A marking knife  ( scriber, striking  knife ) is the most accurate way to ‘scribe’ lay out lines for any fine, hand cut joinery.

Knowing that, after watching some videos on YouTube, especially “Make A Striking Knife” by jpheisz, I decided to make one, from an old rasp.

So, I cut rasp in a shape of my future knife, and start making edges. I even do some forging ( see photo below ).

After that, I sharped my new marking knife on water stones, and polish it.

And for the handle I had some bog oak and almond. Almond is very hard and decorative wood. So, put it all together, did some shaping with rasp and sender, than by hand with sand paper, starting with 120 to 500, and after that polishing with micro mesh.

And that’s it, I made my new marking knife, it’s cheap, nice, good quality and most of all, I MADE IT.

Why I made my DIY Grinder.

Well, after finishing my  homemade woodturning lathe, I bought some tools and started to learn how to turn the wood. Very soon I had to sharpen my tools. So, again, I started to surf trough YouTube, trying to find some info. Soon, I learned enough, how to sharp my tools.

But, I can buy only cheap grinder, which is to fast. As a matter of fact my friend gave me one. So, I decided to build one slow speed grinder.

Since I had one old motor from washing machine, I had to buy only belt. I made pulley on lathe ( from wood, of course ) in dimension which will give me right speed, about 700 rpm. I put it on to shaft with ball bearings from old grinder my friend gave me.

Then I use some scrap wood from my shop, put it all together and get this:

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Here is something about Leo Basic woodworking…
In the past couple of months I made four commodes for customer in Trogir,beautiful old town on Croatian coast, under UNESCO protection.
I really enjoyed making the commodes, and hope that I made something that is worthy to be placed in this beautiful palace in center of old town.

Today I made beautiful olive wood fountain pen.

I purchased a fountain pen kit “Orion” from  WoodTurningz, and in the description was a note that this kit is their special offer and that is so nice that deserve our best wood.

So, I find nice piece of Olive wood and made this:

And, once again, fall in love with Olive wood. Can you blame me after looking at this beautiful olive wood fountain pen…

Here are some examples of my work – Olive Wood Pens.
I’m so in love with olive wood, so I’m not objective. Instead of writing anything, I upload this little video. Enjoy

Thank you YouTube, thanks a lot.
Why ?
Because among huge number of videos which people upload every minute, there are so many instructional videos which can help you in so many areas of life and work.
Of course, I am always looking for woodworkers videos. And there are really good ones, from which you can learn a lot.
It’s really amazing, because, if you speak English and know what are you looking for, you can find so many tips, tricks, advices, solutions, demonstrations, tools, materials …..
… that, in short period, one can achieve big progress in knowledge and skill.
I’m a living proof, I was a hobby woodworker, than I start to do it for living, and didn’t know anything about woodturning, but I found lots of woodturning videos and start to learn.
I learned about tools, sharpening, lathes, chucks, spindels, bowls, pens…
And decided to build my own lathe and start turning. And I did it.
As I said, there are many videos, and many authors, from which I learned, but among all of them, I will mention two guys, from whom I learn the most and hope I’ll learn more. They are: CapnEdie Castelin and Carl Jacobson. Click on the names and visit their channels, you will have a chance to learn a lot.
So, once again, thank you YouTube.

First take a look on my homemade woodturning lathe video:

I also made another video to show you construction of headstock, tailstock and mounting the motor, which is 1.1 kW 220 V motor from old water pump. Hope you will enjoy.

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Surfing trough YouTube woodworking videos, I found a couple interesting stories about  homemade woodturning lathe. So, as I had some rest wood from my previous projects, I decided to build one for myself, cos I was always building all kind of DIY stuff and diy tools.

I prepared the wood, and clamp it together in shape that I thought it supposed look like, so I was able to take measure and cut pieces.

I got the idea for making headstock and tail stock from the lathe made by Otto Belden, just instead to put pipe trough the leg of lathe I use this part from some old machine and build a headstock

and for the tail stock I use the same idea like Otto, but I use larger diameter of threaded rod and put a live center on it

Then I prepared the motor, the pulleys and start assembling my homemade woodturning lathe. Can’t wait to start woodturning…