Well, I had to try sooner or later. Encouraged by efforts reported here, and
by turnings I recently saw locally, I had to give it a try. I am aware of
some mistakes and will likely discover others when I try again later.

Back in about 1950-56 my dad had a little store in Minneapolis, selling what
he called custom woods. He had samples from countries which now no longer
exist, and other countries we can no longer visit. He had samples of woods
which may not even be readily available any more. Some of these pieces were
labeled, and other not - or the labels no longer readable.

It seemed natural, finally, to try to glue some of them together and see what
woujld happen.

This is a smallish jar with lid. Glued up with yellow glue and extra waste
blocks on each end to maximize the amount of usable hardwood for the project.
I turned the basic shape between centers, parting off a section for the lid.
Head end was on a faceplate, so now I could bore out the interior with a
forstner bit. Once the inside was opened up, I finished with a home made
hook. The inside was trued up with a home made curved scraper tool also seen
on the flickr site.

Sanding through to 400 grit and burnished with wood shavings, the final
finish is paste wax. There are some fine scratches I did not see until after
the waxing.

I did mount the lid and the jar to a chuck for the final work and sanding
stages. My chuck is a Penn Industries bowl chuck, and I have mounted some 1
1/2 inch thick softwood scraps to the face of the chuck with bolts. Open the
chuck about halfway and then turn as if I were making a basic friction chuck
- except that I did not have to be so fussy on the inside diameter and could
tighten and loosen the chuck as needed - also had enough grip range for the
diffeent diameters on the lid, then turned the setup again, to the larger
diameter needed for the jar itself, for turning the foot.

I noticed that it was really jarring (no pun intended) to turn something with
these varying degrees of hardness, plus the sudden changess from end grain to
face grain. The hard maple had some difficult aspects, as it was a chunk of
curly maple left over from a flintlock project of years ago.

Had some interesting chatter on the top of the lid. Bearings are decent on
the lathe, so am hoping it was just finding the best speed for the turning
and the best angle of attack for the tools... and not quite succeeding yet.

The ebony finial was turned separately with a spigot on the end, set into a
turned bore in the top of the lid, and glued.


www.flickr.com/photos/55616gandy/

Comments, questions and critiques, it's all good for me.

tom koehler

--
I will find a way or make one.

Nice Tom. I particularly like the effect of the opposing grain ribbon
through the middle. At first though, I thought the turning a little
thick-ish, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it.

--
Jack
GO GREEN - RECYCLE CONGRESS
http://jbstein.com


On 10/9/2010 4:59 PM, tom koehler wrote:
Well, I had to try sooner or later. Encouraged by efforts reported here, and
by turnings I recently saw locally, I had to give it a try. I am aware of
some mistakes and will likely discover others when I try again later.

Back in about 1950-56 my dad had a little store in Minneapolis, selling what
he called custom woods. He had samples from countries which now no longer
exist, and other countries we can no longer visit. He had samples of woods
which may not even be readily available any more. Some of these pieces were
labeled, and other not - or the labels no longer readable.

It seemed natural, finally, to try to glue some of them together and see what
woujld happen.

This is a smallish jar with lid. Glued up with yellow glue and extra waste
blocks on each end to maximize the amount of usable hardwood for the project.
I turned the basic shape between centers, parting off a section for the lid.
Head end was on a faceplate, so now I could bore out the interior with a
forstner bit. Once the inside was opened up, I finished with a home made
hook. The inside was trued up with a home made curved scraper tool also seen
on the flickr site.

Sanding through to 400 grit and burnished with wood shavings, the final
finish is paste wax. There are some fine scratches I did not see until after
the waxing.

I did mount the lid and the jar to a chuck for the final work and sanding
stages. My chuck is a Penn Industries bowl chuck, and I have mounted some 1
1/2 inch thick softwood scraps to the face of the chuck with bolts. Open the
chuck about halfway and then turn as if I were making a basic friction chuck
- except that I did not have to be so fussy on the inside diameter and could
tighten and loosen the chuck as needed - also had enough grip range for the
diffeent diameters on the lid, then turned the setup again, to the larger
diameter needed for the jar itself, for turning the foot.

I noticed that it was really jarring (no pun intended) to turn something with
these varying degrees of hardness, plus the sudden changess from end grain to
face grain. The hard maple had some difficult aspects, as it was a chunk of
curly maple left over from a flintlock project of years ago.

Had some interesting chatter on the top of the lid. Bearings are decent on
the lathe, so am hoping it was just finding the best speed for the turning
and the best angle of attack for the tools... and not quite succeeding yet.

The ebony finial was turned separately with a spigot on the end, set into a
turned bore in the top of the lid, and glued.


www.flickr.com/photos/55616gandy/

Comments, questions and critiques, it's all good for me.

tom koehler

On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 9:57:14 -0500, Jack Stein wrote
(in message ):

Nice Tom. I particularly like the effect of the opposing grain ribbon
through the middle. At first though, I thought the turning a little
thick-ish, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it.



Thank you for looking at my work andd commenting. I do appreciate it very
much.

This particular shape is my favorite, I think. For my want of knowing what
may be a more widely known or accepted name for this form, I call it a tulip
shape. I have (or had) only a very limited amount of the black mangrove, and
wanted to maximize its visual mass in the turning. It is kind of
thick-waisted for this reason. Also, I knew it was going to be a smallish
vessel and so wanted to maximize its interior volume, being able to have
significant hollow space clear down to the foot. Below the upper lip, the
walls are about 5/16" thick. I wanted to make the walls thinner, but not
knowing how well the wood and the glue lines would hold up under the stresses
of turning, I decided to let well enough alone.

For background, I do have an older turning, a small bowl I made maybe 25
years ago from red elm and maple in two layers or laminations, that separated
at the glue line. The turning is somewhat thin by my standards, and for some
reason it separated for about 1/3 of the circumference. It was not completely
a failure of the glue itself, as there are some places along this line that
the failure was in the red elm.

I know that wood never really stops moving, even when apparently well dried -
until it is reduced to ashes. I admire the skill of a turner who can
consistently produce thin-walled vessels of uniform thickness (thin-ness?) My
own skills and experience dictate somewhat thicker walls.

tom koehler
--
I will find a way or make one.

On 10/09/2010 12:59 PM, tom koehler wrote:
Well, I had to try sooner or later. Encouraged by efforts reported here, and
by turnings I recently saw locally, I had to give it a try. I am aware of
some mistakes and will likely discover others when I try again later.

Cool. Interesting approach. Are you hooked now? Segmented turning is
a great way to use up those scraps and you can get such varying results.

I think the unknown wood may be teak. Hard to tell from the photo,but
it looks an awful lot like it to me. Does it have sort of a soapy feel?
The teak I've turned had a very distinct feel to it when worked. It
tools nicely.

Hope to see more coming out of your shop Tom...

....Kevin
--
Kevin Miller - http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska
In a recent survey, 7 out of 10 hard drives preferred Linux
Registered Linux User No: 307357, http://counter.li.org

On Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:53:14 -0500, Kevin Miller wrote
(in message ):



I think the unknown wood may be teak. Hard to tell from the photo,but
it looks an awful lot like it to me. Does it have sort of a soapy feel?
The teak I've turned had a very distinct feel to it when worked. It
tools nicely.

Hope to see more coming out of your shop Tom...

...Kevin


I did noty nbotice any unusual feel to the wood - neither more slick nor
"soapy" feeling. I will give it another grope, and try to notice. Thanks for
the hint. Thanks also for the encouragement.
tom

--
I will find a way or make one.