I’ve had this half-rotten birch log sitting in the shed for years. I found it in a pile in the church yard next door. Though I’d have a go at making something of it for a change from the usual perfect bowls. After a few false starts trying different ways of mounting it eventually settled…
Labradorite triplet After making lots of rings, I wanted to create something big and more involved, little did I know this would turn out to be such an epic project. Matching set of three pieces, including a 9 stone flexible bracelet, ring and pendant. I bought a set of Labradorite cabochon stones from Dhorgems with…
Nice copper ritual quartz stone, set with the point up and a slightly offset connection to the ring. This one was given to Mum for her birthday. Update: I was asked to resize the ring to make it slightly bigger, while re-soldering the ring, the stone became overheated and the copper turned dark grey and…
It’s been a productive last quarter of 2015. 7 rings finished. Now if I can just persuade Jules to let me give a few away…
Nice ring made from a piece of drusy quartz, very sparkly. This one was given to Becky for Christmas.
Two matching rings made using stones we bought while in Oman on holiday in a market. The backs are pierced out into E & D’s initials. Christmas presents 2015
A small bowl to keep jewellery in, turned out of an old piece of yew, one of the last pieces from Dad’s stock. After Jules lost her engagement and wedding ring because the cat knocked it off the dresser, and it fell into the jumper drawer, it took days to find. Hopefully, keeping them in…
Particularly liked the way this one turned out. The ring has a nice curve to the corners and wears really nicely. The peacock coloured pearl reflects in the bowl of the silver flower. I did two variations, the second one thicker with a hammered texture finish. The thin one went to Nadia for Christmas, while…
Latest project combining 3D printing with Jewelry to create a ring that mirrors the crystal structure of the quartz rosette stone. designed in 3D CAD and printed in wax before being lost wax cast in silver, then having the stone prong set. The initial ring shape was modelled in 3DSMax using low-poly editing and mesh…
This was a tough challenge in precision soldering, getting all the corners to solder without the previous joins overheating and falling apart. Couldn’t quite find a way to solder the last joint without damaging the stone. Tried heatproof gel but still couldn’t get it right. Then I accidentally dropped the stone, and the corner snapped…
This is another crazy ring. Many weeks of pondering how I was going to mount this one, and after being egged on by Kate to go for the more interesting option decided to mount it on edge. Used my favourite squared off outside ring design with a small spacer to lift the stone clear of…
Finally got round to fixing this project after 15 years! I had turned a pair of grinders on dads lathe some 15 years ago but I never liked the salt grinder. The pepper one looked lovely, nice balanced curves and I tried to do something different with the salt but it just looked kind of…
Quick bit of background… Jimmy C contacted us to see if we were interested in collaborating on a project. After an initial chat we came up with a couple of ideas, one of which was to try and recreate version of Jimmy’s painting style in realtime so that individuals could see themselves transformed. I spent…
I had been meaning to make a proper woodworking bench for years. So after lots of research and finding some good instructions on Instructables, I finally started. Had a hairy moment trying to balance the large sheet of plywood on top of the car, but managed to drive slowly home. First had to make a…
Bowl turned from a square blank rather than the usual round ones. Managed to get a nice rolled rim just in the pointy corners. Had to be very careful of all those spinning pointy corners and not lose a finger. Nice bit of gum burr, full of interesting knots and inclusions. Rather proud of this…
This was an epic project. Both a large hammered anticlastic cuff and several ritualised quartz cabochons on raised pedestals, like mushrooms. This was kind of inspired by several different cuff images online and a bit of experimentation and like most of my projects, just seeing where the flow of doing takes it. First, I formed…
Finally got around to setting this triangular larimar stone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larimar picked up in a little rock shop in Highcliff, near Bournemouth.
So my contribution to this project asides from coming up with the creative/technical idea and helping win it, was to code the image processing part. But I get ahead of myself… We were approached by Westfield about a 3D scanning project for Mr Porter clothing range. After the first meeting, we persuaded them it would…
So far one of my favourite rings. This one has a beautiful minimalism. The large ritualized Quartz crystal is held in tension across the middle. Bit of a gamble on the design, all through making it I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did. The stone just squeezes in between the prongs. I roughed…
Here are a few pieced made while experimenting with piping silver clay. The pendant is formed around a large 12mm cubic zirconia stone, this was placed in the center of a ball of cork clay, left to harden. Then had the silver clay extruded from a syringe into the pattern on the surface. Once hardened…
2nd one of the set, this one for Dest for her 9th birthday. Did a better job of getting the grain to line up on this one (must be learning something). But left the wood on the lathe too long between sessions and the two parts warped ever so slightly so the lid goes on…
2nd Moshi Monster pendant – Katsuma, this one for Ellie. See the first Moshi pendant for a description of how it was made, the abridged version is: design in 3D CAD (3DSMax), 3D printing (Form1), mould making, wax poring, lost wax casting (Weston Bemor), clean-up, sanding, polishing, set two turquoise stones for the eyes, hang…
Perhaps a little bling for my first project for me? I must have been feeling a little flamboyant when I dreamt these up. Probably one of the longest labor project to date, somewhere around the 8 hour mark I reckon. Making up all the silver parts took ages, cutting to size, bending the sides, soldering…
First experiment with metal clay. For anyone who doesn’t know what this is, its pure silver that looks like clay, molds like clay, then hardens. When heated with a flame it melts into a solid chunk of silver, like magic! Shaping the letters was pretty easy, but I felt the pressure not to waste any…
Beautiful piece of wood with great stress rippling in the grain that catches the light. Probably the largest piece I’ve turned to date, about 40cm across. Danish oil finish for use with food.
