That turned out beautifully!
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What’s on your lathe?
- Thread starter Rusty Nesmith
- Start date
Finally finished my maple ambrosia—the piece with terrible tearout. Sand, sand, sand—I’m so tired of that. 
That’s a beautiful piece of maple!
This month's club turning challenge, Turn a Fruit. Maple with a Mountain Mahagony stem. I must say, this is the first fruit I've turned. no finish on stem yet
Grabbed a chunk of burl and some maple. Turned, carved and bent till I got this flower for my apple vase.
Awesome David. What finish did you use? How many coats? About to finish some walnut in the near future.
That is really a nice looking bowl. I love the sap wood intrusion.
I use Mahoney’s Walnut Oil on walnut and usually will do 2-3 coats. I will let the first coat dry for a few days and then put another coat on. I occasionally put a final coat of Mahoney’s walnut oil wax mixture on but not always.
I sand to 320 then mist that bowl with water to raise the grain and do the final sand with 320 or 400 before applying the oil.
If the walnut doesn’t have sap wood present I will occasionally use Tired and True Danish Oil since I really can’t tell a difference in how it looks on walnut. Linseed oil will yellow over time so I don’t use it if sap wood is present.
Making this fruit bowl for my daughter. White oak. It was in the drying box with others since end of December and was developing a crack so I figured I'd do this, I indexed it to cut the groove through the crack. It's in a paper bag now, I'll wait a week and see how it does. No finish yet.
Attachments
6x12 alder vase, going to try my hand at piercing. Need to work on uniform thickness. Shape isn't as irregular as it looks but who knows when it dries?
Really nice, can you explain how you figured out the indexing?
I have an indexing plate that mounts on the spindle behind the chuck. Grooves are cut with a trim router sitting on a plate that's mounted in the banjo. I'll have to look at the directions on the indexing plate to see the brand of it, can't remember right now. There's a formula for figuring out the spacing that requires a minimum diameter and router bit diameter, again I have all that in my notebook. Also you can use the search feature on this forum just type in indexing plate or fluted bowl and lots of information will come up. If you want more information let me know.
Please! I’d be interested in seeing that formula.
Didn't come in from the shop until about 1:30am last evening......this was the result.
Big Leaf Maple burl:
=o=
Big Leaf Maple burl:
=o=
Another beauty Odie!!
Maybe I should start a thread in tutorials and we could get some of the experts here to comment also? What do you guys think? I'm afraid the information will get lost/forgotten in this thread.
Is it the Alisam? That's the one I and some others I know use. Excellent.
Mine is darker blue than the teal shown in the pictures on their website:
Alisam Engineering Large Indexing Systems
Alisam Large Indexing Systems fit most wood lathes with a swing from 10 to 24 inches
alisam.com
Mine was from Chefwarekits.com
Finishing up a couple of late projects today. The inlay didn’t work out the way I had planned but as they say “it is what it is”
. Needed a paper towel holder for the shop so I grabbed a piece of white oak, walnut, and wenge to make a quick one. Put an adjustment hole for when the roll gets smaller and heavy enough I don’t jerk it off the table!
. Needed a paper towel holder for the shop so I grabbed a piece of white oak, walnut, and wenge to make a quick one. Put an adjustment hole for when the roll gets smaller and heavy enough I don’t jerk it off the table!
Canarywood bowl with some lines drawn on the central bulb. This will be part of a flower pedestal spin top. Prepping for a demo this week.
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I took a lot of inspiration from @Vincent Vogel 's oak fruit bowl to try out some more LatheEngraver fluting. I had my depths just a little off, so it went a bit deep through the support bead. There are 45 flutes and they includes a 15 degree rotation. 3 passes, 3 mm depth if cut. Total time, 59 minutes.
This evening's result is this curly maple bowl:
=o=
=o=
Sheeeeesh! How am I supposed to follow Odie!??
Small piece of Wenge I had on the shelf.
Stuff is hard to turn and very brittle. Chipped the foot with the chuck and had to regroup and change the bottom.
