]

Those are so cool, Al. These really expand my understanding of how creative woodturners can be.

 

[Michelle Rich]

So glad I popped into AAW today to find this. WOW what a sensational look. I have looked into sandblasting before, but the cost for a huge compressor capable of doing this is beyond my reach. Dang nabbit! The pieces look wonderful. thanks for sharing the pieces, and the PPP.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I agree that the textured effect is really nice. The BoC lid is especially nice.

The question about resist had me wondering about 3M Rubber Tape. It isn't the same thing as 3M Electrical Tape which is a PVC plastic. The rubber tape is. Butyl rubber that is primarily used to waterproof an electrical connection such as the service entrance weather head.

It would be necessary to provide your own adhesive such as a spray adhesive since there is no adhesive on the rubber tape because it adhere to itself, but not as well to other things.

 

[hockenbery]

So glad I popped into AAW today to find this. WOW what a sensational look. I have looked into sandblasting before, but the cost for a huge compressor capable of doing this is beyond my reach. Dang nabbit! The pieces look wonderful. thanks for sharing the pieces, and the PPP.

Michelle,

I did quite a few pieces with a 27 gallon compressor.
I do demos with a 27 gallon compressor and an $80 harbor freight siphon feed blast cabinet.

With this set up I get about 2 minutes of blast time at 90 psi then I have 90 seconds on contemplation while the compressor fills the tank.
I have to stop or the tank will drain rather than fill.

If you do a lot of blasting a bigger compressor becomes a must have.
I got a 60 gallon single stage Quincy. Free shipping from Northern Tool.
I also added a pressure pot which reduces air consumption a bit.
With this set up I can blast 3-4 minutes and the compressor cycles on for 2 minutes and will fill the tank while I continue to blast at 60 psi

Below is a red gum eucalyptus piece I did with the 27 gallon compressor. The bands are small areas and it takes a while but not forever.
Maybe 20 minutes of total blast & wait time.

Al

 

[hockenbery]

I agree that the textured effect is really nice. The BoC lid is especially nice. The question about resist had me wondering about 3M Rubber Tape. It isn't the same thing as 3M Electrical Tape which is a PVC plastic. The rubber tape is. Butyl rubber that is primarily used to waterproof an electrical connection such as the service entrance weather head. It would be necessary to provide your own adhesive such as a spray adhesive since there is no adhesive on the rubber tape because it adhere to itself, but not as well to other things.

electrical tape will work as a resist. I use it to tape resist pieces together. I don't use it on the wood because my cheap tape leaves black residue when I remove it.

One cool resist is wire. I wrapped a turned pen part with wire and aim the blast gun at the wire.
Leaves a neat pattern on the pen barrel. An easy way to put a spiral pattern on a pen grip.

Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

?.. I showed these slides which give an overview of the process and list equipment and materials I use
http://fwshandouts.hockenbery.net/sandcarving.pdf ...

The slide on what ESCALAST.COM has to say about crushed recycled glass blast media concerns me. There are amorphous glass beads which are smooth before they are used, but the difference between crushed amorphous and crystalline silica when we are dealing with particle sizes that are microscopic seems to lose any significance. Once any microscopic sized particles gets down to the alveoli air sacs, the lungs have no mechanism for removing it. Besides that, once the blast media has been used it is also contaminated with whatever material is being blasted. Any superfine dust particles are harmful to breathe. Your slideshow addressed the cleanup problem. It also occurred to me that any clothing being worn will also be a vehicle for further spreading the dust around. Washing with other clothing also might be a bad idea.If a shop vac is used to clean up the equipment then it needs to use a HEPA filter or else the really fine stuff will pass right on through and into the air that you are breathing. I found this OSHA Fact Sheet to also have some useful information regarding respiratory equipment.

