Tern-About | Shopping & retail

Tern-About

Phone: +61 2 4256 0749

Add/Update information

Reviews

Tags

• Shopping & retail
• Businesses
• Arts and crafts shop

24.01.2022 Well, I didn't think that I would be posting so soon, but that's what Social Isolation will do for you! Nothing much else we can do but work apart from sitting in front of the "idiot box". And that, my friends, is a fate worse than just about anything else I can think of! So - here we are again ('happy as could be') with yet another episode of 'The Chris Hooker Show'. I wish to Christ somebody else would post something! First off there is a large natural edged elevated bowl t...urned from Swamp Mahogany, it's about 9" tall and 8" diameter. The weed vase or twig pot next is a bit shorter, only about 8" tall, from Huon Pine. Look - I just felt like it - OK? Another raised bowl is next, about the same size as the first but this one is from Silky Oak and has a nice Bark inclusion, which on this bowl I haven't filled with resin, just given it a little to reinforce it at the bottom but left it pretty much untouched apart from waxing. The next is a deep, straight-sided bowl, about 8" deep and 8" diameter out of Silky Oak again and, once again, I just felt like it at the time! Last is a pretty conventional small salad bowl, it fits inside the previous bowl so it must be about 7 1/2" diameter and, once again, from Silky Oak. More soon See more

24.01.2022 Gerringong Market tomorrow and Coledale on Sunday (The first since Covid!), will I see any of you there?

23.01.2022 Because of the social isolation we have had imposed on us, I have had more time than usual for turning and I already have about nine new bowls and pots to show but for this post I am going to stick to the light coloured woods. I am going to start with two Huon Pine bowls. Funnily enough the wood for these bowls came from two different sources and the texture and colour of the two are markedly different. The first is an in-curved bowl about 9" diameter and it came out beautifu...lly, I am really pleased with the shape, colour and finish on this piece. The second, although it is a perfectly good 'cereal' type bowl, I am not quite as happy with. I don't know whether it is because it didn't show the same lustre or the coloour was slightly lighter, there is something about it that isn't quite right. The third, fourth and fifth bowls are all from Camphor Laurel, one of my most favourite woods. Favourite because of it's smell, the ease of turning, the look of the bloody stuff and the fact that it takes such a good finish. The first of these is about 10" diameter and the other two are about 14". I have been doing a few things with an in-curved flavour recently and the last two are good examples of that. Having that overhang at the rim does make the bowls easier to pick up but it also looks so damned good (to me at least!). More soon See more

22.01.2022 Some recent turnings. More soon

21.01.2022 I'll be at Exeter Market on Saturday, will you? Covid safe system applies. The perfect time to visit the Southern Highlands and complete your Christmas shopping, Leather goods, Bonsais, Gardening gear, Nick-nacks, Woodturning, Blacksmithing - it will all be there, and the prices are great!

20.01.2022 Welllll, this post used to be a weekly affair. It's become a monthly affair now and, unless conditions improve drastically, it is likely to stay that way for some time! All of the following bowls are turned from Silky Oak (Grevillea Robusta), the wood was donated by a very nice lady who lives at Werri Beach and, believe it or not, the tree was alive less than three months ago! Three cheers for my microwave oven, the best $50 I've spent or a long time! The first three (six pho...tos) were way too large for me to dry in that way however and I had to rely on blind chance to get them dry enough to finish, but Lady Luck was on my side! All of the first three bowls are large. Much larger than the usual for me, they average out at about 20" diameter and 15" tall - and the very first (photos 1+2) sold the very first time I displayed it! The last two bowls are turned from the interior wood that I managed to save using the 'Bowl Saver', they were both microwaved to speed the drying process and it worked out very well. I have decided to limit my posts to a max of ten photos in future so that FB doesn't spit the dummy and negate all the cropping that I need to do to these photos. One day, if I'm really lucky, I'll learn how to take photos without every bowl looking as if it's about to fall off the pedestal I use. Stay healthy everyone and "KEEP YOUR DISTANCE!" More soon See more

19.01.2022 Here's my latest.....along the lines of "Unchained Melody" I call it my Unzipped Cylinder! BTW, the timber is Quandong. But just so that you all know I haven't been idle during the 'lockdown', here is my other project. And no, it's not finished yet!

