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Ryan Hartley / ライアン ハートリ
Bowls/椀
Bowls/椀
Woodwork/大工仕事
Bowls/椀
Double underhang purpleheart bowl / ダブルアンダーハングパープルハートボウル
I like to jump in at the deep end. So starting out on the lathe why not choose two difficult factors - one the world`s hardest woods plus two underhangs (the end of the chisel seems to disappear into a 100mph darkness. It is still my favourite project.
Deep underhang bowl made of boire / ボワールボウル
This one was a new project idea - a deep large bowl. Im turning on my dads mini lathe so there are limits to size. Plus this beautiful biore wood wasnt available in deep levels. So had to glue up to blanks. This actually resulted very well as the gains bottom to top go in opposite directions and its looks lovely.
Underlip bowl made of columbian kingwood / コロンビアのキングウッドボウル
One the major features I love in turning in undercutting; undercuts, underhangs, and others. The reason is two fold (1) my love of Japanese aesthetics and (2) my fear of doing it. I really dont like doing this; my dad too. This hardwood spinning at 100mph and my sharp edge piece of metal is going into a shadow place that I cant see. Its an act of faith that pits man and hand against the invisible and the dangerous.
Off-centre Lebanon cedar bowl / オフセンターレバノンスギボウル
This was a very interesting project. It was cedar; which living in Japan I have a lot of familiarity with. It was from Lebanon, so I could through my fingertips connect to the holy-land of cedar. It was off-centre. meaning learning a tweak to create a bowl area near the edge. It was a little scary as this thing literally swings all over the place. But the centre is the centre and in the end, its basically just ancient ancient geometry.
Japanese oak bowl / 日本のオークボウル
This one was interesting. My local lumberyard had this little boring piece in the corner. Of the many middle brown dully blanks I found this in the corner. It said "Japanese oak". I aaked the guy about it, given its contextual raritude and my own lack of experience with Japanese oak; living in Japan. He explained, it is a rare piece as there used to be lots of oak in Japan exported 1930s but then it all went to WWII. So lots of English cabinet makers have Japanese oak hanging around (while in Japan there is little). The result is a very smooth to cut, long-time air-dried beautiful piece of hardwood.
Sailors bowl / 船乗りボウル
I began wanting to think about how to mix materials: wood and stone, wood and metal, or in this case, wood and rope. It was interesting.
Hinoki segmented bowl / ひのきセグボウル
My favourite wood is Japanese cypress called `hinoki`. It smells lovely and is a lovely pinky yellow colour. I didnt have a large piece for a bowl so tried to make a segmented piece from many small pieces. The result was this.
Utensils/用品
Sake cup set / 酒器
A gift for someone, this three wood set was a challenge that evolved. Spalted beech cups, zebrano bottle, and an ash stand. Originally the goal was to try to make a whole set from one piece of wood but I soon realised I needed more than one cup. Plus it turned out better to have different woods for contrast.
Candle holder / キャンドルホルダー
The challenge here was to bring in some decoration. I normally dont and want the thing to be the thing. So this one combined three different woods but with some silver in strips.
Egg cup, oak / 卵カップ, オーク
This one was about cutting multiple objects from one piece. Quite difficult to make each other the same. But these oak egg cups turned out pretty good.
Beauty bar / ビューティーバー
Pens / ペン
Woodturning pens are their own beast and represent a whole area of lathe work. But these mixtures of woods and resins and multiple pen types mean that you get a nice variety of pens.
Plectrums / ピック
This idea came out of simply using scraps and not wanting to throw things away. So I just cut and buffed up small blocks. Makes lots of mess as the belt sander turns wood into sawdust but these plectrums are a nice little recycling effort.
Salt and pepper shakers / 塩コショウ入れ
First attempt at bringing mechanisms into wood plus wanting to make something that to buy new tends to be strangely expensive, at least in Japan. So I wanted to find a white piece for salt and a black piece for the pepper so these ended up being ash and zebrano. The challenge here was being precise with measurements because the internal grinder mechanism is obviously fixed.
Live edge table/counter/ライブエッジテーブル/カウンター
Castor aralia dining table / ハリギリダイニングテーブル
This one is from a tree native to northeast Asia/Russia - castor araglia. Due to the harsh climate the trees grow sturdy and the grain is a lovely petrol in water swirly pattern. I left as much of the bark and dirt on as possible.
Hinoki coffee table / ひのきコーヒーテーブル
My latest efforts have me moving from the lathe to live edge tables. Live edge or natural edge is my favourite kind of wood product because you can feel the tree in your house. This one is hinoki again and the goal was to fill the room with lovely cypress smell.
River table / リバーテーブル
This is quite popular in woodworking right now. This is like building a table from pieces rather than carving material away. The results can be very impressive (but not mine especially).
Office counter / オフィスカウンタ (Japanese cedar / スギ)
This was the big project of the summer 2020. Live edge table tops are one thing, but this monster was bigger and thicker. I also endeavoured to create the base AND try out a tusked/through tenon. It was tough. But the result is beautiful.
