Hello all,

I'm nearly finished with my latest project on the lathe, and figured
it might be interesting enough to share the idea.

For our third anniversary, I wanted to make my wife a jewelry box- but
to be quite honest, I'm tired of regular retangular boxes, and wanted
to try something on the lathe. I had a plank of 5/4 butternut laying
in the shop, and decided to make a segemented turning. She is a big
movie buff, and likes (among other genres) fantasy films with
barbarians and castles, so I decided to go with a castle tower for the
design.

One thing I haven't seen, but thought might be interesting, is a
turning that incorporates slide-out drawers- so I made one.

The basic procedure was to make nine octagonal segemented rings from
the butternut- seven of the same diameter, and two which were larger,
and overlapped the other seven by about 50%. Glued up all the rings
individually, and then glued two sets of two rings together to make
the drawer cases and fronts. After those were dry, I cut along the
joint lines at the first and fourth joints with my bandsaw to separate
the drawer fronts from the cases. (drawer fronts = three segements,
case = 5 segements [it makes sense here to note that the rings were
offset like a regular segmented turning, so the bottom rings had a
couple of segements cut in half]) I then trimmed the height of the
drawer fronts by approximately 1/8", and set them aside. I also
trimmed the inside of the overlapping rings with the bandsaw to leave
a square internal space with 45deg. corners in the back (for the
drawers, as I wasn't going to be hollowing the inside)

Next thing to figure out was the "floor" between each drawer and on
the top. Easy enough to cut octagons and fill in the two larger rings
for the top and bottom and the first and fourth smaller rings in the
stack. So far, so good.

I marked all the rings for easy alignment, and then did the glue-up.
A little mistake here, but not too bad- to keep the drawer fronts on
while turning, I used a shim and two drops of pva glue on the top and
bottom of each drawer front to keep them in place so they could be
turned with the rest of the piece. Not easy to knock out later, as
I'm sure you can imagine.

Stuck a sacrifical block on the bottom, then turned the piece between
centers to near final sanding. Turned a foot for the chuck in the
sacrificial block, mounted the balanced piece, and cleaned up the top-
making a relatively thin wall between the "floor" of the top and the
top edge of the top ring. Used the tool rest and the index to mark
eight archer's slots, and then parted it off. I had to cut the drawers
out with a handsaw (the glue was bonded too well to just knock them
out) and cut out the slots in the top as well.

Some judicious sanding of the inside, and it's time to make the
drawers (my next task- for tomorrow night) Should be fairly simple,
and it's looking pretty good. Only a couple of stupid moments- gluing
the drawer fronts back in the way I did (a couple of small dowels
would sure be easier to cut out) and deciding not to hollow the
interior. You can't see it once the drawers are in, but it's a little
messy- In retrospect, I don't figure it would have been any tougher to
make discs to use as "floors" and fit them in after turning- and it
may have made the drawer fronts easier to remove.

Easier that I thought it'd be, though- and the segemented nature of
the turning makes it look like it's built out of bricks. I didn't see
anything like this with a couple of google searches, so I figured it
must be an uncommon project, and might be fun for someone else to try
out. I know some pics would probably help show the process better,
but we have rotten luck with cameras, and the last two I've had are
dead- hence the long verbal post.