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New Items Turning On The Lathe

M

Mike Johnson

Joined
Jul 26, 2016
Messages
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Location
Nebraska
Interested in any new items being turned on the lathe.
Finding new items to turn on the lathe keeps things interesting and provides new challenges and ideas.
I just purchased some Ferro Rods and will be making some fire starter kits.

Anyone turning some new/different items on the lathe these days?
 
I've been making sewing needle cases and someone asked me to make a Lei needle case. Here in Hawaii we use needles 8-12" long to thread flowers for our leis. The same long case could be used for knitting needles. I'm waiting for my new 18/36 Revo lathe to be delivered and I'm making prototypes on my Jet midi.
 
Mike, where do you get the ferro rods? I could make some for giveaways at my Hunter Education classes. Thanks.
 
John,

If you look on Ebay or Amazon you can find various quantities and prices for different sized ferro rods.
I chucked a ferro rod up in the lathe and you need to get aggressive with it before it will spark.
 
Thanks. If I would burn down the house, my wife will be very upset. Me? I would lose a fortune in woodworking, fishing, and hunting stuff. Then we would have to live with one of you woodturners until we found a place to live. :oops:
 
I've made a ton of ferro rod handles on my lathe to go with knives I make and sell--I bought a bunch of ferro rods from E-bay and just drill a 1/4" hole in my stock and then put it between centers and start turning.
 
I believe this is a piece of Coolibah burl that was left over from an earlier project that fizzled. It's out in the shop right now, and the bottom/foot is yet to be done......still attached to the waste block. I'll bet some lady will buy it and put it in a corner somewhere to store a few rings. I'll call it a "corner ring dish", I guess. Originally I'd planned to add a couple of detail grooves surrounding the interior, but the runout was about .040".....and, I've learned this is too much runout to expect the grooves to look pleasing. (Absolute maximum runout is about .025", and even then, the grooves need to be pretty deep for them to look half way decent.) I have no plans to make more of these.....that is.....unless I ever have a similar piece of wood that I don't know what to do with.....:p

Overall, it's pretty small......IIRC, the long edge is around 7", so the interior is only a couple inches wide.

-----odie-----

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I enjoy turning new forms and objects. I like turning bowls and hollowforms but exploring new forms is a lot of fun when it works out.

A new form for me in 2017 is a copy of Anasazi seed jars. These are split hollowforms 6-7” diameter that have very small openings that I can sand carve to recreate seed jars. The one with the turkey figure around the opening and kokapelis on the bottom is turned from plain looking camphor. The black one is turned from plain poplar. The reddish one is turned from eucalyptus. The form itself is derived from a similar one I saw Lyle Jamieson turn around 2000.
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2013 I played around with 3 and 2 sided napkin rings. Have never seen anyone else do this but it is so simple it seems likely some would have. Just turn a multi sided spindle. Part in smaller than the through hole. Drill the through hole to separate the rings.
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2007 I played around with a ball in a ball. Larger ball is hollowed to hold the smaller ball. The opening is then englarged to a tiny bit smaller than the diameter of the smaller ball. The small ball is given a tap. The elasticity of wood lets the ball pass through the opening. The opening closes trapping the small ball inside.
I can’t find any reference to this being done by anyone else. Since it is the same process as the bodger chair joint it is very likely someone did it before I did. This idea developed from a discussion with David Springett.
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2004 I developed a way to turn suspended spherical forms. A sphere in the center is hollowedmin a vacuum chuck
The profiles of the end parts are turned. For example the fishtail on this form is made by turning apogee and slice the side off with a bandsaw then sanding. The tentacle is turned cove profile that is cut on the bandsaw following the outside curve. This is an original form. The example below Is sycamore 15” length - center sphere is 7” diameter. This idea came from a scoop demo by Soren Berger. I thought about making a two handled scoop then about going bigger making the center element hollow.
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A few new items I turned on the Lathe.
Check out Trent Bosch’s work to see true creative genius.
 
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I was looking at a wood turned lemon juicer made out of olive wood, anyone run across a simple way
to cut longitudinal grooves into the wood piece after it is turned on the lathe?
 
Mike Johnson said:
I was looking at a wood turned lemon juicer made out of olive wood, anyone run across a simple way
to cut longitudinal grooves into the wood piece after it is turned on the lathe?
Click to expand...

Use a lathe with an index wheel or build and indexer.

