A day in Exeter

This blog started with a trip to Exeter, and yesterday was another. The ladies were shopping, but I had other plans. I was hoping to visit St. Nicholas Priory again, but it was closed. You can see photos of it on my very first blog post.

I had to settle for another look at the guild hall.

The door was made by an Exeter joiner named Nicholas Baggett; he was paid £4 10s for his work in 1594.

I'm going to focus here on the door. It is one of several similar doors in the Exeter area.

Walking up the hill from St. Nicholas to the guild hall, there is St. Olaves church.

An angel therein.

A tudor rose on the font.

Also on the font.

Another good day for oiling

Another good day for oiling. Inside today, because the rain that has been threatening for weeks, finally came, all at once! I was loving the ebonised oak bowls the other day, but this darkened, oiled ash gives the oak a run for it's money. Look away if you don't like gratuitous pictures of oiled up texture on bowls.

I will post photos of the whole bowls when I find a camera that is big enough.

A good day for oiling

Today was a good day for oiling. The sky was glowering and threatening rain. It's been very dry here during the early summer, so any rain is a godsend.  It will fall on Dartmoor, and slowly make it's way into the Dart. Dart means oak river and once it's passed through the peat it takes on it's dark colour. These bowls are made from trees that grow near the Dart, they take it's colour.

So, there has been a lot of finishing of bowls going on this week. The bowl horse came galloping into action.

I will be opening up my workshop as part of the Devon Open Studios 9-23 September. Come and see these bowls and others, furniture and lots of other carving.

Pillar bases

 I've made a few steps forward with the pillars. They have been waiting patiently for bases for a while.

Unlike the capitals (totally carved), I started by trying to turn the bases. I soon realised that the orientation of their grain would not allow me to do this, so ended up carving them also. It did make me think how to make a round form without a lathe.

 

This arrangement worked well, allowing the base to be turned around while sawing to depth, chiselling and subsequently gouging to finish. It's easy to loosen and tighten the bench screw with your mallet hand to move the base between strikes. The holdfasts keeping it all solid.

 

 

It's glacial pace with this, but as usual, lots of other things to take up time; some much bigger pillars on the cards this week!

A round tuit

I've always wanted to make a round tuit, but maybe I never will. I think this bowl probably thought it had been forgotten, gathering dust and cobwebs in the corner. Looks like I did finally get round to it......over 6 years later. 

There's a general rule; don't include the heart of the tree in your bowls. If you do, be prepared for them splitting every which way as they dry, as the forces inside play out. All that time ago, I was playing with that rule, by deliberately including heart in several bowls. After roughing out, I was boiling the bowls to combat that splitting, with varying degrees of success. One thing I do know; I wish I had given this bowl some final surface treatment before I had abandoned it to the spiders; it's iron hard now. It's a good job my gouges are sharp.

A previous solution for cracks with bronze.

Some convex texture. Rough AND smooth. Yum yum.

 

Working the burghages

Totnes high street has a LOT of half timber-frame houses; timber frames between dividing masonry walls. Mostly built on burghage plots; long strips stretching back from the street, often making the houses one room, or one room and a passage wide. Last week I was working on Bogan House, a grade 1 listed building, which houses the Totnes Fashion and Textiles Museum. There is a programme of works to conserve and repair, which has been undergoing for some time now. The front elevation has had it's hanging tiles removed, to be re-hung. Other craftsman have repaired the frame.

Here is a glimpse of the internal plasterwork. 

 

The burghage plots started off with living quarters at the front, and a separate kitchen block, some distance to reduce fire risk. Over time the gaps were filled in, creating narrow courtyards, as we see here.

The framing on the front of the building was replaced in Victorian times. Exposed here to re-hang the slates.

Out with the war chest, for some on-site repairs to this doorways' pilasters.

The old mouldings have seen some action, so the new spliced in repairs definitely benefit from hand moulding planes.

Oak repairs.

With mouldings.

Maple chalice

 Variations on a theme. Sea monster chalice in field maple.

And the sea monster shoal together.