The title of this blog post has an exclamation mark, and for good reason. A quote from Pieterjan:
Planning also involves dreaming, dreaming of goals that may seem unattainable but that you can grow toward with practice and hard work. The water bottle we were going to make during this meeting is one of those.
This is a traditional bottle, turned from wood, used to carry water and have a drink on the go.
The traditional model has handles for a shoulder strap and legs to keep it upright. We worked towards this in two steps. First, a bottle without handles and legs. And if that one worked, we would make a second bottle, according to tradition. And it certainly did work out fine..
This is one of the objects rotated on two axes. First, you rotate the side profile. Once the side profile is rotated, you remove the spindle and install it in the side of the bottle, making sure it’s perfectly perpendicular to the side. Then you rotate the side walls and hollow out the bottle. As the icing on the cake, a lid is also turned that fits perfectly in the hole in the side, so the bottle can be sealed with a mixture of linseed oil and beeswax.
So much for the theory. During these two days, we used all the tips, tricks, and experience from the Master-Apprentice program, along with a bit of luck, to achieve results. Green wood was planed flat so we could work as square as possible. We made a custom-made scraper to create the profile of the edge where the lid clicks in as precisely as possible. We’ve consistently found that we’ve gained a lot of experience over the past two years and are working more professionally. Not only did Pieterjan gain a lot of experience during this program, but Martijn also learned a great deal, especially in improvisation. This resulted in a very agile and fast production process, allowing us to successfully make two different maple bottles in two days.
And actually, explaining the production process works much better with photos. So here’s a photo report:
Based on a sketch, the wood is sawn out and the sketch is transferred to the wood.
Further saw the rough shape with the band saw and plane it flat.
Turn over the first axis.
Turn over the second axis.
The special scraper for turning the groove in the bottle where it can be clamped. And turning the lid.
Et voilà, a flask!
