I have my eye on something shiny and new and I am asking you all for some help. In the last year or so I have been turning my wood art and selling it via online, art shows, and my Etsy store. In that time I have also engaged in social media, spoken at Podcamp Boston 3, Co-founded a local twitter meet-up group, and Co-founding the Niagara on the Lake Meetup coming in August.

This weekend I am hoping to bring the world of my art and the world of social media back together again for an event I am calling “The Woodturners Weekend”. Like any other creative endeavor, as one grows in their art they tend to need new tools, and tend to wear out their old ones. My lathe (the major tool I use) has been good to me over the past few years, but signs of wear are starting to become apparent as my need to increase my productivity and artistic vision rises. It’s just about time for me to retire the old lathe and purchase a new one. Luckily for me a local woodturning friend has a nearly new lathe that he is selling . This lathe will offer me years of good service and literally quadruples the capacity and power of my old lathe. he is selling the lathe for $750.00 which is a literal steal, so I know it won’t be around for long before someone else snatches it up! This leads me to my woodturners weekend. I will be producing wonderful pieces of my woodturned art all weekend, starting this evening and will continue through Sunday afternoon. I will be streaming much of this live through my macbook so that you may watch and ask questions if you so desire.

Do you have a person that is always hard to buy a gift for? A graduation gift that you need? How about a wedding? This weekend I will be taking any requests that you might have, and I will do my best to make it happen as long as I have the materials. Do you know anyone that might be interested in a piece of my handmade work? If you would like to buy a piece, make a request or commission, blog about it, tweet about it, put up a facebook message, or connect with your channel of choice I would be forever grateful.

The power of new media has never ceased to amaze me and I am going to put it to the test this weekend with my Woodturners Weekend. Anyone that I promised a bottle stopper to will get those as well this weekend as promised in my last post.

I am going to get busy setting up the shop for video, and a weekend of art bliss! Thank you ahead of time to anyone spreading the word or that makes a purchase. I will update this post all weekend as I get closer to my goal. Thanks Again. Feel free to connect via email for any requests or leave a comment here in the blog. Keith(at)magicwoodworks(dot)com

Keith Burtis
Etsy Storefront

Items being turned:
Bowls
Sushi Dish Sets
Wine Stoppers
Commissioned Art

Livestreaming Schedule (Will update as weekend progresses)

Saturday Morning 9AM-10AM EST
Saturday Morning 11AM-Noon EST
Saturday Evening 6PM-7PM EST
Saturday Evening 9PM-10PM EST

Sunday Morning 10AM-11AM
Sunday Afternoon Noon-1PM
Sunday Evening 7PM-8PM

I will put a big RED Check next to the milestones as I reach them:

$100 —  Thank you to Sooz! We met at Podcamp Boston 3! She Purchased the Gourmet Chefs Set.

$200

$300

$400

$500

$600- Final Goal

KeithBurtis- Broadcast your self LIVE

This is my Live stream, If you are interested in asking questions or interacting with me via chat room you have to go to my Blog TV Page.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Last night I had an auction during my live woodturning session on blog TV. The auction was going to help Dave Delaney in his attempt to purchase a new macbook. Refer to the previous post for the full story. The photo’s below are a result of the live session and I want to thank John Meadows, and Rick Wolf for contributing to the success of the auction.

John purchased the Pau Ferro handcrafted wood bowl for $75.00 and Rick Purchased the set of three exotic wood bottle stoppers for $25.00. I thank them both for their support!

I would also like to that those that I know also joined us in the live cast.

Craig Mcreath from Fused Reality
Eden Spodek the Canadian Bargainista
Chris Cavalieri of Filmosity
Hans Jorn-Eich

Thanks to all who helped in the success of the live auction.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Last Night I walked into the house and flipped on my computer, I was covered with dust and woodchips from a long day of woodturning and I saw a message on Twitter from my good friend Dave Delaney. Dave is originnally from Canada and now resides in Nashville with his beautiful family. The bottom line is that Dave is a community guy and through his blog and podcast is “always” giving to the online community. Recently Dave left a job to become a solo-preneur and was forced to give back his Macbook, the tool he relies on the most for his business. Dave decided that he would hold an auction for a special card he received by a magician in honor of his 8,000 tweet on twitter to help him raise funds for a new macbook. The auction is live on Ebay right now!

However, after seeing Dave’s announcement of his auction I decided that I would try to help him in the way I know best, my woodturning. Tomorrow night (Thursday June 3rd) at 9 PM EST, sharp I will be Live on Blog TV turning something special to auction off for Dave. I will turn and auction the piece live on Blog TV, but thats not all. I have a few other small pieces already finished that I will reveal during the live show and will be auctioning those off as well. All in total there will be 3 small auctions during the cast with the larger piece auctioned off last. 100% of the funds will be turned over to Dave to help him get his Macbook.

So lets be honest here. Why am I doing this for Dave? The fact is that I am a small business owner myself, and I understand completely how hard it is to get going in the challenging world of business. Dave has a family that he cares about deeply and I know how talented he is. So lets help Dave get the tools he needs to be successful in this space. He has helped us all of these years putting together podcamps, articles on his blog, and just being an all around community guy. So please stop by tomorrow night and lets give Dave an excellent 4th of July present.

