No tool rest, no lathe tools ... no problem!

I made it through to about 4:15 on this video before suddenly feeling the need to take shelter behind armoured glass. The number of times the chisel catches gives a few clues about why strapping blocks of wood to really fast motors and then freehanding them with random tools you had laying about might be a bad idea.

Pilesofplenty, the creative mind behind this attempt, is upfront about this not being safe. Citing "wanting to find out if woodturning was something he would enjoy" as motivation, I feel this demonstration is a big vote in favour of asking your buddy who has a lathe if you can come over on Saturday afternoon.

By 8:10 we get to the roughing gouge with no handle and well .. yeah. I wonder if there is a sequel to this.

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Ballistol for Rust Removal

One of the many claims made on the back of the ballistol can is its ability to dissolve rust. Here are before and after photos of a rusted spanner head sprayed with a generous coat of ballistol and left for about an hour. The ballistol was then dried off using a paper towel. This product continues to give pleasing results and I think warrants use on many rusted tools where it may be tempting to apply a wire wheel (potentially disfiguring engraving you didn't realise was there in the first place).

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Ebonizing Timber: Can you ebonize bamboo?

Apparently not, at least not with the rust+vinegar method. In both photos, the piece of bamboo on the left is the control sample (original state), the piece on the right has been soaked overnight in ebonizing solution - virtually no change took place. If you have had success with another method please share it via comments! One of the things I like about the ebonizing process is that you get a pretty fair indication of how reactive the timber is within a few minutes. Any timber that gets noticeably darker after a quick brush with ebonizing solution is going to go very dark with a thorough soaking or repeated brush applications. Wishing you a productive weekend...

Making your own lathe

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