Back to the drawing board

The club challenge for October in inside-out. I had an idea to incorporate my multi axis turning on the inside face. So I chucked up a piece of Home Depot redwood and turned a prototype.















I had to leave the ends square so I had some area to glue once its turned inside out. Normally I would turn all the way to the ends of the blank. Because this is only a prototype I didn't do the preliminary glue up.














Instead i turned it as a solid piece and then quartered it on my band saw before turning the sections inside out. The results weren't what I had in mind so it went in the recycling bin and I went back to the drawing board.














My second idea was more successful and closer to what I had in mind as my concept. I started by gluing 4 pieces together with a paper joint and turning a wide cove.











The paper glue joints were the split apart and the 4 pieces turned inside out and glued together permanently. I opted to turn on 4 axes with a 90 degree twist to match the 4 diamond shaped openings formed by the inside-out process.









It's not perfect but it proves the concept. The glue joints could be much better; that's one of the reasons I'm not a segmented turner. I'm also not sure how this concept could be incorporated into a finished piece. For now I'm just happy that I was able to get my proof of concept done.

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Curly maple tool handle.













Turned on three axes with a 120 degree twist.















Olive hollow form











Approx 5.5" x 5"













Seized air compressor piston.

















Carob roughout.













Approx 7" x 3.5"













Figured maple winged bowl.













Slightly downsloping wings.













Bottom view with a bark edge on the one side.

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Keith Gotschall demo

Saturday was the Keith Gotschall demo at the Arizona Woodturners Association. We had about 90 people in attendance, 75% of which were AWA members. We usually do 2 of these all day demonstrations each year, one in the spring and another in the fall.










Keith was a very good demonstrator. He was informative and very knowledgable but also didn't talk down to the audience. He did 4 projects over the course of the day and flowed easily from one project to the next. Short of a lathe, a chuck, a grinder, and a turning smock he was fully prepared and well supplied.










His first project was a multi axis bowl. It's started as a spindle project and was used to demonstrate basic turning technique (beads, coves, skew, rubbing the bevel).













The blank was prepared in such a way that after the spindle portion was complete it was split in 2 pieces and then oriented in side grain orientation and the wings and bowl portion turned. The whole project was also used to demonstrate the proper way to cut with the grain direction.












The next project was a small salt shaker. It's turned end grain in 2 pieces. The body was hollowed with a spindle gouge in a technique called back-cutting, I'll have to give it a try sometime.

















The unique part of this project is the use of the finished project. It doesn't have holes in the top like a normal salt shaker. It also doesn't have a mechanism like a normal pepper grinder. The hole in the bottom is at the top of an inverted cone. As the salt shaker is shaken up and down a small amount of salt manages to fall through the hole in the bottom and onto the plate.













Third was an off center plate with a series of beads on the top and the bottom. The grooves were highlighted by pressing a small piece of Purpleheart into the groove while it was spinning. The friction and heat darkened each of the grooves slightly.













The back side also has some offset beads as well as some decorative beads that help disguise the final chucking method. I'm not a big fan of the final form but I think the technique is interesting and is something I can see myself playing with in the future.













Last up was a best perfect sphere. I've turned my share of spheres but the technique he used was different than my method. You can't argue with his results. It's very nearly perfect, 30 seconds of sanding would have made it absolutely perfect.













While there a fellow club member gifted me with some Desert Ironwood. I don't have any projects in mind at the moment but in grateful that he thought of me.

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Trick or Treat

 The President's Challenge for January is "Collaborations".  I was contacted by another club member the other day, he was looking for another member in his area to collaborate with and it turned out that he wasn't that far from my house.  He brought over this piece late last week, it's a piece of Magnolia he roughed out a few (5-6) years ago.

 It's end grain from a whole log section and had a significant amount of tearout near the rim.  It was left nice and thick when he roughed it out so there was plenty of left to play with to improve the shape and get it down to a reasonable weight.

 After finishing most of the hollowing I started working on shaping the outside.  I might remove a little more on the inside near the bottom.  It's currently 9 3/8" deep and about 4 1/2" at the widest point.  I'm considering adding a contrasting rim to help dress it up a bit.

 Last night between trick-or-treaters I chucked up this chunk of maple and went to work.  It's turned on a total of 4 axis and has my normal 120 degree twist.  

 3 of the axis are on the outside to give it the triangular shape and the twist.  The 4th axis is the true center used for the top, bottom, and the inside.

I wish the base were a little smaller, it would make the piece appear lighter and more delicate than it truly is.  Realistically this piece will never be very light because of the thicker walls, particularly in the corners.  I'm also considering adding a collar or lid/finial combination to this piece to help dress it up.