Notes for Auction: Funds will be forwarded to my paypal account (Go to Paypal account is keith@magicwoodworks.com)

Auctions will take place live on my Blog TV Channel, and Paypal confirmation of payment is necessary within ten or so minutes of confirmed winner or the item(s) will go up for auction again.

100% of funds recieved will be donated to Dave Delaney’s effort to purchase a macbook.

A BIG thank you to CC Chapman for the use of the great photo of Dave!

Popularity: 5% [?]

A UFO in the Woods!

UFO’s are coming to Magic Woodworks! Recently, after having read quite a bit about the Phoenix Mars Lander, I was inspired to do a series of UFO inspired pieces handcrafted from wood. This month as a part of my “Twitter Friends Discount” program I will be introducing a new series collection called “Extra Orbital” The series will include 5-10 works inspired by UFO’s, Outer space, and The Unknown.

I would love some community participation. Inspire me! Send me links to your favorite UFO stories, your favorite mysterious happenings, and the unexplained. I will be using multiple woods, texturing, carving, and coloring to achieve the effect that I am looking for. Keep up to date with the newest pieces as they are finished and look for my first ever video podcast to be coming soon where you can watch these creations come to life. If you are a graphically inclined person I would love to see some cool logo artwork for the “Extra Orbital” series. any entries received will get full props here on my blog and the community can vote on the official logo.

Remember, June is “Twitter Friends Discount” month, and is good on anything you purchase from my Magic Woodworks Etsy store. The new “Extra Orbital Series” will be available soon at the Magic Woodworks Etsy store. One lucky purchaser will gt the DVD of the making of their piece! Which one, who knows……it’s a mystery.

This week’s thank you’s

Zena Weist - Purchased three sets of my handmade bottle stoppers from the Magic Woodworks Etsy store. Thank you Zena for kicking off the first Etsy Purchase!

Tommy Vallier - For the amazing work he has done under the hood of my blog. If your feeling charitable, send Tommy a case of Yoo Hoo, they don’t carry it in Canada anymore!

Greg Barnett - For his alway great and timely advice. Check out Greg’s web design services at Rock N’ Motion.

Source Image from http://www.thelosthaven.co.uk/ufoforest.jpg

Popularity: 31% [?]

It’s June! I’m cranking stuff out of my wood shop and I’m offering some benefits to my friends on twitter! For the past year I have been using twitter to help get the message out about my unique lathe turned and handmade items. Now, it’s time for me to give back!

In all of the month of June I will be adding items daily to my Etsy shop and I am offering my twitter friends a bonus for any purchase you make! Because the items will change and be added frequently, the only way I could think to do this was to base it on pricing, so here goes.

Purchase $20 worth of merchandise and I will send you a coupon for 10% off your next purchase and a free Exotic Wood Wine Bottle stopper!

Purchase $40 worth of merchandise and I will send you a coupon for 20% off your next purchase and two free Bottle Stoppers!

The process is really simple. When making your purchase Etsy will allow you to make notes on the receipt. Simply put your twitter name in the notes area and it’s that simple! If you are not yet a friend of mine on twitter then click here and add me as a friend!

If you are new to my work you can find photos here on my flickr page. All of my work is handcrafted on a lathe. The finish I use on all of my pieces unless specified otherwise is a natural combination of Linseed Oil, Shellac, and BeesWax. This twitter friend discount offer will only be available in June 2008 as a kickoff to my new Etsy storefront. Act Now, or miss the boat!

Schedule Announcements

I’ll be speaking at Podcamp Boston 3 - July 19th & 20th 2008

I’ll be selling my art at the Appleumpkin Festival - September 27th & 28th 2008

I’ll be selling my art at the Letchworth Art & Crafts Show - October 11th, 12th & 13th

If your in the area I hope to see you there!

Popularity: 4% [?]

This series of articles will come out once a week for the next four weeks and will be displayed on the “Beginning Woodturner Page” found on the header bar of this page. My hopes is that at the end of the four week series that you will have a basic grasp on what tools, equipment, references, and information you might need to enter into the wonderful world of woodturning. You may also subscribe to this blog for free by signing up through email or the RSS reader of your choice. If you have further questions I am always just an email away. Email Me!

NOTE: This article will be updated and evolve throughout the process, so please check back.

Part one will focus on “The Lathe” and making an informed choice on the most important tool in the woodturners arsenal. I will focus on the decision between a mini lathe and a full size lathe, cost, electricity needs, and we will discuss your seriousness of the pursuance of the hobby of woodturning. I will also give examples of what can and cannot be produced on lathes of different size and power.

The Lathe - this picture was sourced from a Wikipedia Entry called Parts of the Lathe

Mini-Lathe vs. Full Size Lathe

Mini Lathes

There are many producers of electric lathes on the market today and I am not going to get into deep discussion about what brand of lathe to buy, but rather I’ll talk about the features and benefits of the lathes discussed. Common producers of mini lathes are:

Jet, Turncraft, Rockler, Grizzley, and many more. Local or internet retailers can be found by googling the names of these makers for more information.