1. Some people can do these quickly with a vee flex cut gouge in a reciprocating carver. Mark the lines and cut. I like to make the bottoms of the grooves and the tops of the ridges. Center the gouge on one line cut the depth to the lines on each side. With a little practice this will go quickly. This is easier to do if you have a carving vice that you can screw your chuck to with the piece mounted in it. This will give you the cleanest surface and be the quickest set up. Should not need any sanding. With this method you end the cut at the deepest so it will be ragged. I would put the piece back on th lathe after carving an cut a clean line where the carving ends. Maybe a vee or a cove. This will go a bit easier if you are carving into face grain. Cherry would be an easy wood to start with.

2, Another way is to build a fluting set up. These use a platform with guides on which you rest a router, die grinder, or other carving device. The carving device is clamped to a cradle that rides on the platform and against any guides.

For the juicer you would screw a band sawn guide that matches the curve of the juicer to the platform. Be sure to angle it so that the cut starts a 1/4” from the tip and stops at the deepest you want. I would use an air die grinder $10 harbor freight (No oil added buy a new one if you ever wear it out) held to a board with hose clamps Put in a vee router bit.
I would cut a vee where the board hits the guide centered on the cutter and round the edges slightly. The ends of the vee will keep the cutter lined up with the curve of the guide you make.

Once set up this is going to make identical cuts from tip to base. I suggest starting the cut about a 1/4-1/2” from the tip and make it progressively deeper as you go.
Then you need to do some sanding. Maybe wrap pare around a popsicle Stick.
 
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Index wheel and jig on the lathe for a power tool was what I assumed they used for production pieces.
I have a couple of different ideas that I might try on this project to make a slightly different designed juicer.
 
Mike Johnson said:
Index wheel and jig on the lathe for a power tool was what I assumed they used for production pieces.
I have a couple of different ideas that I might try on this project to make a slightly different designed juicer.
Click to expand...

You should get good results carving with a vee gouge.

A couple more ideas
You can mark the divisions by measuring equal lengths around the circumference.
Use a dressmakers tape
Or you can cut a strip of paper to the circumference fold it an Mark the divisions where the folds are.
This works really well for 3 or 4 and less well the more folds you make. I to the 3 divisions a lot in demos. You can probably make it work for 16. Fold each half separately to reduce the fold depth.
Make horizontal platform for your tool rest. Mark the 16 points then with a pencil flat on the platform draw the lines.

If you do the carving on the lathe you have to be lock the spindle in different positions.
If you do the carving on a carving stand the it is easier.
You can make a carving stand to hold in a vice. Turn a tenon with a tiny taper and tread it with a big faceplate.
Turn on a little turn of repeat and it will cut threads in a soft wood quickly. I have used this method to cut threads in purple heart just takes a while. If you need more leveraged you can screw a 2x4 to the faceplate..

Your chuck can screw into the tenon then turn the wood in a vice to access the different faces to carve.
 
African drums are an item I had never considered before, this video has some interesting techniques used for the process. This might be a fun project for someone wanting to turn a large diameter green log into creative musical item. He has several other videos showing the finishing process and using other types of wood for some nice looking pieces.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cljLnNNOwg
 
I added a few new items to my holiday turnings that I make and give away to co-workers. This year I bought a quantity of ceramic rods off of the internet and turned decorative wood handles and mounted the ceramic rods into the handles. These work great for honing the final edge on many types of knives. I also made some turkey pot calls from some pieces of Tiger wood and made some decorative wood strikers for each one. You can get the slate sound boards in various diameters for a couple dollars a piece depending on the quantity you buy. You can also cut glass sound boards with a glass cutter any dimension you need and a pane of glass is very reasonable in cost.
 
Regarding the OP's question:
My tombstone is going to be inscribed "There was nothing so simple that I couldn't make it more complicated".

My daughter asked for a plastic bag dryer as she washes and reuses them. This could have been some dowels planted in a chunk of 2X6, but I got to thinking....

From spheres on the end of the dowels to mushrooms to fruit to fruit made from the wood of that tree to adding a nut wood base to the finished product with a map of the US burned in with the dowels planted in the actual locations where the fruit comes from. Perfectly simple and sensible, right?
 

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I made some letter holders out of half round turnings where I glued the turning blanks together for turning process then split them apart and attached them to a jig to cut the slots on the table saw. The photo shows it mounted on a board with a stand off for finishing101_1305.JPG 101_1305.JPG

The other thing I tried was making a handle for bowls8050LetterHold.JPG
 
John Turpin said:
Working on my first hollow forms. (Cottonwood, Pecan, Maple, and Sycamore so far.)

