Three Acadia pens headed to Colorado.

The three gold Acadia pens pictured above are part of a group that I turned over the weekend.  The top one is Maroon Fleck, the middle one is Caribbean Swirl and the bottom one is Light and Dark Green Swirls.  All are made from acrylic.  The three of them along with nine more Acadia pens made in various acrylic colors are headed to a new store for us called the Colorado Collection in Centennial, Colorado.

The Irony of a good wine.

I will be the first to admit that I don't drink a lot of wine.  Because I make a lot of cork screws and wine stoppers I am always asked at shows what my favorite wine is.  It's a little embarrassing to have to admit that I don't drink much wine.  I prefer good ale over wine.  I know that my sister loves wine and a few weeks back I was going to spend a night at my sister's new camp in Massachusetts.  So on the way in I stopped at a store to pick up a bottle of wine.  After all you've gotta christen the new camp in the right way.  I mean they do it for new boats; can a new camp be much different?

In amongst the hundreds of bottles of wine I was completely lost as which one to choose.  I figured it might not send the right message if I grabbed one of the small kegs of wine for $4.00 and showed up with that.  I did know that I wanted a wine that was made from something other than just grapes.  So I walked around reading labels and came across a Pinot Noir from California called Irony.  A wine called Irony now that sounded interesting, at least to a novice like me.  The label said that it had hints of cherry, vanilla and rhubarb.  Now how could I go wrong with all of those hints of flavors in it?  But what really sold me on the wine was the story of the two brothers and how they came back to work at the family winery.   It all sounded good to me so I bought a bottle of Irony Monterey Pinot Noir.  Later that night when my sister and I settled down in front of the fire to talk we shared the bottle of wine.  I have to tell you that I'm sold on this wine.  It was great!  One of the reasons that I don't drink a lot of wine is because of the after taste or bite after each sip.  There wasn't any of that with this wine, just a great taste and total smoothness after each sip.  All by accident I have found myself a nice wine and as their site says "what occasion doesn’t benefit from a bit of Irony"?   And the irony for me is that I now have a wine that I can discuss with my customers, not be embarrassed because I don't drink much wine and it's called Irony.  Think I'll be able to remember the name?  Tell me the name of your favorite wine and why, maybe I'll check it out and see if I want to add it to my new list of favorite wines.

The winner of the picture contest is....

Winner!  Grain pattern facing out.

A big thank you to everyone who voted.  And the winner is..... the grain facing out by a huge margin of 2 votes.  The voting was very close and was actually tied most of the way through the weekend but facing out managed to squeak out the win.  The mills have been delivered to Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) and will be up on their site soon.  I will let you know if they get juried into the MPBN Juried Art Show.  Dailey Woodworking helps to support MPBN each spring by donating one of our products to the auction. MPBN is a great organization that brings many programs into our lives and one of our favorites has to be the high school basketball tourneys each spring.  Please think about helping them out by purchasing from the auction or making a donation to MPBN.  You can check out some of the things that they have up for auction by clicking here.   Thanks again to all who voted.

Which picture do you like best?



 Facing Out



Facing In

















This is a set of 10 Inch Purple & Black Haynes Salt and Pepper Mills that I'm am donating to Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN) for their yearly auction and possibly they will make it into their Juried Art Show that they hold every year.  Once I get the info from them I will put a link here to my page on the auction site.  So the question is which picture do you like best?  With the grain pattern facing out or the grain pattern facing in?  Your votes and your votes alone will decide which picture that I submit to MPBN. 

What would you like to see on sale?

Lately I've been thinking about sales.  Not about how many pieces did I sell or about sales volume over all but about running a sale on my products for you, our customers.  If you could make up your own sale on my products what would it be on?  Pens, salt & pepper mills, bottle stoppers or spice grinders? And what would the discount be?  When would the best time for a sale be?  I may never be able to use what you tell me but I really am curious about this and would appreciate your input.  If you were running Dailey Woodworking what would you create for a sale?

Making of an art piece?

I was the lucky one chosen (the only volunteer) by the other members of my woodturning club, Western Mountain Woodturners, to make something to send to Minnesota for the American Association of Woodturners (AAW) annual symposium in June of this year.  This is the 25th anniversary of the AAW and they asked each chapter to turn something for the symposium.  The AAW is hoping to get something from each club/chapter.  I think that there are something like 225 clubs/chapters world wide so it should be an unbelievable display of turnings. 

I decided that I would use the opportunity to stretch my turning skills, teach myself something new and turn something that I've wanted to do but have never done before.  I've admired the work of Binh Pho from Chicago for quite a few years now.  So I choose to incorporate some of what he does with his work into my design.  What is pictured here is the start of my creation.

Pictured above is the outside shape of my form.  My form at this point is 4 3/4 inches in diameter by 8 1/2 inches high.  My next step is to hollow out the form and to take the wall thickness down to 1/16 inch or less in thickness.

You can see in the picture above that I am getting close to finishing the hollowing process.  The light is aiding me to see the wall thickness.  The idea is for the light to be coming through the wall the same all the way down.  It's not perfect but from the top all the way down the sidewall the wall thickness at this point is just a little under 1/16 inch in thickness.  The next step is to incorporate some designs on the outside of my piece and then airbrush them on along with some piercing. 

Well I will be back in a few days with more pictures of the process.  So keep your fingers crossed that all goes well.

Feb Sale 10% off from Morrison Mills. Times running out!

Light Green and Natural Morrison Mill Set

We're down to the last 2 days of the February sale on laminated Morrison mills.  10% off from any laminated Morrison Mill, 6", 8" or 10".  Salt or Pepper it's your choice or choose both!  Use code feb2011cc.