A Little Birdhouse for my Soul

Today I took a basic wood working class.

What, what does this have to do with silversmithing? you might ask - bear with me and all will be revealed.

When raising or sinking a bowl or other hollow form, a "dishing stump" is used to help form the metal. Think of a dishing stump as a larger dapping block.  Where as most dapping blocks (either wood  or metal) are about 2.5" cubes with various diameters, the depressions do vary from very shallow to no more than 1/2 the diameter so you can form a hemisphere.  If you Google around you will see that the largest diameter is 50 mm or just under 2" and this is not included in most the standard sets. There are also larger wood single depression dap blocks that are anywhere from 4" to 6" in diameter but some are only 3/4" deep.   

BUT with a dishing stump you can make the depression deeper resulting in a deeper bowl or dish. The only downside to this is. YOU HAVE A WOOD STUMP IN YOUR STUDIO and the average metal artist does does not mind this as their studios are in an out building or even the garage or some other dedicated space. Unfortunately, my studio is not only in my house, it is on the second floor and getting a good sized stump up there is not an easy task.   When I retire and move to my "other house" where my studio will be free standing building, I will probably gets some good sized stumps and make a few, but for now, I want some stumps that are not stumps and that can be stored away when not in use. 

So what I want to do is make my own MASSIVE dapping blocks of various diameters and of various depths but no bigger than 6" diameter to start and as small as 3" diameter. And how does one do this?? YOU basically are carving a bowl and the best way to do that is use a wood lathe.  And so today, I took a basic wood shop class to get "certified" on wood shop safety. In the next few weeks I will have some private lessons on how to use a wood lathe and then... 

.........and then I can start my 3" diameter 1 1/2"  wood dishing block, and move up from there. 

As for the bird house, I plan on maybe adding some copper to the roof and possibly a weather vane before letting the birds have it. 

And yes, I know the song is "Make a little bird house in your soul"