 

[hockenbery]

The slide on what ESCALAST.COM has to say about crushed recycled glass blast media concerns me. There are amorphous glass beads which are smooth before they are used, but the difference between crushed amorphous and crystalline silica when we are dealing with particle sizes that are microscopic seems to lose any significance. Once any microscopic sized particles gets down to the alveoli air sacs, the lungs have no mechanism for removing it. Besides that, once the blast media has been used it is also contaminated with whatever material is being blasted. Any superfine dust particles are harmful to breathe. Your slideshow addressed the cleanup problem. It also occurred to me that any clothing being worn will also be a vehicle for further spreading the dust around. Washing with other clothing also might be a bad idea.If a shop vac is used to clean up the equipment then it needs to use a HEPA filter or else the really fine stuff will pass right on through and into the air that you are breathing. I found this OSHA Fact Sheet to also have some useful information regarding respiratory equipment.

From everything I have been able to read glass is the least harmful media. No known carcinogens or free silica.

As long as blast cabinet is used there is little to worry about as the dust and media are contained in the cabinet.
I still recommend wearing a dust mask with P100 rating.

All the blast cabinets I have seen have a port to connect a shop vac or dust collector.
These work extremely well to move the cloudy air from the chamber.
Very important that shop vacs or dust collectors are not spewing particles into the clean air outside the cabinet.

Most of what I found from OSHA was more about commercial blasting of large objects ( ships & buildings) outside of a cabinet.
OSHA requires hoods, protective clothing, masks, ventilation for rooms etc. because they are covering industrial blasting outside of a cabinet.

Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

When I talked about this subject of fine dust with my pulmonologist about a year ago, he affirmed my concern about fine dust. Things don't need to be toxic like lead to cause permanent lung damage. Things can be totally inert and still reduce lung capacity by lodging in the alveoli. The crushed amorphous glass become crushed in even smaller sharp edged particles.

Silica and asbestos are close mineral relatives. Being fibrous minerals there is no question about its danger. My discussion with my pulmonologist was specifically talking about what woodturners breathe sanding dust, aluminum oxide dust, and metal dust. I have an appointment coming up in a few wees so I can ask if hew feels any differently about crushed glass dust.

 

[hockenbery]

When I talked about this subject of fine dust with my pulmonologist about a year ago, he affirmed my concern about fine dust. Things don't need to be toxic like lead to cause permanent lung damage. Things can be totally inert and still reduce lung capacity by lodging in the alveoli. The crushed amorphous glass become crushed in even smaller sharp edged particles. Silica and asbestos are close mineral relatives. Being fibrous minerals there is no question about its danger. My discussion with my pulmonologist was specifically talking about what woodturners breathe sanding dust, aluminum oxide dust, and metal dust. I have an appointment coming up in a few wees so I can ask if hew feels any differently about crushed glass dust.

Bill you don't want to breath in dust if any kind.

Be interesting to hear his comments on course ground glass. And extra fine beads.
The course glass has the feel of Gulf beach sand.
The extra fine beads are more like talcum power. It sticks to you hand like talc.

Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

I've known some people who suffered with lung diseases and it is a really scary thing.I have a powered respirator with a HEPA filter and sometimes when I need to talk while turning (teaching for example), I have a box of N100 masks and flip up face shield.

The crushed glass is coarser than I had envisioned so I now assume that the fine powder must be the beads. Many years ago my employer (military aircraft manufacturer) was trying to transition away from nasty stripping chemicals like methylene chloride and was testing various bead blasting methods on older aircraft that were coming back in to be upgraded and refurbished. Aluminum doesn't like to be sandblasted because the hardness of the paint and the aluminum causes damage to the aircraft skin. It was found that plastic beads worked better as far a paint removal was concerned, but there were so may undesirable side effects that I think that they may have gone back to chemical stripping. The beads were statically charged and stuck to anything and everything and anybody within 50 feet.It seemed to be impossible to completely seal every opening so the tiny beads were all over the cockpit, weapons bays, avionics bays, and engine compartment and stuck tight like Styrofoam peanuts.

 

[hockenbery]

Bill,
The course ground glass is 25-40 grit.
The extra fine beads are in the 175-325 grit.

Paint removal is usually done blasting at an oblique angle to get under the paint.
I avoid the oblique angle because it gets under the resist edge.
Soda blasting is used a lot now in paint removal on cars etc. non to pic and it cleans in with water..