View attachment 27569
Click to expand...
I have only tried one hollow form so far and it didn't go very well. After the new year I will get back to it and see if I can make a decent piece. What kind of tooling are you using, captive or free hand? I just bought a couple of cheapo Packard tools to get started, they are made from round stock so it's a pretty difficult process to hold the tool in the correct orientation. I think I'm going to grind a flat on the tool to make it easier to hold and cut.
 
Well, not quite burned out on boxes, but found these, and I want to make some. Of particular interest to me is how long they spin, in loose dirt, with no visible run out, and at very high rpm....

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPGC0oubUKo

I also found these. Apparently there is a group/club in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Pretty simple to make, and it looks like some of the throw sticks are converted golf club shafts. I think the stick would work with conventional spin top types....

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiGwhdqClUc&t=111s



robo hippy
 
Tuj Lub Hmoob looks like a cross between bowling, baseball, golf, and shuffleboard. You definitely need some room to practice getting into that sport! Both of those sports would be a little painful if you had shoulder or elbow issues. Using a rope to propel the spinning top in a whip like fashion really generates the rpm's needed for the large tops.
 
robo hippy said:
Well, not quite burned out on boxes, but found these, and I want to make some. Of particular interest to me is how long they spin, in loose dirt, with no visible run out, and at very high rpm....

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPGC0oubUKo

I also found these. Apparently there is a group/club in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Pretty simple to make, and it looks like some of the throw sticks are converted golf club shafts. I think the stick would work with conventional spin top types....

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiGwhdqClUc&t=111s



robo hippy
Click to expand...
Have you been able to get any details on the tops used in the first video? The first video looks a little to tropical for Minneapolis - St. Paul ( grew up in that area) but the second video could be the Mississippi river in the background.
 
Oh, the bottom video is Minneapolis, apparently there was a group that had their own courts. The upper video is Malaysia some where... I have not been able to get any details on the tops. There seem to be a number of variations. The Tuj Lub is pretty easy to make. Diameter to height ratio seems to be about 2 to 3, so 3 inch diameter is about 5+ inches high. String wrap seems to be 13 to 15 wraps. I have not been able to find any specifics about it. They had a face book page but it is not active any more. I do love the string spinner stick. Have to work my way up to some heavy/strong throws....

robo hippy
 
I made a couple of sphere turning jigs for two of my shop lathes so I am turning some sphere shaped items with the new tools. Picked up some tea light candles at the Dollar store to make different sized, wood types of Tea Lights. These are fun little give away items that I will hand out to clients and co-workers. You use an 1-1/2" diameter Forstner bit on one end of the sphere while it is still chucked up to drill the recess for the candle and then part off the sphere and reverse chuck the sphere in the candle recess and turn a flat or recess in the bottom of the sphere for the piece to stand on.

I also ordered some Quartz Clock Inserts that will drop into a 2-1/2" diameter hole that I will drill into a sphere, you can then sand a flat spot on the sphere so the clock face angles up at a 45 degree angle when sitting on a desk or counter top. These clock inserts cost a couple of dollars each and makes a functional item that can be made of any wood and finished in any manor.
 
Hobo Fishing Reel is the next new item on my list of items to turn, these are handy survival type tools that integrate several turning items in one tool. The main body is hollow with a cap on one end that is used to store your fishing hooks and other items to be stored inside the handle. The outside is turned to fit the persons hand comfortably and the other end is tapered to allow a smooth flow of fishing line to exit the tapered handle while providing a recess to spool the fishing line onto. You could easily incorporate a duck call or a fire starter into the handle assembly to make a multipurpose tool.

Hobo Reel.jpg


Hobo Fishing Reel.jpg
 
Gerald,

You can source the mini compass on Ebay or Amazon, they are made in China and the cost is minimal when you purchase a quantity, the shipping is usually free or a small amount as they can ship these out in a sealed pouch for very little cost.
 
I found the Hobo fishing reel to be interesting. My late uncle used to fish the Ohio River with a tin can. Open both ends and make sure the sharp edges are flattened or filed down. Tie line, sinker which was an old hex nut, and hook to the line. Put your hand inside the can, hold the line against the can and cast. Land the fish hand over hand. Basically the same idea as an open face spinning reel.
 
You could also incorporate the Hobo fishing reel into a walking stick along with several other items that would fit into the handle.
 
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