Work in progress II

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Work in progress.

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Concept and prototype

I keep a sketch pad and sharpie by my bedside because you never know when inspiration may strike. This idea came to me in the time between awake and asleep. The idea is for the form to be turned from a single piece of wood. The wall starts at the outer ring, passes down and around the bottom before turning and coming up through the center to form the inner ring.


Then I prototyped the form in some green Mesquite. The results are promising but need some major tweaking.









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Wood ID

At our holiday party we had a wood ID contest. I cut 10 samples of woods I've harvested locally. How many can you identify?


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Indonesian Ebony

One of our local club members recently donated this load of Indonesian Ebony to our club. I don't know all of the details but he was able to acquire a load of Ebony. This was the portion that he didn't want and thought that it would be fun for a future President's Challenge.



He also had some nicer pieces that he had for sale. I ended up trading some Big Leaf Maple burl for a couple pieces. I cut a small section off one end and turned this small hollow form.


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Christmas Cubed

Michael Poorman was the closest (and only) guess to the technique.  Here's the answer with the trick.  The blank started out as a cube.  I sanded off 2 of the corners of the blank to give the drive center and live center a flat spot to register.










The blank is then mounted on the bias, essentially corner to corner (except I've sanded the corners off to make it easier).  The 6 remaining corners will be the corners on the ornament.  3 on the top wing and 3 on the bottom wing.










With the lathe spinning this is the shadow of the blank.  You can more easily see how the 3 corners on the top and the 3 corners on the bottom are aligned.












The upper surface of the upper wing is turned first.  I also shape a small tenon that will be used later.













Then the under side of the upper wing can be turned.  I've left it a little thick at this point, it can be thinned and refined later.












Next the blank is flipped end for end (I'm VERY right handed and always prefer to work from the tailstock side) and the process is repeated for the lower wing.












Now the shape can be refined a bit and a tenon formed on the bottom end.  There are now 2 tenons and the wings are basically formed.  They may still be refined slightly but most of the work is done.











The tenon formed above can then be gripped in a chuck (I'm using a Supernova2 with a set of Pin jaws, they'll grip a tenon between .4" and 1.22" diameter.  This gives free access to finish off this wing.











To finish the other wing I had to get a little creative.  The smallest vacuum drum I have is 2" diameter, it was slightly too large for this piece.  What I decided to do was to thread on one of my drilled and tapped jam chucks, round over the face, and then apply some closed cell foam (yellow).  With the center cut out of the foam I was able to get just enough pressure to finish off the piece.  The other tenon was removed and the wing thinned and refined. I then drilled a hole through the middle to receive the cap and the drop finial.






And the finished piece.

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Take 2

My second (and final) attempt at this ornament. This one is significantly smaller, thinner, and lighter. I reused the same cap and finial. This time the body is Madrone burl. The cap and finial are still Ziricote. I think the color of the Madrone works well with the Ziricote.














One of the cool things about this technique is that the top and bottom curves are both triangular but they're offset by 180 degrees. This is due to the shape and orientation of the blank, it's all turning, no cutting, no carving, all one piece.










I did a sequence of photos showing the technique. Here's one from late in the process, have you figured it out yet?

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