Abrading away earlywood

[Kevin Jenness]

I've been looking at Pascal Oudet's work with the spring wood of oak eroded away to leave a lattice of harder latewood connected by medullary rays. I find his use of orientation relative to the pith to induce bending through drying quite interesting. Duo de Tubes

It seems that oak is unusual in that it has both large rays and a considerable difference in hardness within the rings. Are there other domestic woods like that I am not aware of? American Sycamore has large rays but is more even-textured and I think would not respond the same to sandblasting or wire brushing.

I assume that without sizable rays such aggressive abrasion would result in.a compact pile of deconstructed latewood.

Can anyone tell me how thin Oudet makes his forms before sandblasting? What would be an effective blasting medium for that sort of work?

 

[Kevin Jenness]

This video shows Oudet's process and answers one of my questions. How thin? About 2mm. oak into lace

 

[hockenbery]

assume that without sizable rays such aggressive abrasion would result in.a compact pile of deconstructed latewood.

Unless you leave supporting wood. Bill Luce who is no longer with us worked a lot blasting with Douglas fir to expose rib like structures in his turnings.

It’s a rewarding trip through this Malcolm Zander article to get to sandblasted pieces.

https://malcolmzander.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Luce-article-Oct-2024.pdf

 

[John K Jordan]

This video shows Oudet's process and answers one of my questions. How thin? About 2mm. oak into lace

Very interesting! What a creative person. (no wonder his pieces sell for $thousands.)

I have a sandblaster but haven't tried using it with wood. One would need to experiment with different wood, grit types and sizes, nozzles, and pressure.

In the '70s I worked where industrial piping for nuclear power plants was prepared, bent into shapes, and welded. (I did x-ray and other NDT.)

Massive components were blasted with incredible power in special bay-sized grit-blasting rooms. The operator wore a bulky protective suit and breathing protection. Even the bay walls were protected! I was fascinated by the wood used to raise the pieces off the floor. In short order these blocks and beams were eroded in fascinating ways, sort of as if they had been rolling for years in pounding surf in the ocean. They threw them all out when worn down - imagine what the right artist could have done with them.

JKJ

 

[Kevin Jenness]

Unless you leave supporting wood. Bill Luce who is no longer with us worked a lot blasting with Douglas fir to expose rib like structures in his turnings.

It’s a rewarding trip through this Malcolm Zander article to get to sandblasted pieces.

https://malcolmzander.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Luce-article-Oct-2024.pdf

Thanks for the link, Al. I can identify with Luce's reticence as I have been woodshedding for a while now without putting anything on sale, currently going through the stack and finishing pieces, but I don't have anything like his dedication to refining specific forms. His later chainsawn and sandblasted pieces are quite interesting, particularly the way he incorporated bends in his tubes and left supporting ribs to hold the rings together.

 

[hockenbery]

Thanks for the link, Al. I can identify with Luce's reticence as I have been woodshedding for a while now without putting anything on sale, currently going through the stack and finishing pieces, but I don't have anything like his dedication to refining specific forms. His later chainsawn and sandblasted pieces are quite interesting, particularly the way he incorporated bends in his tubes and left supporting ribs to hold the rings together.

I met bill a couple of times but never had an opportunity to spend any quality time with him.
He was a well known master of form. Then he became a master at using the structure of the Doulglas fir in realizing his artistic concepts.

In a similar way pascal Oudet has explored the structure of oak and used it in spectacular ways.

I’ve scratched the surface of using glass sandcarving techniques on wood. Gives a guy who can’t draw or carve well a way to put pictures on wood turnings.

 

[John K Jordan]

I’ve scratched the surface of using glass sandcarving techniques on wood.

Is that where you use a stencil to grit blast glass? Or something else?

I started using a simplistic grit blasting method on glass after reading an article in a magazine decades ago. I'm guessing what you did was more sophisticated!

I used sheet metal to make a hopper to collected and reuse the grit. The glass was pressed over the hole in the foam rubber. A nozzle directed a jet of air straight up and blew grit towards the hole.

Cover the glass with double-sided tape. Draw or print a stencil onto a piece of paper and press on top of the tape. Cut away and remove the paper+tape where needed with an xacto knife or a scalpel to expose the glass. Could make extremely thin lines. Blast with fine sparkplug-cleaning grit from the auto parts store. (the grit bounces off the remaining paper) Move the glass and repeat until all the exposed glass was blasted. Remove the remaining paper and tape to reveal the frosted surface.

I blasted monograms on glass canisters, pictures on flat glass, drinking glasses, and more with this ultra cheap method. No protective cabinet needed. Worked well on glass and metal, never thought to try it on wood.



Great for cleaning spark plugs too.

JKJ

 

[hockenbery]

Is that where you use a stencil to grit blast glass? Or something else?

Yes
This demo slide shows the steps


Demo slides:

https://swat.hockenbery.net/SWAT%20Sandcarving.pdf