The difference between a mini lathe and a full size lathe is really very small in terms of parts and pieces. The major difference however is Size , Power, & Capabilities.
For the beginning woodturner I would make this decision based mainly on what it is that you would like to turn. A mini lathe can handle:

Pens
Wine Bottle Stoppers,
Small Plates & Platters
Small Bowls & Hollow Forms,
Spinning Tops

There are many very qualified and successful woodturners that make their living turning small items, and many turners that I know that turn exclusively beautiful pens and pencils. Do not make the mistake in associating a smaller lathe with lesser skill. This is simply not true. If you are looking to enter the hobby or field of woodturning and have less than $500 to spend on everything to get started, you will want to consider a mini lathe. I have found throughout the years that when purchasing tools, always buy the best you can afford. If you take care of your mini lathe it will hold it’s value.

Full Size Lathes

Common Producers of Full size lathes are:

Powermatic, Delta, Oneway, Grizzley

The added feature to having a larger lathe is quite significant to the experienced woodturner. You are able to turn much larger items with greater ease.
Here is a sample of items that can be turned, but not limited to, on a Full Scale Lathe:

Large Bowls or Vases
Large Hollow Forms
Large Artistic Pieces
Large platters or Wall Hangings

From a personal note, without giving manufacturer, I found that after one year on my mini lathe that I had outgrown it in terms of what I wanted my lathe to do for me. My interest was to be able to turn larger items with more power and accuracy. This led me to purchasing a full size lathe. However, I do still use my mini lathe for items such as my wine bottle stoppers and childrens toy tops. Also, to be completely transparent, I was working on my mini lathe sometimes 4-5 hours an evening and I was also looking for a machine that could withstand the rigors of my constant use. Purchasing the mini lathe firs was a good ove for me as i was able to master many of the basics before moving on to a larger machine. At this point I knew woodturning was my passion and not a fleeting hobby.

Lathe Options & Features

Electronic Speed Control

The main upgrade found from one lathe to the next in the mini and full size lathe category is ESC. (Electronic Speed control) ESC allows you to have constant and nearly infinite control over the rate of speed at which the lathe spins the wood. If there is no electronic speed control then the speed of the lathe is usually changed manually by hand. this is done by switching the pulleys that the belt rides on inside the headstock of the lathe. Most mini lathes that do not offer ESC have four fixed speeds. These speeds are adequate for a beginning turner and for someone who is testing the waters to see how serious they are about the hobby. Non ESC units are usually more affordable than thos that offer ESC. If you are sure that you will be serious about woodturning and are interested in purchasing a mini lathe I highly recommend ELC.

Moveble Headstock for Outboard Turning

Some lathes will offer you a moveable headstock for outboard turning of larger items. The headstock in this situation will rotate away from the bed of the lathe so that the piece being worked on has more capacity to spin. If you feel you need this extra capacity it is important that your lathe has enough horsepower. The further you get away from the center of gravity the heavier the load is on the motor making it more likely to stall or slow down. This will effect the quality of your cuts. So if you are looking into having outboard turning capabilities be sure to do your homework and research. Forums are always a good place to get honest information on a particular machine.

Additional Resources

“A Beginners Guide to Woodturning” by George Flavell & Dick Veitch. Made available by the South Auckland Woodturners Guild.

Terry Scott

Popularity: 4% [?]

My art starts ugly! I have to cut boards making lots of sawdust, then glue the boards together for the effects I am looking for in my piece. Sometimes I cut again, and reglue for different patterns….it’s a darn mess!

Is this just a metaphor for life? Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take a step forward? Sometimes it gets ugly before it can get pretty? There are lessons that need to be learned before you can progress?

Tell me do the roses get seeded in the dirt before becoming beautiful plants? I wonder, if all beauty in life comes from perceived “dirt”

What do you think?

After all no one likes when it rains on their picnic, but they love having the green grass to lay on,the beautiful landscapes it brings, and the water to drink.

From Adversity comes greatness but only if you perceive the adversity to be opportunity.

Just a short rant - What are your thoughts?

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What is the most creative Blog Post you have ever done? or ever visited? Watch the short video above. Relevant links:

Podcamp Boston

Seesmic Video Link

Kevin Lim - An example of a very creative Blog Post. Please leave me a link to the blog post you are referring to in my comments. The best three will win a handmade wine bottle stopper!

Popularity: 4% [?]

This was a long week of wood turning projects in my shop. I have been spending a lot of time knocking out my Exotic wood wine bottle stoppers as well as producing live webcast shows of my art. I have been enjoying the live webcasting and have found that Blog TV seems to work best for me. However, it would be great if the quality was a bit better so that the viewers could see better the detail of the work. I will be experimenting with this as time goes on. The Woodturning and creative Arts show airs every Monday Evening at 7:00 PM EST. I have a few shows recorded and available for viewing here.

This Weeks most Noteable: