Clamshell box

Walnut clamshell box.













Turned for the "Walnut" President's challenge.  Each half turned from a 4/4 walnut board roughly 3" wide.  4/4 isn't thick enough to turn a traditional box so I cut 2 pieces from adjoining sections of the board.











Side view.


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Wood of Life

The February President's challenge is lidded boxes. I've had a few ideas in my head but I've run out of time. This was not my intended finished product but it's pretty close in spirit.










This spherical box is made from a portion of a Lignum Vitae (translated as Wood of Life) blank I purchased at the local Woodcraft. It was actually labeled as Olive but I knew that wasn't right. The employee at the register agreed that it was Lignum Vitae and agreed to double check on the price. Oddly it wasn't a size available in the catalog or in the computer so he had to check with the owner. They ended up ended up taking $15 off the price marked for Olive. Even so it is still quite expensive, about $40 a board foot.




I also made a matching ring stand out of a different piece of Lignum Vitae. I've demonstrated my technique for turning these rings before, including this past Saturday at the Southern Arizona Woodturners Association, SAZWA.









I intended to hand chase threads to get the box to thread together but my attempts to hand chase were less than successful. In the end I abandoned that idea and went with a standard tenon and recess joint.









I also worked on sanding a 3 piece hollow form set in Maple Burl. I turned these pieces throughout the day at the Woodcraft event a couple weeks ago.










There's a U.S. quarter for scale. These are the first turnings from my big burl score last year about this time. I still need to do some more sanding, I'd have much less hand work had I sanded them in the lathe while they were being turned but I always say that people want to watch somebody turn, not watch somebody sand.

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Spline box how-to

Mount a blank on the lathe between centers in face grain (side grain) orientation.  Turn a tenon on each end.  I leave the blank square so the next operation is both safer and easier.

The blank is taken to the band saw and a cut is made that follows the contour of the grain. Blank selection is important as you want the grain has some contour that runs side to side, not diagonally. The end grain should also run as perpendicular as possible to the side grain.

The blank can then be mounted between centers again and turned to a cylinder.  Alternatively each half can be mounted in a chuck and turned to a cylinder independently.  When demonstrating this project I opt for the chuck method as it is safer than turning a blank between centers that has been cut in half.  Can you see the joint in this photo?

There it is.

The 2 halves turned to a cylinder and set aside.  The contour is what makes this box interesting and necessitates the spline technique as it's not possible to turn a tenon on the irregular surface and still have a good grain match.

 

The first half is then mounted in the chuck and the inside is turned.  The body is partially hollowed and a recess is turned around the inside, this will be used to accept the spline that will act as the faux tenon.







The blank for the spline is mounted between centers and turned round.  I usually opt to use the same wood and turned in the same orientation as the body of the box.  In this case the only matching wood I had was in end grain orientation but I used it anyway.  A spline in a contrasting wood is another good look.

The spline is turned to the correct diameter.  It can normally be remounted and carefully turned to get a good fit with minimal runout.  I actually don't mount this between centers.  I jam the blank against the flat face of the spindle and drive it with friction and pressure from the tailstock.  I use the face of the spindle as it will ensure that the blank is perpendicular to the ways.

Once a good fit is attained the spline is glued in place.  The round mark visible here is from the end of the spindle.

The chuck is then returned to the lathe and the center of the spline removed to that only the solid wooden ring is left.  The rest of the body is then hollowed and the spline is blended into the rest of the body.  I opted to reduce the length and soften the edge of the tenon slightly.

The other half is then mounted in the chuck and a recess is turned to match the diameter of the spline tenon.  From here on out the process is mostly the same as a standard box.  We now have 1 half with a tenon (spline) and 1 half with a recess.

The first half is mounted onto the 2nd half and the live center is brought up to support it as the outside is turned.  I round it off and take it down to a little nub.  The top half can be removed to check the wall thickness as work progresses.  The blank centers very well as the contoured joint can only fit in one position.  The dimple from the live center also helps keep it centered.

If the fit is tight enough the nub can be removed without the need for tape.  I rushed through this box so the fit was looser that it should have been so I needed some painter's tape to hold it together while I cleaned up the nub.

The rest of the end half is hollowed and then reversed for for final turning.  I opted to use my vacuum chuck but a jam chuck should also work.  The outside is turned to match the first half,

The 2nd half secured on my vacuum chuck.  My primary vacuum pump pulls 24" of mercury which translates to 12 PSI.  The PVC is 2" diameter which is roughly 3 square inches so there is roughly 36 pounds of air pressure holding this in place.

Turning complete, next up is the texturing that is used to help disguise the joint.

The outside is textured with a round brass bristle brush.  It's held in a jacobs chuck and the lathe rotates it while I hold the box against it.  The softer wood is worn away while the harder wood is left behind.

The finished box.  Another reason I like doing this style of box is that I don't have to sand the outside at all.  The entire surface is textured, more grain is worn away where it's softer but even the harder grain gets some texture.  Any time spent sanding on the outside is completely wasted.

Another view.

Open view.  You can clearly see the end grain orientation of the spline, the grain runs vertical rather than side to side.  If it ran side to side it would blend better with the body and be much less visible.

Demo prep

I'm demonstrating lidded boxes on Saturday at the Arizona Woodturners Association. I plan to demo 3 different styles, first is a small round box with a contrasting inlay around the rim, a simplified version of Cindy Drozda's "Fabulous Finial Box". Second will be what I call a hidden joint spline box. It's a pretty unique box, done side grain rather than end grain and with a joint that is contoured to match the grain of the wood. Last (if there's time) will be what I consider to be my signature lidded box, 3 sided with a 120 degree twist.






