Things we do to impress other turners

I was reading the thread about threading jigs and started to think about the stuff we do to impress one another.

1) No sign of how a piece was fastened to the lathe, even when the design is not effected. I have no problem admitting I used a lathe to make it and I fastened it to the lathe 2) boxes with too tight a friction fit: look impressive but most people want to open and close the box easily 3) threaded lids on boxes: see #2 4) bowls with ultra thin walls so they feel too light to use 5) hollow forms with ultra thin walls that feel too light for the size 6) long, thin spindles that really do nothing but look impressive 7) almost anything that David Springett can come up with The thing is that most of this is non commercial but sure a lot of fun. It also keeps us pushing for technique which will advance the craft. Having turned a few long, thin and useless spindles makes the occasional gavel handle and spatula much easier and therefore more time can be given to design as opposed to skew technique. Keep impressing me please. It is not all that hard and I love a piece that makes me say, "how did he/she do that?" But also keep in mind that all people are not turners and will tend to buy things they easily relate to. Collectors now...they have learned to look. Enough rambling, hand me that tool.
Reply to
Darrell Feltmate
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Here's a turning I just did only to impress other turners:

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than that, it has no useful value--but the one directly after it is a bit more practical ;-) Ken Grunke

Reply to
Ken Grunke

Reply to
Owen Lowe

Ken, Impressive. It reminds me of either a spiral staircase or as Owen suggested, a spine. Very nice.

-- Martin Long Island, New York

Reply to
Martin Rost

On one of the photos I panicked till I spotted a glue line. All I could think was "I'll never be this good -- why bother trying!" At least I hope I saw a glue line -- otherwise ....

Reply to
Will

Funny, but thinking of titles for my turnings is the hardest part of the whole process for me, so I hardly ever do it. I'm gonna try getting a piece like this together for the AAW's Northern Reflections exhibit, so a title would be appropriate. I'm thinking that the staircase and spine concept can be combined to say something about middle-aged health--like, "The Steep Climb to the Sphere of Wellness", maybe? thanks, guys,

Ken Grunke

Reply to
Ken Grunke

Glue line?? what glue line, where? ;-)

OK, yes there is a glue line on the cherry piece, NOT the box elder one--but I'll wager it's not where you think it is. I can show you a very close cropping from the 1200 x 1600 pxl original, it's barely visible--but do you wanna guess where it is first?

Ken

Reply to
Ken Grunke

Uh no!

Ken Grunke wrote:

I thought I saw a glue line on the box elder piece... That's the one that bothered me... Maybe you poke something in from the end and then "stoppered the piece with the finial... Too many possibilities...

Maybe not, But don't see how it could have been turned in one piece.

Perhaps you should send me aspirin in return for making my head hurt like this...

Least you could do! LOL

Hope you enlighten us.

Beautiful work and finihing.

Reply to
Will

Reply to
Will

Will, both pieces were simply held on a 3/8" screw spindle, or "wood worm" as it's also known. I used a special chuck fixture I designed, fabricated, and "market" that offsets the spindle from center (not going into commercial production here, don't want to, but they are available on a limited production basis--I've sold 9 so far).

You can see the setup here:

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all pieces like this, I start with drilling a 3/8" hole in the bottom, screwing it on the spindle, then turning from top to bottom.Each step in the spiral is turned at the same offset, about 5/16" from center, but the piece is moved about it's own center by 30 degrees for each step. Each step is sanded to 800 grit before going on to the next one. When I get down to the base, I back the piece off a little on the spindle so I can finish the bottom with a parting tool. That's it for the box elder piece, but the cherry piece had some extra work because I had to hollow out the base to fill it with lead shot.

Normally, a paperweight is hollowed out from the bottom and a plug glued in so there's no glue joint visible. I didn't have an easy way to chuck the piece that way, so I decided to hollow it out from the top.

So, once I was finished with the spiral part, but before shaping the base too much, I made a 45 degree cone-shaped cut into the base to part off the spiral.

I couldn't hollow the base with the spindle inside, so I removed it and turned a scrap piece of cherry on a faceplate, with a short 3/8" dia. plug turned into the end, and glued the base onto that so I could hollow it.

The 45 degree parting cut I had done allowed for a good centering fit to glue the spiral back onto the base after hollowing and filling it with the lead shot. All I had left to do was finish turn the base, blend it in with the spiral a little, then part it off from the waste block, whose short 3/8" plug was left in the base to plug up the bottom.

