Mary Ostler

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Got a bit more done on the highchair. The barley twist and fluting is finally finished. Its a pretty good match, although the foot profile is different from the front to back legs. Once they are not so close to each other, it will hardly be noticeable. This was the most difficult part so far. Trying [...]

Goofing around in the work shop the other day.  I have been thinking about trying to turn a Japanese oval turned Inro. This turned out to be one of the more difficult things I have made. Trying to juggle drill bits of different sizes for different cuts just got confusing after a while. An Inro [...]

Nothing really medievaloid today, just making tools handles for a set of rasps. These rasps have been kicking around in my tool box for sometime. I seldom used them as the end your not using always ended up grating away flesh from my palm. I decided to use up a bunch of beautiful spalted red [...]

I decided to try a new technique today. Barley twists are a fairly late furniture technique, and almost all english examples that are even in the 1650 stretched SCA time-line are of a single twist variety. I ended up do a triple twist (cause I am retarded). marked a grid out on the dowel and [...]

A while back, the B&B of Lions Gate asked if their was anyone in the barony that would like to make them a simple chest or table to place between their thrones. I agreed to build them a simple 6 board chest.  I offered to give them my experimental hutch w/lock but The Baroness what [...]

Well the bed frame is finally completed. I roped up the bed this evening, and carefully lowered myself on to the cot. Not even a creak was to be heard. Hurray! Super comfy with the wool rug hooked mattress. I just have one thing to decide… To paint, or not to paint?  That is the [...]

So close.  13 more pieces to turn, and then the decision to paint it all fancy or to leave it plain. More and more I am starting to think I might just leave it natural. Wood is so pretty, its a shame to cover up all the grain. End tenons chiseled and sanded down to [...]

Been a while since I updated the page. I came down with a severe chest cold, and it wasn’t intil the last couple of days I felt good enough to wander out to the shop. Colds over…enough lallygagging around. Since I no longer have an unlimited supply of skids, I resorted to using 2 2×3′s [...]

Foot board is now complete. I am thinking I might not add any more embelisiments to the footboard.  It will still be painted in contrasting red and black, but I think I will leave all the craziness in the head board. The two ends seperated by a couple short lenghts of 1″ doweling. The rough [...]

Finished all the turned work on the head board. Still have to paint all the parts  either red, black or gold leaf. Originally I was going to make the whole bed from the Douglas Fir pallets from my workplace. Well plans change. My company recently went through a massive restructuring. We are now primarily a [...]