Pots/ポット
Pot (banksia nut) / ポット（バンクシアナッツ）
Banksia nuts seem to be a thing in UK woodworking and for good reason - they are very odd. Wood then fur underneath then pocketed wood again. I wanted to keep the natural `nutty` feeling in this little pot.
Pencil pot, oak / 鉛筆ポット、オーク
The USP for this was a speed test. I needed a pot for the above pens and I wanted to see how fast I could make one. Simple design but done at speed. The result was it not being too bad - 2/3 hours.
Pot, Japanese style (English lime) / ポット、和風（シナノキ属, イングリッシュライム）
This was my attempt to bring in Japanese design. The aesthetic here is to have a simple shape but be deceptively technically difficult. The seamless body/lid is difficult but impressive one done.
The egg / 卵 スポルテッド ブナ
The goal here was pure evolution; no plan or design and just see what the wood wants. And what it wanted was...an egg. Spalted beech with a nice knot in the side, the top is solid so is very heavy compared to the base that is hollowed out. Pretty pleased with this one.
Magic floating top pot, spalted beech / マジックポット、スポルテッド ブナ
This one`s USP is...the magic. Interesting idea to use the lathe to make some illusions. Surprisingly simple, powerfujl effect, and great for using up small pieces of leftover wood.
Pencil pot, lignum vitae / ペンシルポット、リグナムバイタ
Together with the below vase, this little pot is made from lingdum vitae which is possibly my second favourite wood after hinoki. It is quite odd. Extremely hard (used in nuclear submarine propeller shafts) but turns off in powder rather than dust. Very smooth. And has a lovely citrus smell. Plus results in a cool green brown streaky colour.
Pot (Spalted beech resin) / ポット (スポルテッド ブナ樹脂)
`Spalted` simply means fungus is in the wood. This creates a lovely patterning and splitting in the wood. For this one I decided to fill the split with some resin. And as I often do, I tried to bring in some undercut lips at the top too.
Pot (spalted beech) / ポット (スポルテッド ブナ)
Another spalted beech pot, this time with a lid and with the split left open. I left the lid nice a heavy with the inlay at the top. Spalted beech comes up with a nice finish and makes for an interesting pot.
Vase/花瓶
The egg / 卵
Lingdum vitae again but this time on a larger scale. The goal here was deep cutting, making a really big chamber for flowers. The core wood of lingdum is extremely hard and needed a LOT of hacking and drilling to get it all out. But the result is beautiful.
Segmented vase / セグメント花瓶
A new direction was to work with more glue ups. This one was five pieces of wood: padauk (orange), purpleheart (purple), columbian mahogany (deep brown), zebrano (black/brown), and the light brown one I cant remember. This came out very nice and I used "Yorkshire Grit" 'liquid sandpaper) on this for the first time. Very fun to feel the textures of five different grains simultaneously.
Chopping boards / まな板
Handle type
A nice bit of okinawan pine brought back myself from a trip to...okinawa. Okinawan pine is quite different to the boring old pine commonly found, well, almost everywhere due to its cheapness. It has some lovely brown and red hues with character and knots.
Also in there is a latticed piece of keiyaki (Japanese Zelcova) and zebrano. Note the tapered handle on the top side to make it fit in your hand easier.
Round platter type
A Japanese platter, made of three types of typically used Japanese woods: beimatsu (fir), hinoki (cypress), and tampo (ash). Made a special circle cutting jig for the bandsaw to get any size circle. Very useful.
Wood-weaving Boards
Chopstick stands / 箸置き
A particular woodworking love of mine is combining woods. Contrasting colours together plus being able to make new and beautiful things often from simple scraps, is very satisfying.
Chinese zelkova
This is a lovely material; chinese zelkova. As can be seen it has some lovely colours, a deep red heartswood, and smells lovely. Even after many coats of finishes the smell still comes through. A little difficult to finish actually. The red heartswood is very porous and absorbs liquid immediately while the surrounding white wood is a bit more reasonable.
Coasters / コースター
Wood
Again, one of my key interests in operation here. Recycling scraps and combining different colours. So many options and so many lovely woods to make a practical item.
Resin
These are me playing with another item I like - resin. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. Finishing can be tricky, the different woods and resins do not finish equally smoothly everytime.
Washi Japanese paper
I really like Japanese traditional paper, washi, and so I thought "why not combine with coasters. Finishing with a coat of resin turned tricky as it soaks and warps the paper. So a pre-coat with chemage was a fix.
Toilet shelf / トイレの棚
My own little idea. In Japan all toilets have a sink behind the toilet with a tap that turns on everytime it is flushed. I dont know why and to the best of my knowledge no-one actually uses it. So it is effectively wasted space. So I converted it into useable space. A nice big hole for the stream of regular water to go through and bobs yours uncle you get a shelf space and add a nice wood touch to a boring room.
Video/ビデオ
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