• April 2025 Turning Challenge: Turn an Egg! (click here for details)
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April 2025 Challenge: Turn an Egg!

Michael Anderson

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Hi everyone!

This month's challenge is somewhat seasonal. Eggs are the name of the game, so let's turn one. Or ten. This challenge is open to interpretation, so feel free to make a single egg, a set of eggs, and/or get as funky and creative as you desire. For a bit of inspiration, here are some some eggs laid by Betty Scarpino, Bill Ooms, Lowell Converse, and yours truly.

Egg_BS.jpg
Egg_BO.jpg
Egg_LC.jpg
Photo3_CW_Anderson.jpg

Good luck with the challenge. The most important thing is to have fun. Eggs are good practice pieces, and a surprisingly large number of people have not turned one. If this is you, please join the challenge this month. Here are the rules, as determined by AAW Forum legal counsel Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe:
  • Entries must be posted in this thread by ~11:59 pm Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on April 26, 2025.
  • Maximum of two photos of your egg (one is also fine). Please leave a bit of margin around your egg, so I can fit your name in the voting thread photo.
  • As always, this is a turning contest, not a "moldy oldie" photo contest, so in fairness to everybody, make sure your work is something you have made since this challenge was issued on April 7, 2025.
  • You may not post any photos of your entry in this month’s challenge in any other thread or in the gallery until the voting has ended and a winner has been declared.
  • Voting will take place from April 27, 2025, through 11:59 pm UTC on April 30, 2025.
  • Solicitation of votes will result in disqualification.
  • The winner might have to pass a lie detector test before collecting the grand prize of a dogleg high-carbon continental gouge. Good luck, have fun, make shavings, and let the chips fall where they may!!
 
What an excellent challenge! When I decided to turn some eggs a few years ago, to get the shape I wanted I used a tiny point-source light 10’ away to cast a shadow of a “typical” egg onto a note card, then traced and measured the shadow to make a template. So far I’ve turned chicken-sized wooden eggs as well as guinea, turkey, and peacock. Just a few days ago someone gave me a goose egg to incubate - it’s way bigger than even peacock! - made me think it might be fun to turn a series someday from robin to goose size.

THIS PICTURE IS NOT A CHALLENGE ENTRY, just an old moldy idea for a turning aid. I hold a square blank in a chuck to turn and sand most of the egg, then part it off and hold it in my “egg chuck” to quickly clean up the end. Made the chuck from soft and somewhat flexible cedar with a hard dogwood 1.25x8 threaded insert glued in the end. Not really needed but something like this could speed things up if going bonkers and turning enough, say, to fill an egg carton!

eggs_com_A.jpg

I won’t be able to turn eggs this month, so if anyone nearby wants to borrow the chuck just ask. Chicken egg size…

JKJ
 
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