I've got most of my prep work already done, tonight I gathered up some samples and my prepared blanks. Next I need to gather up my tools and and accessories and I should be good to go.


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Post Christmas

My wife and kids and I exchanged gifts at my grandparent's house on Christmas Eve because my uncle and his wife were in town. My grandparents are the only close family we have locally do we usually spend the holidays with them. That left Christmas day open so I spent a couple hours in the shop.









These Olive hollow forms had their exteriors roughed out a couple weeks ago, the insides were rough hollowed on Christmas day. As with most of my turnings they are now bagged and shelved for at least 6 months.












I'm preparing for a lidded boxes demo next month and saw a left over piece of Banksia pod. Instantly I knew what I wanted to do. One of the boxes I'm planning to demo is this style, I call them pill boxes and they're made with an inlay of contrasting wood; in this case Holly inlay in the Banksia pod body and lid.









These are kind of fun to make, I've done them in Box Elder Burl, Olive, Walnut, Myrtle, mesquite, Honey Locust, and more. Inlays are usually African Blackwood or Holly. Sometimes I make a separate handle, others the lid/handle are a single piece.












The body is mostly round. There is a small depression in the bottom center so it will sit flat and stable. This was my first time making a box out of Banksia, it won't be my last.

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Ash spline box

Tonight was my first night back in the shop for quite a while. I've spent some time out there recently but mostly cleaning and organizing (not that you can tell).
















This is a small semi spherical box I turned tonight out of some Ash. It's turned side grain rather than end grain so I can use the grain lines to help hide the joint. The joint also isn't straight as it was cut to match the contour of the grain.











This requires a completely different joint as it's not possible to turn the usual tenon and recess on the curved surfaces. Instead I have to turn 2 recesses and join them with a spline. I chose to use another piece of the same wood, a contrasting wood could also be used.










The outside was then textured with a wire brush to further hide the joint line in the grain lines. If I had a sandblaster I'd use it to do the texturing as I believe it would be more uniform and I think I could go deeper into the softer grain.

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Spherical box

This morning i turned a near perfect spherical box in Box Elder with natural red staining. Roughly 3 1/2" diameter.

















The walls could be thinner and the joint could be tighter but overall I'm pretty happy. This was turned this afternoon without any templates or other guides. The inside was not sanded and was turned completely freehand.











The outside was also turned freehand using a set of wooden cup chucks I made myself. A fun little project that can be done in about an hour and requires only a couple basic tools (bowl gouge, spindle gouge, spindle roughing gouge, scraper, parting tool).


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Demonstrations

I'm certain I'll be demonstrating for at least 2 clubs next year, possibly more. I've already started to run possible demo topics through my head. The 3 I have in my head are:

1) Lidded boxes - 2 or 3 styles of lidded boxes. Likely a small round bottom box with a contrasting inlay around the lid and a 3 sided box with a twist (normally part of my multi axis demo).

2) Spheres - turning a perfect freehand sphere and variations of offset spheres.

3) Coring with the McNaughton Center Saver.

4) Something else?

Opinions?

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Mega catch up

 It's been a busy week, time for another catch up post.

First up is some prep for an upcoming demonstration.  I'm headed to Idaho for vacation in about 3 weeks and will be doing a demonstration at the Woodcraft Guild in Idaho Falls on 7/7/11.

 I'll be doing my multi axis demo, the main feature being my multi axis lidded box with a twist.  As always I prepare the blank ahead of time by turning the inside.  This is primarily to save time but is also because the accuracy needed for the tenon would be hard to do with an audience.

 Next up are a few birdhouses.  The last couple of posts have been their construction.  Here are the finished products.

Some may notice that the 3rd one (Ornamental Yew) is missing.  It had an unfortunate accident while doing the final sanding.  I forgot how thin it was near the bottom and when I tapped on it to seat it on a jam chuck I broke the bottom out of it.  I made this body as a replacement on Friday night and gave the woman that ordered it her choice of the 3.  She picked this one and it's now living happily in her living room.

 This piece was boxed so it can be delivered to the 25th annual American Association of Woodturners symposium in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

 The President's Challenge for June is "Toys".  I'm working on a couple of things, first is a multi axis magic wand.  Next is a Tippy top.  This top is supposed to flip over and spin on the stem.  This one doesn't quite work right but I'm not sure what's wrong.  I'll probably do a couple more to see if I can figure out what went wrong.  I suspect it's too top heavy.

 This afternoon I turned a Kendama.  Kendamas are like the old ball and cup toy but a bit more extreme.  There are at least 4 surfaces to catch the ball one, each of the 3 cups and the point.

xAll pieces were turned out of Red Cedar.  I didn't have any plans and I couldn't find any dimensions on the internet so I had to base my design on a couple of photos.  I'm sure that the dimensions are incorrect. I can now see from additional photos that the cups on the side should be different sizes.  I also had some extra wood so I turned another sphere (above).

Last I had a custom job to turn a spindle and a drop finial for a music stand.  The customer supplied the wood and a poor quality photo to use as the template.  The photo was similar to the photo at left.  I didn't have to copy it exactly but it was used as inspiration for the piece.  The drop final was inspired by the bottom 2" of the spindle only in reverse and slightly different because it needed to taper down to a very small diameter in a relatively short distance.