I'm sure you know who David Ellsworth is. Alexander Calder may not be quite as familiar. Calder invented the Mobile for The Art World - you know, the things that hang from the ceiling with all the wire arms with colored shapes attached to them - that move with the slightest breeze.
Now to this post.
I?ve gotten into ?turned lidded boxes?, doing variations on a cylindrical base and a hemispherical lid, with either an integral or add on finial on top. While fairly simple and straghtforeward, requiring only a skew, a forstner bit with chuck for the tail stock, and a a head stock chuck - in my case a SuperNova2, turned lidded boxes present plenty of opportunities for creativity . No special tools and tool rests needed, no blind cuts, no special thickness measuring devices, no lasers, no calculations and cutting of any special parts to later glue together.
This type of object lends itself to almost infinite variations on its theme, tapering up, tapering down, rounded, beveled, coved or beaded transitions from bottom/top to sides, oval, round, bullet shaped, tall and slender, short and squat and everything in between. And the finial involves all the fun of spindle turning.
But even a simple turned lidded box presents opportunities for screw ups
- turn the lid too loose, make the lip too tall and the resulting lid to base grain won?t come close to lining up, turn or sand through a thin wall, etc.. ?Start Over? is always lurking just under the cutting edge
- or even the 400 grit sand paper.
Now, as it is with almost any type of woodworking, the fun part is Fixing F*CK UPS! - how to turn a mistake into a ?feature?. That ability to avoid ?Start Over!? AND improve the original idea is what separates the women from the girls / men from the boys in the woodworking.
Sometimes it?s the intermediate step of a F*CK UP Fix which opens up an interesting avenue to explore.
Here?s a recent example of a serendipitous discovery while Fixing a F*CK Up:
I was making a small - 2 1/2? diameter, maybe four inch tall turned lidded box for daughter in law. She loves boxes, preferably little boxes that have lids. This one was from a piece of old split cedar fence post. The lid was nearly hemispherical, a small flat spot on top for a hole for the tenon of the finial.
I was just finishing off the bottom of the base, concaving it slightly so it?d sit flat. Removing the little nib you get at the center of rotation was the final cut/scrape and the piece would be done. Naturally, that?s when the pin head hole appeared. An ?AH!? moment suddenly had turned into an ?AH SH*T!? moment.
?That?s OK, I?ll JUST plug it with more of the mahogany I used for the finial. No big deal -right? Open up the hole ?til I had enough thickness to glue to, turn a slightly tapered plug to fit it, glue it in and turn off the excess on the bottom afer the glue had dried. So that?s what I did, epoxying the plug just for insurance. Turned off the lights and called it a day - the epoxy left to cure overnight.
So this morning I go out to finish off the bottom the this piece and apply some Mahoney Walnut Oil and Wax to the bottom. Marissa would have a box well before lunch time. The sun was shining, the air cool but not cold, the almost four year old twins next door out playing in their back yard, laughing and squeeling with the joy of being kids - it was going to be a great day.
Got out a bench chisel and began cleaning up the epoxy glue squeeze out, in prepartation for turning the mahogany plug flush to the bottom of the box. As I put the box back on the bench so I could return the chisel to it?s rack in my wall cabinet I didn?t quite set the piece down flat on the plug in the bottom.
The box started to tip over. I had visions of stabbing myself in the hand, or worse yet, the piece, with the chisel in one hand, OR watching In slow motion as the piece rolled off the bench top onto the cement floor - where it would no doubt crack into two or more unrecoverable pieces.
QUICK - Stitches or Start Over?
I?ve trained myself to never try to catch a falling tool that has a point, a very sharp edge - or both. In a fractgion of an instant I?d resigned myself to Start Over.
But the piece DIDN?T fall over. It teatered and wobbled back and forth, finally righting itself - like one of those inflatable punching bags - the ones with the sand or water in the bottom.
I put the chisel back in the chisel rack and returned to the piece on the bench. I pushed sideways on the top of the finial, leaning the piece maybe 25 or 30 degrees off vertical - and let go. The piece righted itself, swung beyond vertical in the other direction, then oscillated back and forth ?til it came to rest - once again vertical. Then I spun the piece. It spun nicely, wobbled and righted itself back to vertical and stationary.
Then I started examining the parameters of this piece to try and figure out why it has what in kayaking is called secondary stability. Primary stability keeps the piece from starting to tip over. But once it does it?ll just keep going and will fall over. Secondary stability though it will wobble and rock around, is what keeps it from falling all the way over and why it will automatgically return to upright. Secondary stability makes the piece (and a kayak) ?tippy? but not Fall Over tippy.
I?d accidently stumbled on just the right combination of overall diameter, plug diameter and height, and location of the center of gravity to create a low primary stability and a high secondary stability for the piece. This combination allows the piece to be spun like a top, lets it wobble while spinning and come to rest up right. Or you can push sideways on the top of the finial to the point that the piece almost tips over then let go and watch it pendulum back to vertical and stationary.
I?d made a stealth mobile (ala Alexander Caldwell?s Mobiles) turned lidded box. It looks stabile and static - but it ain?t!
Now turned wood pieces are typically static, Do Not Touch things. By excluding touch, a major part of the piece is missed. But even if you allow touch, the piece is still basically static. I can only think of two types of turned pieces which are intened to be dynamic - tops and trembleurs. OK so there are round bottomed plates and bowls - but those visually are obviously not stabile. This piece looks stabile - pretty much like all the other turned lidded boxes - unless you nudge it just about anywhere above the base. Then it goes into its tilt and wobble and turn mode before it uprights itself and returns to ?normal mode?.
A test for ?Interesting? is to show a small child the thing you?re testing and let them play with it. If their eyes light up and they want to Do It Again! - then you?re on to something. Granson , age 3, found the piece fascinating, as did the almost four year okd twins next door. They quickly figured out just how much spin was enough to make it turn without tipping all the way over and just how far they could tip it and have it wobble and rock back to vertical - and stationary. You could almost see the analytical gears and wheels turning in their heads - If I push here just this much, then . . .
Now the engineer in me will analyze this piece and try and discover the relationship between major diameter, plug diameter, plug exposed height and center of gravity. A hypothesis will be developed, more pieces made and evaluated and hopefully another dimension to my turnings will be the result - all because of a F*CK Up. This is in keeping with my There Has To Be A Pony In All This Horsesh*t! approach to woodworking.
No reason why turned objects have to become static when removed from the lathe.
charlie b