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What’s on your lathe?

My sister is always using the excuse:
"Yah but" You know, yah but it was raining! Yah but it was on sale! Yah but it was blue! Yah but etc. etc.
One day I looked at her and said: What's a yabut? Are they little creatures that jump in the woods? Now it's a running joke every time she says it!
Today I caught one! I will surprise her hopefully this weekend.
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Nothing too unique but at 18.5" twice turned diameter it's my largest to date. Siberian elm with Mahoney's Walnut Oil finish. Have to work on a better exterior cut. Those tool marks sand out but I'd love to one day have an uninterrupted flowing final pass with the bowl gouge. Ah, the grace of it!
 

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Rip Littig said:
Nothing too unique but at 18.5" twice turned diameter it's my largest to date. Siberian elm with Mahoney's Walnut Oil finish. Have to work on a better exterior cut. Those tool marks sand out but I'd love to one day have an uninterrupted flowing final pass with the bowl gouge. Ah, the grace of it!
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That's a beautiful design.
 
Phil Hamel said:
What's a yabut? Are they little creatures that jump in the woods?
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Phil.....Now you're going to have to make some "round tuits".....I know a few people who's like some of those!

-o-
 
Frank English said:
Different to say the least from a railroad tie. Is the darkish area because of creosote? Up here they used to soak railroad ties in creosote to prevent rotting.
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I’m not sure what this was soaked in, but I think that is what caused the black streaks. It smells like used motor oil instead of the usual sweet/spicy scent of lignum. Also, quick update on this HF, it is now a bowl, SMH! I have one more chunk
 
Kevin, Lignum Vitae was/is used as bearings in Ships propellor shafts, oil is used to help with the natural lubrication, I have also seen it used as sliding bearing blocks, they also were lubricated with oil.

On one ship I was on, we had a fire as we were running high speed, then when the fire was put out with water, we had a warped shaft and had to go in dry dock to replace the shaft after we had received a new one.

That "railroad tie" might have been used for something else where it would receive lubrication, hard to say, it sure is a beautiful wood and big piece like that would be expensive I imaging.
 
Inspired by Ralph Pugh and a YouTube from ThePapa1947, this an attempt to make a tangential segments project. This was done by feeling, but in means time I went in the math involved and figured out on how to design it. It is as simple as normal segments geometries….

VCru+
 

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I use a little airbag to lift heavy blanks and get the center where I want it. It also makes it easy to make adjustments to get grain balance after starting turning.

cherry760.jpg

If this survives I might call it scary cherry. It has a large bark inclusion that I wasn't totally confident that it would stay together. I had an English Walnut one that didn't stay together. It just didn't sound right so I stopped and thumped it with a dead blow hammer, and it broke apart. This one sounded solid with a light thump. It really wasn't scary, but I did use the cage, (always stayed out of the line of fire) and turned it a bit slower than usual. It is 16" x 6" x 1/4". I also used a faceplate and cored the center. Hopefully I will get a couple more bowls from that.

cherry775.jpg
 
Kevin Jesequel said:
A chunk of Lignum Vitae that was once a railroad tie on the Panama Canal. I don’t normally sand a piece before I hollow it, but I just had to see what this one was going to look like.
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How was that on your tool edges Kevin? Lignum vitae is the preferred hand plane material because it is tough as nails.
 
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James Seyfried said:
I use a little airbag to lift heavy blanks and get the center where I want it. It also makes it easy to make adjustments to get grain balance after starting turning.

View attachment 60971

If this survives I might call it scary cherry. It has a large bark inclusion that I wasn't totally confident that it would stay together. I had an English Walnut one that didn't stay together. It just didn't sound right so I stopped and thumped it with a dead blow hammer, and it broke apart. This one sounded solid with a light thump. It really wasn't scary, but I did use the cage, (always stayed out of the line of fire) and turned it a bit slower than usual. It is 16" x 6" x 1/4". I also used a faceplate and cored the center. Hopefully I will get a couple more bowls from that.

View attachment 60972
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Jim that bowl would get a few staples in it on the underside to keep it from opening up if it was mine.

I have used staples with good results on several turnings that I kept from opening up or self-destruction, I made the staple from some stiff SS wire, pre-drilled the holes undersize and ten hammered them in.

Here are a couple pictures of the ones I did, the Beech bowl we still have and use, still is as when done.

Beech bowl we still have.jpg

This is a Black Walnut crotch that I stapled and the staple kept it as shown.

Walnut crotch with staple.jpg

Here is one I did and places a staple on the underside later after returning the bowl, I did remove the staple holes when returning to round the oval shape when the piece dried.Staple holds the bowl.jpg

This Black Cherry did not open up, the bark inclusion dried and there is an opening that was filled when finishing, and a new staple went in on the underside.

Staple kept it from opening up.jpg
 
James Seyfried said:
I use a little airbag to lift heavy blanks and get the center where I want it. It also makes it easy to make adjustments to get grain balance after starting turning.

