The weather has warmed significantly over the past week, and with no major obligations, besides Easter with the family on Sunday, I opened the workshop and cleaned things up pretty thoroughly on Thursday. This allowed me to promptly cover the garage floor in wood shavings and sawdust again. I worked on a variety of projects over the past couple of days. The first was to fire up the lathe and try a few techniques with the spindle gouge and skew that I read about over the winter. I had some black walnut cut down for making Chinese Hat Boxes, but never got around to it before the weather turned cold last year. I should have sealed the ends to keep it from checking, but it seemed to take the temperature changes pretty well. I turned one of these as a present last year and wanted to make one for Jen. The finished project (pic, pic) is approximately 6 inches high and 4 inches in diameter at the widest point. The finish is Danish oil followed by a high speed buffing. While I had the lathe up and running, I chucked a small piece of Applewood and made a small spinning top. Nothing terribly special about this (pic, pic, pic) but it did give me a chance to try some new techniques with the spindle gouge. It is pretty well balanced and will go for a couple of minutes on a good spin. The top is roughly 3 inches high and 2 inches in diameter. The last project was my shelf in the craft cabinet. Jen has allowed me some shelf space and I have not made very good use of it. I had enough of the mess so I decided to use some scrap plywood I had left over from our kitchen flooring project to make a shelf and four drawers to help keep my pen turning supplies organized. So that's it for this installment of Amazingly Rustic woodworking.