Let's turn this large horse chestnut bird into something very cool
Using my trusted Z5min epoxy resin to secure this onto my waste block
It is fast, it is efficient and it rarely fails. But before we put this on the lathe, let's trim all those sharp corners
and this was pretty much maxing out my bed saw cutting capacity
but look at all those figuring in the wood and this is why i absolutely love working with any
kind of birds they just a different level so the idea behind this project i somehow wanted to retain
this live edge. And I have done similar projects where the live edge was on the
outside of the project but in this case I wanted the live edge to remain on the
inside of the project but to do so obviously I will need to cut this in some
epoxy resin. But before I can do that I need to turn this nice and round to the
right size so it will fit into my designated mould. It was definitely very much off balance, but luckily I have a big beefy late and it handled
this piece just fine. But just to be on a safe side, I'm not turning this piece very fast, running the late about
400 rpm and when you turn on a lower rpm you usually get a lot more tear outs in the boots
especially if your wood is a little bit on the softer side and definitely this horse chestnut
was a little bit punky and it cost some tear outs that we're gonna take care of once it's all casted
resin. Once I reach the desired size I can then move on and cleaning off some of
the loose piece including some of the bark inclusions and anything that
potentially could weaken the bond between the wood and resin And this extra step will help to increase the longevity of this project since wood will continue to
react to different seasons, to different moisture, humidity around the air, and we
want that bond between resin and wood to be as strong as possible so it can cope
with all those elements. Once it is all clean, ready to come off from the lathe and ready to go inside our mould
And I'm only using some cheap grey soil or water or ducting pipe, whatever we want to
call it, but works extremely well and we already have a round shape so eventually when I will
put this back on the light it will be nice and easy to turn. Time to mix up some epoxy resin. I do
like to use this little sparkly pigment. It just creates a really nice effect in the end project
A lot of people mistakenly think these are tiny air bubbles in the end project and since I always
use my pressure pots it's very less likely I can end up with any air bubbles in my project so they
normally see all those little sparkly pigments in my projects and they associate that's probably
air bubbles but no yeah you see a lot of air bubbles in this shot however once it all comes
out of the pressure pots there will be no air bubbles and after a few days of curing it was
ready to come out from the pressure pot and i normally leave at least a week just to sit on
side further hardening then it is ready to go on a lathe
In this case I haven't used any mode release and as you can see it pops off
very easily no efforts since we have a very nice and smooth surface on the
inside of this plastic tube resin can't really stick to it. And then it is ready
to go back on the lathe and turn it into the desired shape. As you can see since we're using
the initial waste block there is very little side movements, what will make my life a lot easier
And as I mention this every single time I using my negative rake carbide bits what works extremely well on epoxy resin No chip outs and cuts like butter
look at all those nice ribbons flying off the lathe
And a little sneak peek, we are getting down to the bare wood
when you have a blank this size this shape there are endless possibilities in terms of how you're
going to shape it and what sort of shape you want to achieve i've done similar shapes before and
i would say probably one of my favorite shape when it comes to vases it just has a nice curvatures
and allows the live edge on the inside to be still visible
However, it does not have very sharp edges. And once I'm happy how the outside shaped I can just move on to my negative rake scraper
or skew chisel and just smooth out all those tool marks left by the negative rake scraper bit
This step will massively help when I move over to sanding since the less tool marks I have caused
by the chisel the less sanding I need to do However as I mentioned before this wood was a bit soft a little bit punky and the chisels did cause some tear outs but nothing what a layer sanding can resolve And once I have the outside sanded all
the way up to 120 grit then I can move and work on the inside of the project. So I wanted this
project to be a beautiful standalone display piece however I also want it to have some sort
of functionality and to achieve that I won't be fully hollowing the inside, this also helps to
retain most of the live edge and I only drill them all in the middle which then will accommodate
a nice glass tube so can be used for dried flowers but potentially for normal flowers as
well with a bit of water. Then I can go back and continue sanding. Since it will get a clear gloss
lacquer finish I will dry sand about up to 600 grit and then I will take over with some wet sanding
and take it all the way up to 2000 grit. Then it's time to apply our finish
I normally apply a minimum of three coats, then I will just assess the piece whether it
needs more coats or if I'm happy with the final finish. I usually let the laqueur to cure for a good 24-48 hours then it is ready to go back on the
late to remove from the waste block and just like that pops off and then I can move on to
the finishing touches drilling out the hole for my branding emblems move over to do some
finishing sanding at the bottom and then we are ready to brand this project as well
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Thank you