 

[odie]

Some very nice sandblasting embellishments you are doing lately, Al........

ko

 

[hockenbery]

Some very nice sandblasting embellishments you are doing lately, Al........ ko

Thanks,
It is somewhat unusual as an embellishment in that sand carving features the turned surfaces of the positive elements which are protected by the resist and left unchanged by the media blast. The background negative space is changed when blasting removes the top layers.
The turned surface have to be right because I don't want to try sanding it after the blasting.
Form and surface are vital to a successful sand carved piece.

 

[Karl Koch]

No posted videos yet. Maybe in a couple of months.

I did a sand carving demo last month at the Florida symposium.
I showed these slides which give an overview of the process and list equipment and materials I use
http://fwshandouts.hockenbery.net/sandcarving.pdf

A new development Blastlite resist I use is out of stock at UScutter.com
There was a flood in the manufactures facility and the resist may not be back in stock until August.
This resist stretches and compresses to curved surfaces nicely.
I am investigating alternative resists

Fortunately for me I have a roll and half which will last me.

------------

Thank you for sharing about your sandblasting process. Here it is 2020 and your experience and generosity is still the gift that keeps on giving. Yesterday I ordered a sandblasting cabinet, medium, resist, and transfer tape...and I could not have made educated choices without your guidance. This is the kind of experience that reminds me why I joined the AAW.

-Karl

 

[hockenbery]

------------

Thank you for sharing about your sandblasting process. Here it is 2020 and your experience and generosity is still the gift that keeps on giving. Yesterday I ordered a sandblasting cabinet, medium, resist, and transfer tape...and I could not have made educated choices without your guidance. This is the kind of experience that reminds me why I joined the AAW.

-Karl

cool!
I’m still having fun with this.
hope to see some of your work and pick up some tips from you.

Since this thread started did a few more demos- AAW, SWAT, FWS.
December 2016 AAW journal had an article

These are a few of the seed jars which make great canvases. They have all been posted elsewhere
Turkey motif - camphor, black acrylic 7”D


Feather motif cherry, black acrylic 7”D


Feather motif, sapeli , blue and black milk paint 5”D

 

[Karl Koch]

cool!
I’m still having fun with this.
hope to see some of your work and pick up some tips from you.

Since this thread started did a few more demos- AAW, SWAT, FWS.
December 2016 AAW journal had an article

These are a few of the seed jars which make great canvases. They have all been posted elsewhere
Turkey motif - camphor, black acrylic 7”D
View attachment 32688 View attachment 32689

Feather motif cherry, black acrylic 7”D
View attachment 32690 View attachment 32691

Feather motif, sapeli , blue and black milk paint 5”D
View attachment 32692

Thank your sharing. I will check out that article in the archives. These are beautiful...I'm especially attracted to the partially obscured design with the blue and black milk paint. So many possibilities!

 

[Doug Freeman]

Al, its been a few years, but you mention 2 different compressors you have used. Do you know the air flow ratings (not tank size) of each, in scfm @ xx psi? Sometimes this info is on the label? Thanks, very nice work.

 

[hockenbery]

What you really need to do is pair your air source with the your blast gun requirements.
Remember no one ever complains about having too large a compressor.

The harbor freight siphon feed Lists an average consumption at 9.5 Cfm at 90 psi.
My 60 gallon Quincy does 13.1 Cfm at 90 psi. 14.6 cfm at 40 psi

I added a small ALC pressure pot to my cabinet. Drilled a hole in the side to feed in the pressure pot hose and gun. The pressure pot runs at lower psi 40-60 psi but can use more cfm.
Which will use around 12 cfm at 50 psi using a 1/8 nozzle.

When I continue blasting with the pressure pot the Quincy recharges and shuts off. So it produces excess air to store in the tank. And it runs less than half the time.

with the 27 gallon compressor -it won’t recharge if I keep blasting. I just stop when it turns on until it shuts off.
A more relaxed way to work. If I am doing a demo I plan things to talk about.

Bottom line a too small compressor will let you blast and get started. Depending on how annoying the stopping is ..... you but a larger compressor or not.