Happy accident

I had 2 more pieces of Madrone left, one that was burl and one that was mostly straight grain.  Tonight I decided to tackle both of them.

The first one was going to be an hourglass shaped vase but I had a small catch while hollowing and the piece broke in half both latitudinally and longitudinally.  I threw the top half in the microwave not knowing what would happen.  What happened was a pleasant surprise, the piece curled in on itself to form a spiral.  A light went off in my head.

My last piece was glued to a waste block, turned to a cylinder, and the inside was hollowed to a uniform thickness before the tube was parted off of the waste block.

I then used a pneumatic body saw (http://www.harborfreight.com/high-speed-metal-saw-91753.html) to cut straight down one side.  I was a bit surprised to see the cut open up so much immediately.  I was worried that it wouldn't act like the other piece, that it might unfold rather than curl tighter.

It turns out that my fears were unfounded. A couple of minutes in the microwave had the piece curled up like the sample piece.

Looks to be about 540 degrees, I think it would have curled more if it had been thinner.  I'm now thinking I might try to make some more of these with some other woods, not sure how much I have that's still green though.

Potato chips

More madrone tonight.  I think I have 3 more pieces left. 

Tonight I wanted to make a series of small bowls.  I glued the blank to a waste blog and then turned and cored a series of bowls.  The inside of each bowl was turned and then the piece was cored to turn the bottom of the first bowl and give a rough shape to the inside of the next bowl.

The bowls were then each placed on my vacuum chuck so the outside could be finished and the bowl turned to a uniform thickness.  I ended up getting 6 bowls from the blank. 

I ran one sample through entire process, including the microwave, before coring and turning the rest of the blank.  The piece in this photo separate from the other was the prototype.  I neglected to take a picture of the other 5 bowls nested together.

All 6 bowls sent through the microwave for 90 seconds each.  I'll probably give them all another 90 seconds tomorrow morning.

Here is all 6 stacked together.  You can see just how much they warped.  I'm a little disappointed they didn't retain a bit more of the original bowl shape.  They don't really appear to have been turned at all, I think taking thin slices off on a bandsaw would result in a similar effect, be much simpler, and would result in many more pieces, 20 or 30 if done carefully.

Madrone tube

Another chunk of Madrone burl tonight.  I think I have 4 left after tonight. 

Tonight I wanted to turn a thin wall tube.  I didn't get it as thin as the piece from yesterday (which I thought was a bit too thin).  I wasn't sure how this was going to work out as the blank was only secured with a bit of superglue on the waste block - see above.  The first half was hollowed with my bowl gouge, the second half I used my straight boring bar with a round scraper tip.

As I progressed deeper and deeper and then widened out the bottom end the glue surface area became smaller and smaller.  In the end there was only about 1/16" thickness left on the wall at about 2 1/2" diameter.  Very little left holding it in place but strong enough that I had to part it free.

2 trips to the microwave at 90 second each has the piece twisted and warped pretty nicely. 

The top end warped nicely.  The bottom end didn't move quite as much because it was just a little bit thicker.  Now I have an idea in my head for the next piece.  Now we'll see if I can get it done.  I plan to do a test run with some scrap wood to see if it's going to work like I hope.

Madrone Burl

As I promised Christian I got the first piece of the Madrone Burl he left me on the lathe today.  The color in the wood is amazing, fresh cut it was bright red with some brown patches.

I turned it as thin as I could, probably too thin in a couple of spots.  The wood cut very well, requiring almost no sanding.  I might have found a new favorite wood except it's pretty much impossible to get around here.

After turning was completed I popped it in the microwave for 60 seconds a couple of times to start to dry it and to force it to warp. 

We'll see how much more it moves over the next 24 hours.