View attachment 60971

If this survives I might call it scary cherry. It has a large bark inclusion that I wasn't totally confident that it would stay together. I had an English Walnut one that didn't stay together. It just didn't sound right so I stopped and thumped it with a dead blow hammer, and it broke apart. This one sounded solid with a light thump. It really wasn't scary, but I did use the cage, (always stayed out of the line of fire) and turned it a bit slower than usual. It is 16" x 6" x 1/4". I also used a faceplate and cored the center. Hopefully I will get a couple more bowls from that.

View attachment 60972
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+
James-I LOVE your air-bag idea for centering heavy blanks; I definitely have to try it! In exchange for that idea, I tried a tip for my last piece of Chinese Elm that had a very similar bark inclusion that went through the center and almost to above my base-cut and tenon. I haven't taken a picture (yet) of the finished product because I still need to sand it out, but basically you just mix up some 5-minute epoxy with fine-ground coffee, dab all of it around on a paper plate per the usual mixing technique with a popsicle stick, and then mush it up into that inclusion the best you can. Yeah, it's much thicker than pourable 2-part epoxy, but the upside is it won't drip through the cracks and go to waste (which has happened to me more than once, unfortunately). The projects I've tried it on so far, the finished product just looks like a shinier, harder, more uniformly brown bark inclusion. And that being figured cherry with 3 branch piths, it's probably not done cracking lol! In any event, please show off the finished product if this makes it.
 
James Seyfried said:
I use a little airbag to lift heavy blanks and get the center where I want it. It also makes it easy to make adjustments to get grain balance after starting turning.

View attachment 60971

If this survives I might call it scary cherry. It has a large bark inclusion that I wasn't totally confident that it would stay together. I had an English Walnut one that didn't stay together. It just didn't sound right so I stopped and thumped it with a dead blow hammer, and it broke apart. This one sounded solid with a light thump. It really wasn't scary, but I did use the cage, (always stayed out of the line of fire) and turned it a bit slower than usual. It is 16" x 6" x 1/4". I also used a faceplate and cored the center. Hopefully I will get a couple more bowls from that.

View attachment 60972
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With the right lighting it would look like the eye of Mordor!
 
Leo Van Der Loo said:
Jim that bowl would get a few staples in it on the underside to keep it from opening up if it was mine.

I have used staples with good results on several turnings that I kept from opening up or self-destruction, I made the staple from some stiff SS wire, pre-drilled the holes undersize and ten hammered them in.

Here are a couple pictures of the ones I did, the Beech bowl we still have and use, still is as when done.

View attachment 60974

This is a Black Walnut crotch that I stapled and the staple kept it as shown.

View attachment 60975

Here is one I did and places a staple on the underside later after returning the bowl, I did remove the staple holes when returning to round the oval shape when the piece dried.View attachment 60977

This Black Cherry did not open up, the bark inclusion dried and there is an opening that was filled when finishing, and a new staple went in on the underside.

View attachment 60978
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Leo, are the staples a permanent fixture or do you remove them after the bowl has dried and ready for second turning/sanding?
 
Michael Anderson said:
That's cool, Brian! I'm looking forward to seeing the final piece. Maybe you could post it here on the forum somewhere. Would be a perfect candidate for your long-overdue inaugural gallery post 😉
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Here it is. - I'm not sure about posting it to gallery - I need to work on my photography some more.... 20240225_143809.jpg
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Paul May said:
@Kevin Jesequel How was that on your tool edges Kevin? Lignum vitae is the preferred hand plane material because it is tough as nails.
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I’d say it was in line with other very hard woods that I’ve turned (Cocobolo, Bocote, Bubinga, etc). It did not seem particularly abrasive. I did sharpen my gouge maybe 4 times to shape this little vessel. It is very oily and I had to clean the flute of my gouge of a hardened mixture of oil and wood fibers several times.
 
Vincent Vogel said:
Leo, are the staples a permanent fixture or do you remove them after the bowl has dried and ready for second turning/sanding?
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Vince, the small staple in the Beech bowl is still like shown, the other staples are removed to be able to second turn the piece, and then put a new staple out of sight, just to make. sure the wood is not moving later in life.

After all it is important to keep the piece from splitting later on, just insurance ;-))

This is the Black Cherry after being twice turned.

Black Cherry bowl.jpg
 
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In the shop past midnight again last night. Removed waste blocks on two bowls, and turned the feet......foots?....on a Brown Mallee burl and Fiddleback Maple bowls. I had this Jarrah burl for years on the shelf. I can't stand looking at it any longer.....so, I just want it gone! Being so thin, there's not much you can do with it.....It's going to be a thin platter. Started out as 12" x 1".....but, after bringing it to round it will be no larger than 10 1/2" x 3/4".....pretty darn slim, but it is what it is..... 🙂

-o-
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The lignum hollowform became a bowl when I went through the top. I have one more chunk of this particular piece to try again. The bowl went to the wood donor and he and his wife are very happy to have it.

Ted Pelfrey said:
Did it have a lot of silicate in it?
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It didn’t seem to. From what I have been told, these ties spent a long time under water. I believe they are from a section of the track that became submerged under a lake that was formed when the canal was opened. I was told that they were salvaged and brought to the US 25-30 years ago, likely in the rush to get everything possible here before CITES regulation became effective.
 

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