18.01.2022 And here we go again,The first four shots are of a vase turned from an Olive wood fork or crutch. Not much use as a vase per se, due to the large holes in the sides, but I think it's attractive, it's about 10" tall and 6' diameter. Following that are three shots of a Japanese-style bowl turned from (bugger it, I've forgotten the name of the timber - it'll come to me soon), it's about 12-13" diameter and 2 1/2" deep it has a small split (resolved!) and a borer hole close to th...e lip. After that is - yep - you've guessed it - a River Red vase or container, it's about the same size as the Olive wood vase. And to finish off the week, a bloody big bowl! This one is 16 1/2" diameter and 8" deep ( 42cm x 20cm) and that gives a capacity of close to thirty Litres. Turned from a BIG hunk of Himalayan Cedar, it took a couple of years off my life! More soon See more

17.01.2022 Exeter Market went well today, the weather was a bit "iffy" but rain held off and I think those who attended had a good day. I sold a few pieces so came away qu...ite chuffed. Good to see Dave Farmer and his better half come along. Huskisson Market tomorrow and it looks as if the weather gods are going to be a little nicer than today, a bit warmer anyway! So - If you missed out today, I'll see you tomorrow - at Huskisson Market. See more

14.01.2022 Here's a few of my most recent attempts the first is a lidded box from White Cypress about 18cm tall the second a vase form a piece of roadside accquisition. No 3 is a Huon pine bowl about 18cm in diameter No 4 a similar bowl (slightly bigger) from Ghost Gum. No 5 is also from Ghost Gum, it's about the same diameter. Next is a bowl from Swamp Mahogany about 25 cm diameter. No 7 is a Cremation Urn turned from Silky Oak with some Resin inclusions, it stands almost 30cm tall and... has a capacity of close to 3 Litres. No 8 is the jewel in the crown, my "Unzippered Cylinder" turned from Huon Pine (did you know that those trees {which aren't actually Pine at all} don't reach sexual maturity until they are 600 to 800 years old!) and took a lot of work and was my third attempt. No 9 is another Cremation Urn, not as big as the first but stands taller at 35cm (due to the ridiculous stopper) but only holds about 2 litres. More soon See more

10.01.2022 Some weeks ago I was given a stump and root ball of an old Cherry tree by Dick at Bundanoon. Last week I decided to trim the root ball and mount it to a Faceplate and get it on the lathe - see the first two pictures. Well, it took a lot of very slow and painstaking work (I was always afraid of it flying apart on the lathe!) but I have now the finished piece. I've taken a few shots of it because it presents different aspects of itself from every angle - more so than most piece...s I have turned. I have spent a total of 16 hours turning this bowl and could have spent more getting the walls thinner but I was scared rigid of damaging the bowl. What do you think? BTW, the banana is just there to give an idea of scale! More soon

07.01.2022 Here's a few of my latest, I have given up trying to give you multiple angles of the same item. This new system of FaceBooks' makes it far too difficult. So I'm afraid that you'll have to make do with just one shot of each. Just to try to make things a bit easier for you, they are all sitting on the same post in my front garden and the post is about 6" (150mm) diameter! The first three bowls are all turned from Yellow Box (I hope!). I say that because I'm not sure and the blo...ke I got the wood from isn't sure either! There is a chance that it is Osage Orange, I'm not prepared to put my house on either of them! The next (#4) is a footed bowl, a style I rarely turn, and I don't know what the timber is in that one. It did turn very nicely and took a nice finish, beautiful figuring in the grain. #'s 5 and 6 have stories to them. My son has a full-time employee, a lovely Vietnamese lady and she had a couple of old, dying, trees in her back garden. One, was an Olive tree and the other was a source of some confusion. Due to her, relatively, poor English, we kept getting from her that it was a "Logan" tree- "produces a berry" she said. Now you know, and I know, that the LoganBerry grows on a vine or bush. Any hoo, I finally worked it out that it was a Longan tree which produces a fruit similar to a Lychee. So------ #5 is turned from Longan wood. The same lady mentioned that as she walked from the railway station (By The Way [BTW] trains have wheels and engines and carriages, they DON'T have stations!!!) she noticed a log sitting on the grass verge, she tried to pick it up and carry it but she had too much with her bags and couldn't manage it that day. She brought it in the next day and #6 is turned from that log. It turned out (sorry, unintentional pun) to be either Fir or Spruce, and finished up quite nicely. More soon:- See more

07.01.2022 I'll be there - will you?

07.01.2022 Since Christmas I have been busy adding to my stock, ready for the markets to kick off again in February. So, to that end, here are my latest:- The first is three shots of a River Red Gum Fruit Bowl, about 10" diameter and 4" deep - just love River Red! Followed by four photos of the other half of the LiquidAmbar log that I showed in the last post. That bowl I turned with a 'live' edge, for this I turned the blank and turned it conventionally - which left a crack in the side ...of the bowl! Original, but still there! So I laced the crack with Kangaroo Rawhide. If you soak the rawhide in water - to make it pliable - and then do the lacing, as it dries out it shrinks, tending to pull the sides of the crack together. The next three shots are of a lidded box in northern Red Cedar which - due to the use of my BowlSaver - came out of the large Cedar bowl I posted last week, it turned out quite well? Lucky last - for this post anyway - are three photos of a vase turned from Yellow Boxwood. This piece was turned about five (count them!) five different axes. It's about 9" tall with a diameter of around 4-5" More soon See more