Small piece of Wenge I had on the shelf.
Stuff is hard to turn and very brittle. Chipped the foot with the chuck and had to regroup and change the bottom.
Nice looking bowl with rotation of the flutes. The support ring probably isn't as important with the enclosed rim. I might try an enclosed rim next but I have no way of doing a rotation of the flute.
Taking another swing at a Ray Key box. Punky hickory.
I hear you on the sanding, but my lord look at the results. As I have said before, when I have about every Eastern species of wood in some form out on my craft show table, many people just gravitate to the astonishing beauty of ambrosia maple! I think my wife would steal one that nice for herself!
Just as a final update on that tricky Oregon walnut platter with the really soft wood, swirly figure and burl eyes that was such a challenge to sand evenly, I finally got it done. After 800 grit wet-sanding by hand and Yorkshire Grit friction polish, it was finished with 6 very light, thinned coats of Tried and True Danish Oil, burnished between coats with cheesecloth. I caught a break with some warm, sunny/dry/windy days, so it cured relatively fast on my sunny back deck. Finally, I followed up with two final, super-thin and light coats of warmed Tried and True Varnish Oil for a bit more sheen. Again followed by lots of careful burnishing. I'm pretty satisfied with the results (though the radius on the upper rim turned out flatter than I like due to some wobble-I should have left it a little thicker to account for that).
Finally, this one sports one of my new brushed copper logo medallions that I was able to inset on the vacum chuck some of you guys helped me set up correctly. It will be displayed prominently on my Turning for Home table at my 1st show of the season this evening. I will absolutely be turning more of the DeHeers' beautiful platter blanks!
Finally, this one sports one of my new brushed copper logo medallions that I was able to inset on the vacum chuck some of you guys helped me set up correctly. It will be displayed prominently on my Turning for Home table at my 1st show of the season this evening. I will absolutely be turning more of the DeHeers' beautiful platter blanks!
Might take some work: mount router to a pivot with an extended arm off if it which attaches to a connecting rod to an arm on the index wheel so when the router moves into the cut the piece moves too resulting in the curved cut.
Looks great! Is it for our OVWG demo?
After some great criticism on my project's knob. I carefully remounted it on the lathe and thinned it down. Added a bead in the center also. I think it looks better. Wife was not impressed.
Old:
New:
Old:
New:
Thanks! This was for a demo I did in northwestern Georgia last night (but will also be the same topic for one of my OVGW symposium demos
). OVGW next week will be a bit different. I'm starting the prep for that (and the class) today. Woohoo!
That's great! I did not know you demonstrated this much. Becoming a full time pro now!Thanks! This was for a demo I did in northwestern Georgia last night (but will also be the same topic for one of my OVGW symposium demos
Ha, well….dedicated amateur
But on a more serious note, I really enjoy demonstrating. It's just another excuse to turn, and I love meeting new folks. It's always fun to see someone you've met before at a previous demo/workshop. There are a good amount of clubs around here, and I've demoed for most--I've probably met/seen some of the same people 5 or 6 times now. It's great.
And, I always encourage people to demonstrate as well. It's nerve-racking for sure, especially at first, but the more you do, the easier they get. And in the end, I also think it forces you to be a better turner, mostly for the fundamentals. To be able to explain something to a crowd clearly and coherently, you have to really understand it. The communication is almost as enjoyable as the turning. Almost...
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I'd agree with wife, I like the old one better... new one is just too skinny for its height....
A while back, @Jaramiah Severns gifted me a chunk of Masur Birch. I now know the appeal. Not only is it extremely beautiful, but it turns very well. This piece is bone dry, but turns like green wood (almost). Buttery smooth. So nice. Thank you, Jaramiah.
@Gabriel Hoff I know you’re a big fan of this timber, so I’m turning it now to have an example piece made from it for the demo.
@Gabriel Hoff I know you’re a big fan of this timber, so I’m turning it now to have an example piece made from it for the demo.