lilac wood

Wood carving: lilac wood hair pin

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I am actually not sure I would even call making this hair pin “carving”! I used the natural shape of the piece of wood, and just sort of whittled away a bit. The wood was already very close to the size needed.

I didn’t take a “before” picture, but you can see what the branch I’d cut the piece from in this photo.

It’s being grasped by Nicco. :-)

Though the wood is from a branch that broke off in a storm more than 6 months ago, the bark was surprisingly green as I whittled it off. I think the humidity in the basement might actually have something to do with that.

Here is the finished hair pin, before oiling.

I cut the piece above where it branched off, to take advantage of the angled shape. You can see near the point, where there had been another bit of twig growing out.

I used the Dremel and the engraving tip to create the holes, so my daughter can use them to hang dangle-y bits. The natural hole at the end was where another twig had been growing out, and I included it, without trying to sand out the roughness, just for interest.

The tiny knots from the twigs where the only thing that made it more difficult to work on.

After general shaping with a carving knife, I used the tiny engraving tip on the Dremel to make the holes, and a small drum sander tip to get into the bends, where it was more difficult to safely get into with a knife. After that, it was must a matter of sanding it smooth.

Here is how it looked after oiling.

I love how the oil brings out the details in the rings.

The whole thing, including time spent playing with kittens instead, took about 2 hours.

My daughter loves it!

I’m really happy with how this turned out, and how quick it was to make! I hadn’t thought of making hair pins (which can also be used as shawl pins), but they are prefect for some of the smaller pieces of branches. I think I’ll be making more of these!

The Re-Farmer

More Lilac Wood, in progress

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Our windy day continues! While we have a few millimeters of rain predicted for this evening, as I type this, I am hearing thunder rolling, and just saw a flash of lightning out my window!

Here’s hoping we don’t loose power while I’m working on this post! :-D

I have continued working on the section of lilac wood I’d experimented on earlier. I decided to try using the cutting tool on my Dremel to make the job go faster – if the Dremel was quiet enough not to disturb Beep Beep and her babies too much.

It was quiet enough, but… there were other issues.

The Dremel I have is not a particularly powerful one. Just a Walmart cheepie, really. Lilac is a surprisingly hard wood, and it was just too much for it!

I ended up stopping part way through my attempt to cut through the wood and finished with a hand saw.

You can see where the friction actually “burned” the wood as the blade ground to a halt!

So I did the rest using a carpenter’s saw, cutting the piece into slices. It took a while, but I eventually got into the rhythm of it, and things went fairly quickly. I cut slices off until I had exactly 3 1/2 inches left – the width of my miter box – to try something different.

It fit just right, and I was able to cut the piece into 4 lengthwise sections. Not as evenly as I would have liked, since it kept trying to roll on me, but that just adds to the interest!

Here are all the pieces I got out of the section of lilac wood.

I really like how the length wise cuts look.

Also… do you notice something about the pieces?

The next step was to take a wire brush to the edges to remove loose bits of bark and clean off any debris. As I worked, I kept noticing a soft spot in the middle of the slices. I finally stopped to take a closer look, and it turned out every round piece had it, as did the centre lengthwise cut.

I used a non-metal brush on them, and eventually decided to just poke at it with a very small screwdriver.

It was basically just wood dust and came right out.

So I cleaned out every disk. Some were small enough that I had to use a wire to clear them out, but every single disk now has a hole in the centre!

I was even able to use the wire to push through the centre cut piece, then use a brush to clean up the open section.

Oh! That was a quick little storm, and I noticed some crazy orange light outside. I just dashed out to see a gorgeous double rainbow!

Also, I got rained on. *shiver*

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes.

Tomorrow, I hope to be able to get back to these and start sanding them smooth and giving them a light coat of oil.

I’m still not sure what I’ll be doing with them, but they’re going to look very pretty when they’re done.

Since all of these had the holes in them, I double checked the first two I’d done, so see if they had that soft spot, too. They did. Barely big enough to use a sewing needle to clean them out. So those two pieces now have tiny holes through them, too. The colourful rings in one of them looks very much like an eye, and now the “pupil” has a tiny hole you can see though. It’s kinda like those “fairy stones” you find at the beach, with natural holes in them. :-)

I like it!

For the size if these, I’m thinking they might make nice pendants. The rings of colour are so dramatic, I feel doing anything more than sanding and oiling them is unnecessary. A possible exception would be to perhaps put a glass bead or something like that into the ones with the larger holes.

What do you think?

The Re-Farmer

Lilac wood

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A storm last year damaged a lot of trees and bushes around the yard, including breaking off a large piece of a double lilac my mother planted in the little garden by the old kitchen. Noticing the beautiful pattern in the wood, I set the pieces aside for later.

Today was “later.” :-D

I brought one of the branches into the basement to work on it (I am really enjoying having this work space!!!) and started by cutting various sections off, then working on the thickest “trunk” part of it.

What striking colours!

The photo on the left is the base, where it had broken off in the storm, and I had cut off the split part. The one on the right is where I’d cut a pair of branches off.

That’s the end I decided to cut a couple of slices off.

With Beep Beep and the kittens nearby, I didn’t want to use any power tools, even though I now have a Dremel with steel cutting blades that would be perfect for the job. It’s way too loud.

Lilac wood, I am discovering, is a surprisingly hard wood! It may have been quieter, but it was a lot longer to do it by hand.

Since I’m just experimenting right now, I only cut two slices, then used a brush on the edges to take off any dirt or loose bits of bark.

Then I sanded them smooth. Here’s how they looked, after I finished with the finest grit of sandpaper I have.

Then I applied a light coat of mineral oil.

I am really happy with how these look! Those purple rings are really something.

The next question is, what do I make with them?

The Re-Farmer