Bragging on My Baby

[MichaelMouse]

So SWMBO took a couple hours of her earned comp and came home early this evening. Asked what I'd been doing, and looked at the day's efforts. Then she said "you won't be able to turn this weekend, so why don't you do something else? I'll make dinner. " You know, she may be an enabler, but she's a sweet one.

These will have to hold me until Tuesday. The log was dropped five years ago, but the center foot and a half of this 4 foot length was still good. Yellow birch ~14". Now to carry out shavings and clean the shop for flat work this weekend. After I mow the lady up north's lawn.

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Those are nice roughouts. But I still don't understand why you leave the core stub in them.

 

[Dr_dewey]

Me Also- angel food cake pans?? and you dry them open - as in the pic??

 

[Bill Boehme]

Me Also- angel food cake pans?? and you dry them open - as in the pic??

Angel food cake pans? Dude!! Don't you recognize a Jell-O mold?

Something to do with turning them on a pin chuck, I seem to recall.

Bill

 

[TurnedAround]

It's a Zen thing...or is that Zin?....anyway.....

 

[Charlie Knighton]

pretty wood

pretty wood, are those bullseye's where limb's came in, or is that birch crotchwood????

can you leave the centers in on smaller roughouts say in the 8 x 8 x 3 size range??????????

can you use the one way chuck to grab the center piece after the rough out dries out and you want to thin the walls and get rid of the warpage??????????

 

[MichaelMouse]

pretty wood, are those bullseye's where limb's came in, or is that birch crotchwood????

can you leave the centers in on smaller roughouts say in the 8 x 8 x 3 size range??????????

can you use the one way chuck to grab the center piece after the rough out dries out and you want to thin the walls and get rid of the warpage??????????

Bullseyes are the heart and the annual rings showing how earlywood loses water faster than latewood. White is not crotchwood, but the progression of spalt from outside sapwood and contrast with extractive-loaded heartwood. When I am cultivating, I roll the log periodically to even this out. This was a random event. Lost a bunch of depth on the one on the right because the rot had progressed to the point I could pull fistfulls of fiber from the log. A cut from the chainsaw let the stuff in.

If you leave the center pillar on smaller pieces, you come to a divide where you can't get a tool between a pillar of sufficient size to take the pressure of the chuck and the wall. Pointy gouges will work, but they take a a bit of leverage. I use a pin chuck or my NOVA pin jaws. I believe the Oneway jaws are not smooth and cylindrical, which is going to make it difficult to avoid splits and to get good centering second time around. Greater contact area means smaller force per unit of area, and averages over irregularities better. That's why I'm a smooth jaw guy all around.

If I was without pin chuck or jaws, I'd use the worm on pieces smaller in size. I take the dry piece to the drill press whose stand is in the pictures, I believe, and drop a Forstner down the old hole. It's still the same 1" in length, just narrower, so the bit guides itself pretty well on center by following least resistance. I then put them on the chuck or pin jaws to do the outside, reverse to inside, taking the stub off at the peel point, when hogging and the stress it can put on the hold is done.

Using the worm or an outside grip on a dried rough gives you shoulder problems. I use a holesaw smaller than the pillar diameter, guide through the worm hole, and pare a flat shoulder. Takes a bit more time, but gives a repeatable flat mount. Keep a nylon tube around to resize the center hole for you.

Picture of re-turning the outside on pin jaws, showing the bottom without its dovetail.

 

[Richard Baker]

Need Picture

Michael,
Can you show us a picture of one of these just before removing from the lathe? That would answer most of our questions. Your procedure is obviously very successful. Thanks.

 

[Charlie Knighton]

pin jaws

your pin jaws look like the one-way spigot jaws, but the oneway spigot jaws are for turning small items

i am looking on page 43 of craft supplies fall/winter catalouge

by the way once you have turned the outside again do you leave enough of a bottom to turn the center shaft away on the inside of the bowl???

 

[MichaelMouse]

Son-inLaw was running late, so a ran this sequence this morning before he arrived. No bellyaching about the fact I didn't sand, please. Nice thing about the method used is things can be reassembled and running until the final core is removed.

Two things to note which I've seen a lot of people complain about. First, that it's difficult to get a dry blank set up to run reasonably. Don't think you'll find many more twisted than the one I'm using. The hole is still my reference, and the bit makes it easy to get back to where I was when I pulled the wet blank off to hollow the inside. I bore it round, mount on the pin chuck and use the tailstock to help. The outside is quickly trued, and the bowl will hang on the pin chuck to make a recess, and a bit of embellishment if desired. I would then sand all prior to reversing.

Now the second, which is to get the piece running true for inside hollowing. If you look, you can see that though the hole is round, the warp will keep my cone from getting perfect center. I put the piece on the 2" mortise, snug with the cone more or less seated until I'm sure it whole won't depart the lathe, then taper into the hole so that I'll get a good average seat for the cone. I then loosen the chuck, nose up tight so that the face of the chuck jaws meet the bottom of the mortise, and snug again. If the piece doesn't run absolutely true, I know that I have some shavings or sanding dust in the mortise, so I clean it up and repeat. Seldom happens.

Turning the inside continues until the walls are ready, when the chuck is resnugged, the post is parted and the bottom trimmed. Try it, you'll like it.

 

[Charlie Knighton]

thanks

this is one of the things i want to try sometime, i have never used a mortise so that will new also, i had not thought about using the tailstock, that makes a lot of sense, i use my tailstock mainly when things are out of balance and for drilling holes

thanks for enlighting me

 

[MichaelMouse]

Spindle Bowl Procedure - Last

Tailstock certainly does make sense any time you need to counter radial pressure from your tool. Or a steady when you can't use one. Makes a lot of things faster, because you don't have to be quite as concerned with your length of tenon, depth of mortise, or even a hasty bit of overhog.

I put in some time cleaning up from yesterday's flat work and finished the series for you, though it's probably intuitive. After the inside is turned, and you can get a bit further down than this, you can use your parting tool to cut away the pillar. A pointy gouge works pretty well if you'd rather, but mine has a long bevel, so the angle's a bit wrong for safe cutting. Leave lots of room so it doesn't bind, and remember to snug things up before you take away your tail support. I have to keep reminding myself never to move one support/center without checking the other even after all these years. Bottom came out fine, with about 3/4 inch of wood for CG lowering.

Though this still hasn't been sanded or finished, you can see it's only slightly beyond plain vanilla. I added edge detail, and after I took the photo I rolled the far right to clean up the shaving rather than checking the focus. Think that "macro" button means much? The rest of the bead cutting sequence looks to be good enough to send to a fellow turner.

 

[George Van Beynen]

This was a good thread Michael, thanks for taking the time to photo and post your entire process.