06.01.2022 Yet another week, yet another post. However, this time I have changed things up a little. I have been told that my photos are too 'noisy', there is too much going on in the background. As you can see, this selection is far 'quieter'. Nothing at all in the background except a piece of white board. Your opinions please! The first three photos show a vase which I have turned from Camphor Laurel, you can see that I have placed a ruler in the foreground so that you can get an ide...a of the size (this will be standard practice from here in!). The next three are of a smaller vase which is turned from Huon Pine (and I don't have much left!), it was an experiment which, although 'nice enough', didn't work out quite as I anticipated and hoped. In my next post you will see more of the effect I was trying to achieve. The next three are of a bowl I turned just this morning and I don't know what the timber is!!!! I was given a four foot length of it by an old friend some time ago and he couldn't remember what it was. It looks and turns like some sort of Eucalypt and it certainly takes a good finish, but what it is - your guess is as good as mine! Finally, the last three are, once again of a Camphor Laurel bowl - salad bowl or fruit bowl, take your pick. There's a lot more to come so wait for the next post. More soon See more

04.01.2022 Bugger me! I've just had the same thing happen again! 9 photos loaded and I was just editing them when Kablowie!!! Fb decided to give up on me and wiped the whole lot. I will try again - I did say in the original post that I had a day of no workshop today. "The Boss" decided she had something more important for me to do and so, like a good little muppet, I did as I was asked! However, over the past few days I have been snapping a few of the bowls I haven't shown yet, some of ...which have been in the works for weeks; so here goes. The first three bowls come courtesy of a couple in Bundanoon who approached me one Sunday at the Bundy Market and said they had some wood at their place and invited me out to have a look. 100 acres of looking later, I came home with some River Ash and some Black Pine. The first of the bowls is from the River Ash, some nice spalting in the sapwood and a bit of a split (sorted!) it's about 7" tall. The second is from the Black Pine with some beautiful colouring throughout the timber, it was very we when I got the timber and it has taken some time (and judicial microwaving) to get it dry enough to 1/ not fly apart on the lathe and 2/ not split once worked. This bowl is around 10" diameter. The third is a biggy! In fact the last bowl came from the centre of this one courtesy of the 'Bowl Saver'. It is about 16" in diameter and 9" tall and I was packing it all through the turning; afraid that it would throw off and either demolish itself or me in the process. The last bowl is another BIG bowl! About 2" larger than the last in diameter and 1" shorter, it weighs four times more than the last. It is turned from Beefwood and it is a bugger to turn. The shavings come off almost like red dust and the damned stuff gets everywhere! You may remember a few weeks ago I showed another Beefwood bowl (with turquoise inlay in the rim), That bowl came from the centre of this one, once again courtesy of the bowl Saver. I must say I am getting much more comfortable with that device the more I use it (not surprising really huh?). More soon See more

04.01.2022 Here are some of the latest, featuring (If I may say) some of the most beautiful River Red I have turned to date! The first is a bowl from Swamp Mahogany (Euc. Robusta) which was riven with radial splits. The worst of them I have filled with red coloured resin. Second and third are of a lidded box or small urn turned from River Red Gum (Euc. Camaldulensis) and I think that it is close to being the most beautiful piece of timber I have ever seen, the flame in that wood is asto...unding! Fourth is an experiment I have tried with Red Ironbark (Euc. sideroxylon) and the bark is on the bottom of the bowl (it's sitting on a pedestal which you can't see in this photo), so the bowl itself is in the heartwood and the bark hangs down like a shawl. I'm not sure whether it works or not? Then there is a raised bowl out of Silky Oak (You all know what the Latin name is for that!), followed by a bowl from some newly acquired timber (and now I can't remember its' name, it's similar to Gidgee-----------aahhhhhh it will come to me soon!) Got it! It's Brigalow (Acacia harpophylla), nice wood to turn, not as hard as Gidgee thank God! The last bowl in the series is yet another of the fabulousness (is that even a word?) of River Red, the movement and colour in the grain is just out of this world. More soon See more

