David Bell is a woodworking hobbyist constantly looking for ways to improve his craft with an eye to perfection.
A millwright with Ontario Power Generation at the Bruce Nuclear plant near Kincardine, Bell, in his off time, works extensively on his wood craft, attends shows, shares ideas with some of his friends in the profession and serves as president of Grey Bruce Woodturners Guild.
The detail he uses in his work as a metal millwright, including exact measuring, transfers easily to his woodworking hobby. Bell is particular about getting all measurements correct, which translates into the perfection he wants in any wood piece he creates, and puts him in a class with some of the best in the field.
The Elora resident creates pens, candy dishes, plates, bowls, wine stoppers, and window and Christmas decorations from domestic and imported wood.
But there’s a twist to the material he uses; it’s usually wood most woodworkers would discard because of its imperfections and resulting difficulty in turning on a wood lathe.
What he seeks out is termed a “burl,” which is wooden growth that can be found on many tree species and is soft and porous. It is this trait that makes it difficult to work with, but for Bell it’s an abnormal growth that he turns into elegant and functional pieces.
“The reason I work with burls is the wood is absolutely gorgeous,” he said in the woodworking shop he occupies on his father’s farm outside Salem.
He has outgrown the shop he had at the Elora home he shares with his wife Kim and his four children, daughters Tasha and Jessica and sons Dennis and Mathew.
Many woodturners use an epoxy to add strength to the piece they are working on. Bell has taken the process a step further, using a material he discovered from a Texas-based woodworker known as “aluminite.”
After the wood is dried, a process that can take months, it’s ready to be worked on.
A mould is created to fit the specific piece he is making which has been rough turned on the lathe to get it close to the desired final shape. He adds a urethane-based resin, together with the aluminite, prior to putting it into a pressure pot.
Colour is added to the resin, depending on what Bell wants, and because of the porous nature of the wood, it makes its way into cracks and crevices. He said the process adds interest and depth to the piece he is working on.
When Bell adds the blanks he is using to the mould, each is dabbed with a bit of glue to hold it in place, something he learned quickly as part of the pressuring process.
“Wood floats,” he joked of the effect the resin filled mould has one the wood when it is pressurized.
Adding the liquid components requires patience to avoid bubbles from forming and seriously damaging the integrity of the piece. Pressurizing it creates heat, which in turn dissipates the bubbles.
“Because it’s porous it takes the resin well,” he said of the wood.
He says he is the only woodworker in Canada to be working on the process, which seems to be gaining interest with other woodworkers.
Professional woodworker and teacher Marilyn Campbell, of Kincardine, has taught Bell and is interested in his use of a pressure pot and aluminite.
“He has developed that method with the aluminite that makes beautiful pieces,” she said. “The way he is using it is new. The result is quite a bit different from the mainstream use of resins.”
Campbell has never worked with aluminite, describing herself as being very “low tech.”
“He’s got every gadget you can think of. He has all the bells and whistles,” she said of Bell.
The aluminite is strong after going through the pressure pot process and can be easily worked on the lathe together with the wood it has bonded with.
“This stuff is used in the movie industry for making props,” Bell said.
It’s so strong that he used the material to create a tail light for a friend whose car tail light had broke.
When turning a piece with its combination of wood and aluminite, Bell has to watch the speed of his lathe, which usually runs at about 2,800 rotations per minute (rpm). It’s a feel he’s perfected over the years. However, it’s not uncommon for him to run the lathe at 4,000 rpm.
“Cutting a piece of wood is one thing; cutting a piece of resin is another,” he said.
He prefers to use cutting tools made up of high speed steel rather than carbide-tipped tools, which he maintains don’t hold their sharpness. He’s made his own tools and sharpens them, which he said is all part of perfecting woodworking procedures.
“If people don’t know how to sharpen a piece of steel, they won’t know how to cut a piece of wood,” said Bell, who became interested in woodworking when he was 12.
“My first interest in woodworking began back in the early ‘70s, probably about the time I was in Grade 7 or 8,” he said in his website biography.
“My father cleared out an area in the basement of our old farm house which used to store the coal for our furnace. There was an old wooden bench with a small woodworking vice which came from my grandfather. My dad then purchased a Delat 24-inch wood lathe. The tools that I came to own included things such as a hammer, square, chisels, a tape measure, a rule, plus many others. Eventually my father made a disc sander by drilling and tapping the step pulley on a scroll saw, then placing a plywood disc with sandpaper glued to the surface onto the end of the pulley.
“I used to work away down in the basement during the long, cold winter months. Not a bad place to be with the furnace right next to me,” he recalled.
Eventually he would get away from the craft, seeking instead the education he needed to become a millwright and welder. Work took him away from his hometown to Cambridge and after about 18 years he returned to Elora, and also to the hobby he had enjoyed since his early teens.
“I learned to turn from a fellow from England,” he said. One of the things he learned was how to turn the lathe quickly.
“If you turn fast, you get a cleaner cut,” he said.
The process requires less sanding to finish the piece before a lacquer is apply in the final step.
Using aluminite has also led to unique creations. In one of his wine stopper pieces, the hardened resin has allowed him to encapsulate a miniature tractor that stands out at the top of the stopper. The design is also meant to open up a wider customer base for his work.
The material for the pen blanks used in creating his wooden pens has also seen some experimentation. In one he has incorporated feathers, in another corn kernels, and in another shredded $5, $20, $50 and $100 bills he purchased from the Bank of Canada. He’s also used different materials like deer antlers, cow bones and whale bones, that require less end finishing than materials that need lacquer.
“My pen blanks are all over the world,” he said.
There’s even bullet pens, made out of bullet shells from 30-06 to 50-calibre destined for customers who are avid hunters. In his workshop, Bell has massive shells that resemble small rockets, which he hopes to turn into novelty pens one day.
The woodworker is also aware of how vital it is to recycle leftover and reuse it in new pieces he creates.
Bell said there is a formula for wood creations known as the “golden mean,” which splits the ratio from the largest part to the smallest part into one-third and two-third ratios. It’s a golden rule used by woodworkers which, according to Bell, “is pleasing to the eye. People don’t see it but it makes it attractive.”
Another difficult procedure is the “captive ring.” Bell has used it on several of his creations. The process involves creating a ring out of a piece that is simultaneously created as the piece is tapered and is free floating and separate within the wider part of the tapered section.
Bell also teaches his technique at seminars.
Surprisingly, he said, one of the best pieces of wood he ever found was in a woodpile destined for the fireplace. But he agrees each piece is unique and can make way for the design he chooses.
Sales of his work is usually by “word of mouth,” he said.
To view his work visit Stickermetimbers.com.
