Frequently Asked Questions

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Currently I have my art for sale at a local art gallery in Port Washington, Wisconsin called Mercantile Plaza (www.mplazaonline.com).  The gallery’s website allows for online purchasing and will be able to ship to you if you are located in the continental USA. 

I have all of my for sale items listed on my website www.mgdesignswoodworking.com under the Purchase Art section.  Click on the items you are interested in and it will direct you to the items on the Mercantile Plaza website for purchase. 

Currently I have my art for sale at a local art gallery in Port Washington, Wisconsin called Mercantile Plaza (www.mplazaonline.com).

Mercantile Plaza

211 North Franklin Street
Port Washington, WI 53074
262-235-4071 

I will consider commission work, depending on my availability at the time and the work being asked for. Please understand you will need to allow for artistic creativity with this type of work. Every piece of wood is different.  Wood availability may be limited. The shape and style of my works can be fluid and I need the ability to adjust. I will always do my best to meet or exceed your expectations and your happiness with the piece is of utmost importance. 

Please reach out to me at michael@mgdesignswoodworking.com if you are interested.

You can turn most kinds of wood, but I prefer working with hardwoods. Most commonly available hardwoods in my area are walnut, maple, cherry and ash. There are plenty of lumberyards in my area however most supply board stock, which is lengths of 1” - 2” slabs that are not as useful to my style of turning.  I am looking for larger/thicker rough pieces that can be incorporated into bowls and vases.  

I mostly work with dry wood, whether it was naturally dried or kiln dried.  As wood dries, it changes shape and can form cracks. Some bowl turners prefer to turn wet wood to a rough shape, allow it to further dry and then once dry turn again into the final shape.  This is called twice turning. 

Since I prefer to make larger vase and hollow form type pieces that do not work well with twice turning, I want to make sure my wood is fairly dry (less than 10% moisture content). This is especially important when introducing resin to my pieces.  If you make a resin/wood piece with wood that is too wet, you can get cracks and splitting as the wood shrinks and separates from the more solid resin. 

I would not say resin is harder or easier to turn, but it is different. The turning of a resin piece is typically a longer process. For resin pieces I use different tools. Traditional high speed steel (HSS) tools dull quickly and can cause chipping of the hard resin so I prefer to use what are called “negative rake” carbide tools when I use resin. These tools are designed for this purpose to make smoother cuts with resin, but it goes a bit slower.

The sanding and finishing processes I use for resin pieces, which typically includes a highly polished and glossy look also takes more time than standard wood finishes. 

Without getting into brand names of resins, there are many types of resins for different purposes.  The primary differences are pertaining to how thick they are and how fast they cure. Typically the faster they cure to less depth you can pour. If it cures too fast you get thermal cracking.

These are the ones I typically use

• Deep Pour Resin - This is my primary resin as it is a thinner and slower curing resin that is designed to pour in greater thicknesses and volume. I use this for most of my castings with wood. Each brand will have a recommended max pour depths, some up to 5 inches, but I have found some quality brands that allow for much deeper pours. This resin typically takes 2 - 3 days to cure
• Casting Resin - I use this when making smaller pieces that do not require a deep pour, typically 1” or less. My most common use for this is when making CNC cut inlays filled with resin or for filling in small sections or cracks in wood. It can cure in 24 hours.
• UV Resin - This stuff is great when you need to touch up turnings as you expose cracks, chip out or pitting while turning.  It is a one part resin that is thick. It is applied and cured with a UV lamp, usually in only a few minutes.
• 5 min Epoxy - I use this two part epoxy resin for two purposes. 1) to mount a glue block of wood to the bottom of a piece of wood/resin that I attach to the lathe, and 2) to glue in my maker coin on the bottom of finished pieces.

There are a lot of options for finishing depending on the type of wood, if I am using resin, and the look I am trying to achieve. For wood only pieces, I prefer a more simple natural finish like walnut oil, shellac, and a wax coat. For my resin pieces, I love to add a highly shiny gloss finish. My favorite is 3 to 5 coats of Waterlox Gloss.

The two most important PPE are eye/face protection and a mask/respirator.

For eye and face, minimally you should wear a shatter proof face shield. Whether you are turning pens or large vases, a lathe can be spinning that piece from anywhere between 400 - 2500 rpms. It is inevitable that at some time you will have a piece or fragment of your work come loose as fly up at you faster than you can react. That faceshield can be the difference between you going to the hospital and maybe just needing to change your pants.

Inhaling wood dust and especially resin can cause serious respiratory issues. I have used masks and respirators in the past.  Since I do a majority of resin/wood turnings, I more recently purchased an all in one face shield with battery power respirator (Trend Airshield Pro). I love it. 

Depending on where you are located in the world, the options available to you will vary. Before just going out and buying a lathe and tools, I highly suggest giving it a try first.  Try looking up local woodworking stores (in the US, places like Rockler and WoodCraft). They often have classes you can sign up for that require no previous experience. And if you like it, they can work with you to determine the type of lathe and equipment you should start with. Also look into woodturning associations and clubs within your area. Woodturners are generally a friendly and welcoming bunch. Once you learn the basics of how to mount the wood and present the tools, get yourself a lathe and you will be hooked. 

I use both.  They both help with air bubbles in your casting but they do it differently. The pressure pot is the most versatile and what I use on almost all castings.  By placing the resin in a pressure pot the added air pressure squeezes the air bubbles in the resin to be very small so you cant see them.

A vacuum chamber extracts the air and bubbles from the casting. This is especially handy when you have more porous woods that contain a lot of air. As you extract the air and release the pressure the resin is pulled into the spaces. Typically after I put a casting in the vacuum chamber for an hour or two I then place it in the pressure pot until the resin cures.