Twisted box how-to

Laying out and numbering the centers for a 3 sided multi-axis pieces with a 120 degree twist.  The 2 diagrams represent opposite ends of the same blank.  Find and mark the center of each end of the blank.  Draw a line diagonally from corner to corner on each end of the blank.  This line should pass through the center mark and should be parallel on both ends.  This line is crucial as it will give us 1 of our 3 centerpoints and will give us an intermediate point that will allow us to find the other 2 points easily.  Using a compass draw a circle using the true center point as the pivot point.  For a 3" square blank I use a 1" diameter circle (1/2" radius).  Using a larger circle is possible but it will result in a slightly different shape (flatter sides) but will make it easier for the center points to be turned off by accident.  I always make the circles the same size on both ends.  I also do all of the layout and numbering before any cuts have been made. 

The diagonal line will intersect the circle at 2 points, once in the upper left, and again in the lower right.  When doing a lidded box I always number the top first and always number the point where the line intersects the circle in the upper left as point #1.  The intersection in the lower right will be used to find points 2 and 3.  Using a compass set to the radius as the original circle, place the pivot point on the intermediate point in the lower right corner.  Draw an arc that intersects the circle at 2 points and also passes through the original center point.  The 2 points where this new arc intersects the circle are the other 2 points that we need.

If we've done the layout correctly we should have 3 points on each end that are properly aligned to one another and are 120 degrees apart.  The next step is numbering the blank.  I always number the blanks in the same order and using the same method.  The top side is always side A and is always numbered first.

The intersection of the circle and the diagonal line in the upper left hand corner (opposite the intermediate point used to find points 2 and 3) is always labeled as point #1.  The remaining points on Side A are then always labeled going clockwise from point #1. I always number the points to the insde (interior) of the blank.  Numbering on the outside increases the chances that the numbers will be turned off.  This is an issue that can be overcame if it happens but it is easily avoidable by simply numbering on the inside of the circle.  

The layout for Side B can then be completed.  Point 1 should not be parallel to point 1 on Side A.  The other 2 points are then numbered going in a counterclockwise direction.  The direction of the twist can be controlled by putting point 1 opposite point 2 or opposite point 3 (I never taken the time to figure out which direction is which). 

After the layout is complete I start the turnin process.  Step 1 is to mount the blank between the true center points and turn a tenon on each end.  The lid portion can then be parted off (or cut off on a bandsaw, another reason to leave the blank square) and both halves hollowed, a tenon and recess formed to join the lid and body.  To turn the twisted exterior it's simply a matter of lining up point 1 on Side A with point 1 on Side B and turn that face.  Then line up points 2 and 2 and turn the face, and then points 3 and 3 and turn that face.  I usually end up turning each face 3 or 4 times to get the wall thickness I want and to get all the faces even.

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.

Catch up

 A bit of catch up and picture dump tonight.  This is going to be a long entry with limited notes.

This blank is Chinese Elm from my neighbor's tree.  It died last fall and had to come down last week.  This is the top part of the trunk, it split into 4 branches at this point.

 Alternate view.

I only took it as far as shaping the outside.  It's been coated with Anchorseal and set aside for the time being.

Alternate view.  The shape will be refined as work progresses.

Ahead of my Tucson demo I decided to do a little practice turning.

A simple spindle turned on 2 parallel axis.  This gives a pinched oval shape to the piece.

Next was another parallel 2 axis piece.  All 3 sections have a circular cross section, only the center section is offset.

Saturday was my demo for the Southern Arizona Woodturners Association in Tucson.  This was my first visit to this club and I did my multi axis demo.  Over the course of 2 1/2 hours I did 6 multi axis projects.  2 parallel axis spindles to warm up, a Mark St. Leger style multi axis final jig, a 3 sided lidded box with a twist, and finally a pair of multi axis pendants.

While there we stopped into the local Woodcraft, my only purchase was a Woodriver brand Stebcenter.  I've been playing with it for the last couple of day and I really like it so far and at $20 it's a bargain.

Sunday morning started with a small Olive hollow form. Approx. 3 1/4" X 2 1/2".

Top view.

Profile view.

That got me thinking, how fast could I turn a similar piece, start to finish.  I started at exactly  2:00

 At 2:10 I heard a somewhat familiar noise and stopped the lathe to find that I had cut through the sidewall near the bottom as I was shaping the outside.  I needed about 2 more minutes to finish shaping the outside and give it a quick sanding.

 Finished off the bottom but not yet sanded, no point sanding it at this time.

I wanted to check how I did inside, a little rough but pretty consistent down to the point where the inside gets bigger than the outside.  I could have gone a little deeper in the middle but a little more meat in the bottom isn't a bad thing as it helps keep it upright.

More tomorrow.