04.01.2022 Well here we go, and before I say anything more I would like to wish everyone who reads this ( all two of you!) a very Happy and Prosperous New Year! 2020 is DONE! 2021 is now here and I'm sorry to say that I think it will be every bit as bad as last year. I don't think we'll be out of this 'til early 2023!... Having brought everyone done to earth - with a bump! Last week I decided to do an audit of my stock and my sales and to my surprise realised that I have sold over 350 pieces all up! Of course, having sold so many, I now have to replace them with new stock, and to that end :- The first two of these photos are of a Red Cedar bowl with some beautiful figuring in the grain, the gashes you can see are natural splits in the timber, the bowl is about 12" diameter and 8" deep. The second two are of another bowl? turned from a part of an Olive tree root ball, it's about 6" tall and about 10" diameter (roughly!) and has some wonderful colour and variation in the grain.. Next we have a large bowl turned from Yellow Boxwood, it's about 13" diameter and 4" deep. I like Yellow Box but although the timber is perfectly seasoned, it has a tendency to crack. Following that there is another large bowl from the all-time favourite (it's the one wood that the majority of the punters seem to recognise!) Camphor Laurel. It is approx 13" diameter and 8" deep and, because I used the BowlSaver in turning it, right after is the smaller bowl that came out of the middle! It is only about 8" diameter and maybe 2" deep. The lucky last is a medium sized, live edge bowl which I have turned from a log of Liquidambar (Known as Sweetgum in the US) which was heavily spalted. It is about 9" diameter and the depth varies from 1" to 4". And that's the lot for this week! I will be house sitting next week so - NO Turning! And that will be hard for me! More soon

03.01.2022 With all of this 'Lock In' (!) and 'Social Distancing" going on, I have found a lot more time to play over the past couple of weeks. The following photos show some of the things I have been playing with! The first two are of a Silky Oak bowl which is about 9" x 8" high. It had a bark inclusion which fell out in turning (as they sometimes can!) leaving a bit of a gap, so I sewed it up using leather thonging. I'm not really happy with the finished look as I think it may look be...tter with Rawhide thonging, that would allow me to sew it wet and it would tighten as it dried - we'll see! The next two are from a timber that I can't identify, it is VERY dense and heavy but very nice and silky to turn. I have a feeling it may be Brigalow, but I need to check it out. Nos 5 and 6 are of a lidded pot I turned from some Blackwood that I acquired from Fitzroy Falls. When it's green it turns very nicely but once it dries out it is a bugger! The lucky last is another Silky Oak project, with the deep cuts I tried to outline the inner shape of the bowl (basically a cylinder) while maintaining the outer shape of the bowl. I think (I hope!) I have succeeded. More soon See more

02.01.2022 I originally started this page (and Illawarra Woodies!) with the express intention to have other people post up their own work in wood as well as all of my own. IT WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE SIMPLY TO BE AN OUTLET FOR MY WORK BUT SOMEWHERE THAT WOODWORKERS OF THE ILLAWARRA COULD SHOW OFF THEIR WORK. It hasn't worked!... I must have been doing this for a year at least now and in that time I think there has been only one who has shown anything at all. I don't care if it's not woodturning! If it's a Coffee Table, a Lamp Stand, work bench or a kitchen Trivet, let us see it! I know that my work isn't perfect, if you look really closely and you know what to look for, there are all sorts of errors in my turning. In fact, one saturday at the Exeter Market a few months ago, a gentleman came to my stall and I could see by the look on his face that he wasn't very impressed; and I said as much to him. He said that I was right, he wasn't impressed, that my work was "very Agricultural". We got to talking and it turned out that he had published three books on woodturning, had had a commercial woodturning business for forty years and was what I would call a "Craftsman" in every sense of the word. Of course, the next week I went online and bought all of his books - and trust me, there is a huge difference in the work a real craftsman does and what I do! However, I enjoy doing what I do the way I do it! If I were thirty or forty years younger I would gone to sign up for a course with him, but them's the breaks. The point to this diatribe is that I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU ARE MAKING!

01.01.2022 And here are some more - I confess to having been a bit slack over the past few weeks (blame it on covid!) and haven't been posting as often as I should. However I have accumulated a vast amount of stock - thank heavens the markets have started up again! What's more, I have just made my first sale on Etsy, So that might prove to be another way of reducing my stock - Hurrah! The first three of these photos are of a couple of lidded boxes turned from Silky Oak, No 4 is another of my 'Zipped' series, this one is in Quandong. No 5 and 6 are a vase turned from Ghost Gum (I knew my son would be useful for something!) and Nos 7 and 8 are of a Yarn bowl from the same wood. Nos 9 and 10 are of a bowl turned from White Cypress, I think it came out alright! More soon

01.01.2022 Some more recent turnings> More soon