Nice simple pendant with a beautiful lace agate stone form a great site online which sells the most amazing stones. First attempt was a bit of a rush, I tried using a thin 0.3mm silver strip to mount the stone but it was just too flimsy so I started again. The next attempt I did…
This was probably my trickiest ring to date. Inspired by a design I spotted online. Building the claw setting holder from individual tiny pieces of silver was very fiddly and took a couple of goes to get the soldering sequence right. First time the prongs all fell apart when adding the last prong because of…
First chopping board project, inspired by a similar picture online. Uses ash and walnut wood, had to use a bit of maths to calculate the right thicknesses so that they looked right and shrank with the same perspective as the central river. First cut the thicknesses, had to use a band-saw as I didn’t yet…
Huge cubic zirconia rock, with a rub over setting. went for a brushed finish to offset the blinginess of the stone. Julie got this for valentines day 2014, disguised inside a kinder egg. E&D got the chocolate which they thought was great.
A wooden box made from English Yew. The wood had a nice shimmering grain and mirror smooth finish. Learnt a lot about the technical aspects of turning a box, like getting the grain to match on the lid and base and getting the diameters the same. This one was give to Ellie for Christmas 2013…
For some strange reason the girls nicknamed this the surfboard ring. I think it looks more like a flower or perhaps a bit Scifi. Ether way it was probably my most technical yet. Some nice radiating, hammered texture on the large leaf. Green amethyst trillion stone.
First attempt at a tension setting, The Ametrine crystal is tension held between the corners of the silver square. Was quite tricky getting the dimensions right so that when held it formed a square (or near enough)
This was my first attempt at producing a piece using casting. This was based on Destiny’s Poppet moshi The original shape was designed in 3D CAD using 3DSMax, extrapolating from the 2D reference image. Then printed out on a Form 1 3D printer (thanks Andy Millns) this plastic model was then sent to Weston Beamor to…
This was my first attempt at something a bit bigger and blingier. Found a nice piece of horse hair or ritualized quartz at Holts in Hatton Garden (thanks Jason for the discount). Couldn’t quite get enough pressure on the prongs to hold the stone still but it still looks good. Jules has even worn it…
Started a Silversmithing evening class at Arts University Bournemouth Some pictures of my first learning pieces, assorted rings, with sapphire, amber, agate and Lapis lazuli stones. Practising cutting, soldering, polishing, rub over cabochon settings. Mum had the sapphire one for her birthday in 2013.
My attempt at making a new, longer lasting, garden table. After extensive research looking at various pub gardens and cafe out doors furniture, I narrowed down the design and mocked up a version in 3D to get the proportions right. Ordered the 8 oak sleepers from a local company without quite appreciating how big and…
My first experiment with long exposure star trails photography. Pointing north towards the centre of the earths spin. these beautiful images really bring home the fact that we live on a rotating rock in space. After seeing these types of images online I decided to try and capture one myself and so began a long…
A photo capturing the wood shavings generated when turning. well, ok, its a little bit of a cheat, this is actual three photos stacked and blended together to enhance the amount of shavings in the air. They were taken with self timer and long enough exposure the get some motion blur and flash at the…
So the challenge here was to turn a wooden bowl from common old plywood, with the added difficulty of angling the slices for a more interesting effect. first cut circles, then slice some in half to get the ends angled, improvise a press to glue them all together. Then turn very carefully so as not…
Real objects spun through time. Photos are made by taking thousands of pictures of a slowly rotating object, cropping the same single horisontal line of pixels from each photo then stacking each line on top of the other to produce a new picture. The finished pictures look real, with shadows and organic detail, yet improbably…
So after plenty of pondering I’ve finally decided to try and port my old website to a ‘modern’ CMS system. Hopefully it will be simpler to update the content. I’ve gone for WordPress and after installing some plugins and fiddling with the settings I think I can get it to look how I want. Only…