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Balancing Vessels

B

Brandywine

Joined
Aug 19, 2007
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Location
Colorado
Hey Gang,

I am seeking any information on "Newton's Balancing Vessels" as pictured in William R Duce book 'The Fine Art of Smallscale Woodturning' ...pg 16

After searching all over the net and woodturner clubs, I am unable to find anything at all.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 

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Hi Brandywine

Anything in particular you'd like to know?

They kind of developed out of an exercise to eliminate the base of a turning...which lead me to think it would be kind of interesting to have them balance on a base of about a millimeter or two...

They're relatively straight forward to make...all I do is embed a rare earth magnet in the vessel portion (drill a hole, install the magnet, plug the hole - dark woods work better for hiding the plug than light coloured woods), and then add a magnet to the base, making sure I don't reverse the polarity of the other magnet (unless you want to repel it, which is a whole other set of challenges).

Of course, that's the paradox of the thing, while the vessel has no base, it still requires one to stand...unless of course you set it on something with an iron content (like the bed of a lathe).

Rather than turning a wood base with an embedded magnet, I've been playing around with "interesting" metal bases, such as damascus patterned steel, mokume and polished meteorites.

They're fun to make...but you want to keep things relatively thin to keep the weight down.

Not much else to it...you need to pay a bit of attention when drilling the hole and turning around it, but that's about it.

have fun,

bill
 
Are we to assume that the vase is balanced in some sort of socket in the base?

Looks like an exercise in getting wood that's uniform in density and coating it to make sure that differential adsorption doesn't unbalance it severely enough to overcome inertia.

I see the cheat has been posted. makes things much easier.
 
Cool Idea. I looked at your book when I was at Highland Hardware but didn't pick it up. I may have to look closer now.
 
Hi Bill,

Thanks for the info. I had guessed that maybe the vessel was weighted in the bottom and left very light up top.

They are very cool, and a great idea.
A patterned metal base would be a very nice addition to the decoration.

Does the force of the magnet overcome bumps to the base that would possibly overbalance/shake the vessel ?

...Nothing like a little WR Duce magic to keep me up at night wondering and overthinking 'how the heck he did that' ....

Chris
 
Greetings...

I've attempted to attach a photo of one sitting upside down to show the base (or rather, the bottom of the vessel : )

This one is about 2 inches tall, and the "base" about 1 1/2- 2 mm wide...which is turned concave rather than left flat.

You want to use as strong a magnet as you can get away with...otherwise they can be a little tippy (if you end up with a tippy one, it helps to set it upright by putting your finger inside and pushing it to stand, rather than holding it by the exterior and trying to balance it that way).

Most of these vessels are turned relatively thin...I think they just feel better in the hand that way, and cutting back on mass assists the balancing as well.

They're fun to make, and I feel as though I've only scratched the surface of what can be done. Unfortunately though, I haven't really done any turning for several years now, but thanks to a friend who needs 50 African blackwood drawer pulls, I'm starting to get back into the swing of things.

Enjoy,
bill
 

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What strength magnet are you using for that ?

Oh, and BTW thank you for putting together an inspirational small scale woodturning book...with lots of pictures. Very nice work.

Chris
 
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Hi Chris

I'm not sure what the strength of the magnets are, but they are the "rare earth" magnets from one of the well known mail order woodworking supply companies.

They are strong for their size, and I usually keep a good stock around the house as I find them useful for a multitude of things (just keep 'em away from your notebook...trust me).

The book seems a lifetime ago...but it was quite a bit of fun doing and allowed me to contact some wonderful people who were all suportive.

thanks, and have fun.

bill
 
Mr. Duce, the second wood turning book I bought was yours. I was enamored with the concept of turning small things and still concentrate on the smaller objects such as boxes and orts bowls. I turned at least 100 coasters after reading your book.

I was fascinated by the Newton Balancing Vessels and appreciate your willingness to share how they are done. I can almost guarantee that I will be doing some soon.

Take care....

Mike
 
Hi Mike

Oh, so you're the one who bought it 🙂

I totally agree about the allure of small scale work...I'm attracted to it in all forms (for one area of interest, plug in "boxwood rosary bead" to a Google image search).

You've probably got me beat at 100 coasters, but that's such an enjoyable project with limitless potential for variation...

I've found that a willingness to share is common to most turners, which helps make this such an enjoyable pursuit.

Please do make some of the balancing vessels...I'd be interested in seeing your results.

have fun,

bill
 
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