A hand Awl

 

On the right are two images of a hand awl I recently made from an unknown species of wood.  It has a sharp steel point, a brass ferrule, and two pieces of leather on the end glued to a post I made during the turning process.  You can see the post and the surrounding leather on the bottom image,

The purpose of an awl in woodworking is to start a hole to be drilled, scratch a line to be sawn, or any other type marking use.  An awl can be used for the same types of actions in leatherwork.

I sanded the wood to 400 grit and contoured the leather with sandpaper and a rasp.  I finished the leather with a leather preservative I buy from Pecord's in Wisconsin, and I used the Walnut oil / Bees wax paste that I outlined in an earlier post.  I gave both the wood and the leather three coats of their respective preservative.

        

Pray for Ukraine

 

How I finish most projects

Most of the time I finish my projects using a very simple formula that I make myself.  It is composed of Walnut oil and bees wax.  I melt bees wax into hot Walnut oil and let it cool.  You can see in the picture that it becomes a semi-thick paste.  I simply wipe it on and let it dry, then I buff it with a soft cloth.  Usually I put on three coats allowing them to dry in between applications.  

When I am turning wood on my lathe I apply the paste to the wood and rub it in while the lathe is turning.  This is like a friction polish; the heat from the turning lathe helps the wax get deeper into the wood than if you simply rub it on a static surface.  

Walnut oil is food safe even for people with nut allergies.  The processing of the raw nut oil removes whatever the contents that cause allergies.  Another feature of Walnut oil is that it is a drying oil; it actually dries and hardens in the top layers of the wood.  There are other drying oils, but Walnut oil is among the fastest.  Additionally, it does not change the color of the wood as other oils can do.

Every so often I simply apply another coat and rub it in and buff it to a new shine.

I get the oil from the grocery store and the bees wax from Amazon.  You can look up many recipes on the web.  

Old rusty chisel made new

On the right is an old chisel that belonged to my dad.  The handle was missing and the tool itself was very rusted.  I cleaned off the rust, sharpened it, and polished it,  I put on a new ferrule (the brass part), and turned a new handle.   

The wood is Bocote from South America.  Before I turned it I randomly drilled twenty or so holes in the wood.  Then I glued Bamboo skewers into each hole.  When the glue set I sniped off the portions of the skewers that were sticking out of the wood blank.  If you zoom in you can see white circles scattered around the chisel.  They serve no purpose, but make for an interesting look.

My blog, third try.

Welcome to my new blog.  I have two other blogs from a dozen years ago that you are free to visit; they are fishingforparis.blogspot.com and randersonwood.wordpress.com

This is going to be primarily my woodworking blog, but I may occasionally post other items.  Please comment on any of the posts and I will respond to you.

Thank you for visiting,

Richard