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Planet Mesquite - Now "Self Bailing"

John Tisdale

John Tisdale

Joined
Apr 11, 2014
Messages
459
Likes
458
Location
Dallas, TX
Hollowing has been underway for almost a month and finally got to self bail - that's when I cut through a deep bark inclusion on the side and open a hole for the shavings to come out - no more blowing or raking out.
The 3rd pic on the right shows the log on the steady rest - to the right I cut out the shrink-wrap at the first deep bark and you can see the cut-through. I put the camera up to the hole (2nd pic) to show the terracing pattern used to hollow - seems that the Rolle Munro is more efficient pushing into the grain than side swiping. For rough-hollowing I use the HSS cutters - carbide will not withstand the abuse.
Hopefully in the next week I'll have a longer tool rest made that will go deeper into the vessel - extending 10"+ over the small rest is a bit dicey.
I added 300-lbs of ballast but still can't seem to get much over 150-rpm. While it will never be close to balanced, I hope to get to 200-rpm when the mass goes down under 400-lbs.
Best "wag" is it is 10% hollowed - shavings from hollowing is a bit over 55-gallons.
Self Bail-1.JPG Self Bail-2.JPG Self Bail-3.JPG Self Bail-4.JPG
 
So far so good! Love and mostly work in mesquite so I'm looking forward to seeing the finishe'd piece.
 
I have a friend who I lost touch with who purposely hollowed vessels off center so that he would cut through the side. It was his Niche. He also is one of the best I've ever seen at leaving a clean interior with no tool marks. His trick was turning very safe wood at fairly high speed and using an extremely light cut on the final passes. I'm bringing this up because he had lathe vibrations from running off center wood at higher speeds. He added half inch thick 3" angle iron to the feet of his lathe to extend the footprint. The pieces were I believe about 8 feet long. To avoid a trip hazard on the inboard side he had them cut the top of the L off about 3 feet on the tailstock end foot so he could walk across it. Worked tremendously well. His description for how he got the inside clean was if you drag your fingernail across the back of your hand and could barely feel the touch, that's how light he was touching the wood on the last passes.
 
john lucas said:
I have a friend who I lost touch with who purposely hollowed vessels off center so that he would cut through the side. It was his Niche. He also is one of the best I've ever seen at leaving a clean interior with no tool marks. His trick was turning very safe wood at fairly high speed and using an extremely light cut on the final passes. I'm bringing this up because he had lathe vibrations from running off center wood at higher speeds. He added half inch thick 3" angle iron to the feet of his lathe to extend the footprint. The pieces were I believe about 8 feet long. To avoid a trip hazard on the inboard side he had them cut the top of the L off about 3 feet on the tailstock end foot so he could walk across it. Worked tremendously well. His description for how he got the inside clean was if you drag your fingernail across the back of your hand and could barely feel the touch, that's how light he was touching the wood on the last passes.
Click to expand...

John,
Thanks bigtime for the response. Regarding the foot extension with the angle iron, I sorta do the same but with two objectives: 1) The lathe is lag-bolted to a platform 9" off the floor. The spread of the beams adds greatly to stability. Also, 2) the extra 9" height allows me stand flat-footed with a straight back and do the hollowing - I do all hand-held with the internal tool rest.

Regarding "fairly high speed", I'll have a new definition of "fairly" before this is done. When the wall thickness gets under 2" or 3", I plan to cut some baltic-birch rings and attach every 4" or 5" to keep the piece from flying apart in the event of catching an edge - easy to do when you're cutting a lot of air. The term "cutting a lot of air" reminds me of a guy in college we nicknamed Flautus.

It's fun being a puppy waking to a new world every day - I'll be smarter tomorrow.
John

Oneway 2424 - 4650_ mod.jpg
 
John Tisdale said:
Hollowing has been underway for almost a month and finally got to self bail - that's when I cut through a deep bark inclusion on the side and open a hole for the shavings to come out - no more blowing or raking out.
The 3rd pic on the right shows the log on the steady rest - to the right I cut out the shrink-wrap at the first deep bark and you can see the cut-through. I put the camera up to the hole (2nd pic) to show the terracing pattern used to hollow - seems that the Rolle Munro is more efficient pushing into the grain than side swiping. For rough-hollowing I use the HSS cutters - carbide will not withstand the abuse.
Hopefully in the next week I'll have a longer tool rest made that will go deeper into the vessel - extending 10"+ over the small rest is a bit dicey.
I added 300-lbs of ballast but still can't seem to get much over 150-rpm. While it will never be close to balanced, I hope to get to 200-rpm when the mass goes down under 400-lbs.
Best "wag" is it is 10% hollowed - shavings from hollowing is a bit over 55-gallons.
View attachment 22179 View attachment 22180 View attachment 22181 View attachment 22182
Click to expand...

What is the planned finished size of this piece?
 
Sometimes you run across bird cage stands at auctions and 2nd hand stores the glass people will fight you for it, so buy it when you see it
 
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