Thank you. Hope your headache is gone now! Here's the pic of the glue line I promised--it's so close, you can see my fingerprint LOL:

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Reply to
Ken Grunke

I am going to print this out and put my feet up -- expect a grilling when I am done -- not that you _have_ to answer.... LOL

Less o' course I buy a dothingy... :-)

Reply to
Will

Ken:

Understand on the eccentric. I have a 4 jaw chuck and already tested the idea a few days ago... So I understand the approach. Your gizmo really simplifies the idea... It takes a light touch to carve the wood then... LOL

I had a good look at the following...

49boxelderOrnament-med.jpg

Is that a compound turning? That and the other similar ornaments really intrigue me. Are they turned in multiple parts and assembled? i.e. turn spindles finials and globes separately? Then glued...? If they are turned as one piece where can I sign up for classes...? :-)

Reading more...

Will wrote:

Reply to
Will

Will, those are inside-out turnings. I first discovered the technique in an English woodturning mag from 1997, then I gave a demo on inside/out ornaments for our AAW chapter in 2002--I prepared a printout for the demo which is available as a PDF file here:

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a nutshell, four square sticks are temporarily glued together, with what will be the insides facing out. The inside profiles are turned, then the pieces are seperated and permanently glued back together with the turned profiles facing inward. The outside is turned to follow the inside profile(s), plus whatever stem or finial shapes desired. The traditional method for temporarily gluing wood is using paper between the joints, so they are easily seperated. In my tutorial, I recommended using a small dab of superglue (CA glue) on one end only, the tailstock end. The headstock end would be held in a 4-jaw scroll chuck. Gluing at one end only makes it easier to pry the pieces apart, and almost everyone's got a 4-jaw scroll chuck these days.

Since then, I've discovered that double-stick tape works great--the stuff for plastic storm window sheeting. An inch or so at the tailstock end is enough, as long as pressure is applied with a c-clamp for a few seconds.

The PDF file goes into more detail, knock yourself out and have fun!

Ken Grunke member & webmaster, Coulee Region Woodturners of SW Wisconsin

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Rotations Woodturning
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Reply to
Ken Grunke

You did it. I'm impressed!

Barry

Reply to
Barry N. Turner

Ken:

Unless you object I will add a link to our website. Like Darrell Feltmates's site it seems to me to be valuable information for turners in general. So I will add it on the next update....

Between you and Darrell Feltmate you have got me _really_ interested in what I can do to add to the repertoire.

Hat's off to both of you.

Ken Grunke wrote:

I will be trying this as soon as the current project is off the lathe. :-)

We are turning some oak spindles for a solid Oak stool for the shop. SWMBO is tired of standing at the scroll saw.

We just agreed on a simple spindle design so I will do what I can tomorrow...

I had her do about 3/4 of the rough turning so she is getting a feel for the lathe as well now.

This afternoon I sent her off to work out the angles and lengths and all that stuff for _her_ shop stool. Didn't realize she had forgotten all her trigonometry so I was in doo-doo for a few minutes. Got her back on track -- hadn't noticed that she was gone for an hour and a half cause I was working on other stuff. So I showed her how to determine lengths of spindles based on height above floor and how to write an equation (inequality for those who care) that gives you minimum and maximum lengths based on the height of the bottom of the stool seat plate, angle of the legs, maximum spindle allowed in the lathe and the height of the spindle above the floor. Now she agrees it isn't that tough -- just seems like it if you haven't done it for a while... The only real problem it turned out was that she changed her reference point and did half the calculations with different references from the first half... Now that would have been an interesting set of stool legs and spindles...

What upset her is that it really only takes about 10 minutes to work all the math back and forth a few times till you get a design you like... Live and learn...

Maybe I should write that one up so people could copy it and make designs for custom stools by plugging in a couple of numbers... :-)

Probably not as cheap as the one I just got at Busy Bee. LOL ($25 new and worth every penny. LOL) Hopefully I can turn a few bowls with it before I get a _real_ chuck.

I saw a few eccentric turnings that you did -- now that would be an interesting way to make a golf club head -- not that I play golf. An Ironwood head should make an interesting driver -- assuming the chisels don't melt first. :-)

I will -- so will the other half. She just doesn't know what she is in for yet. :-)

Reply to
Will

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