Turned Art Object – #10 Finishing the Bowl & Making the Lid

In this photo the jaws in the chuck have been changed out to a larger size so they are big enough to grab onto the tenon I left at the bottom of the bowl.  The bowl has also been hollowed out and sanded.

With the inside of the bowl done it’s taken out of the 4-jaw chuck so the base can be turned to shape.  To do that requires the chuck’s jaws changed out to the jumbo set shown below.   The bottom photo is a closer view that better shows the tailstock live center using a pencil eraser to put just a little pressure on the bowl to help keep it in the jumbo jaws.  These jaws have rubber mounts so they don’t mar the bowl’s completed outside face but don’t have near the holding power of the steel jaws.  

When nearly finished shaping the bottom the tailstock is pulled back and the final shaping and sanding is done.  The last bit of work to do on the bowl while it is still in the lathe is to drill a small reference hole centered on the bottom of the bowl.  This will be used later when the piece is assembled which I am still working on how to do.

After the first bowl is done, the same steps are followed to make a second bowl.  Here is what the two of them look like.

Next is to make lids for the bowls.  They are made from oak with a slight arched top and a short lip that fits inside the bowl to hold the lid in place.  Once turned the oak will get the same Inda ink treatment as the other blackwood pieces.

As with several of the other pieces I want the lids to match so it’s time to make another template.  Same process of printing out a full-scale drawing and adhering it to a backer board as shown in the top photo.  The bottom photo shows the cut-out with a sanded fair curve template identified by the red arrow.  The bottom piece will probably have not much use other than reference when turning the top but may come in handy when working on the handles.

Here is the oak blank with the two slightly oversize lids laid out ready to be cut on the bandsaw.  If you look at the closeup in the upper left you can see the joint where I glued two pieces together to get the width needed.  Same preparation process as with the other glue-ups so no reason to go into detail again on how that’s done.  One thing to note is this is the ugly side as the grain here does not match as well as the other face.  Once turned the exposed show face's joint will be barely visible even before the India ink is applied.

Before the bandsawn blank gets mounted in the lathe on the 4-jaw chuck a 2 ½” diameter recess 3/16” deep is drilled for mounting.  It's then put in the chuck and squared to the lathe’s axis like before.  Using the template as a guide the blank is turned to the right diameter and the arched top is turned to shape and sanded shown in the left photo.  Also, in the left photo you can see the little dimple from the live center.  That’s not a problem because it will get cut away when I drill a hole to mount the lid’s handle.  The right photo shows the sized lip or tenon that will drop in the bowl holding the lid in place.  As shown the tenon is longer than it will be when the lid is finished.  It will get cut down later when that face gets turned.  Not yet done is the softening of the top lip edges.  That work is done with both lathe tools and sandpaper.  Also, the pencil line on the edge is only used for reference when the top edge is softened.

With the top face done the medium jaws get removed from the 4-jaw chuck and the jumbo jaws put back on.  Here the photo shows how the rubber bumpers grasp the lid so I can remove the 2 ½” drilled recess and cut down the tenon to its final size.  At this point the face is mostly turned but still needs some work to smooth out this inside face.

This is what the bowl and lid look like together with the lid’s edges softened.  Also, remember when all done the lid will be black and not the light oak it is now.  If you look closely, you can see the small reference dimple centered in the top.  That will let me locate the hole where the finial gets attached whose design is not yet finalized.  I have done about six very different designs and none of them are quite right - yet.  Anyway, with the first lid done I can get started on the second one.

As I was finishing up the second lid, I noticed the lathe tool wasn’t cutting as cleanly as it should meaning it needed to be sharpened.  Normally after grinding the tool sharp then turning for a while when the tool gets dull it’s honed with a diamond stone to touch up and sharpen the edge.  Well re-honing is a valid fix for only so many times and then the tool needs to be reground.  The top photo is a closeup of my ½” tool that needs to be reground.  The red arrows point to places that over time the honing has degraded the ground edge so now regrinding is needed for restoration.  I use a jig shown in the bottom photo to hold the tool at a consistent angle in conjunction with a base at the grinding wheel.  The tool’s cutting edge has been colored green with a marker so I can tell when all the edge has been cleaned up and reground.

After grinding the edge is restored to its proper geometry, cleaned up and ready to go again.  I am not sure when I reground the tool the last time but I know it’s done a lot of turning since then.

With the tool sharpened I finished the second lid.  Here are both lids, their bowls sanded and ready for the next step.

Next Up – Foot, Body & Bowl Connections Part 1

Turned Art Object – #9 Making the Bowl Part 1

While working on the jig to bevel the caps and making a test piece I had time to think about making the center bowl that goes in the body opening.  I had it narrowed down to a small segmented piece or laminating up a solid blank and using it to turn the bowl.  In the end the laminated piece won out mostly due to final assembly considerations when attaching the bowl to the body.

The lamination begins with laying out the leopardwood pieces needed shown in the top photo below.  Pieces 1 through 4 are full thickness but 5 and 6 get cut thinner and go in between the outer full thickness pieces.  The red arrow points to a faint white line that’s their rough thickness.  In the bottom photo the piece in the back is 5 and 6 and has been rough cut to thickness but not to length.  The color in the sawn pieces is lighter since the outer oxidized skin got removed when squaring the blank.

The bandsawn face does not look to bad in the above photo but if you get in close as in the top photo below it does look too rough to use as a gluing surface.  Smoothing the surface out is done with a couple passes through the thickness sander giving the surface shown in the bottom photo.  Another benefit is since the sander references off the back side of the piece the sanded face is now parallel to the back.

Gluing the pieces together can now start.  Here are pieces 1 and 2 which will form one face of the bowl’s turning blank.  The two “C” clamps are used to make sure the pieces faces stay aligned and don’t slip when the orange clamp is tightened down.  They get removed after a couple of minutes once the glue has a chance to grab.  

The same process is followed for the remaining two sets of glue-ups.  Here all are clamped up ready to set overnight while the glue cures.  I probably don’t have to wait that long but scheduled these steps to be done at the end of the day so they could cure overnight since the shop cools down this time of year at night.

In the top photo the glued-up blocks have had their edges trimmed flush and the faces run through the thickness sander to make sure that the faces are flat and parallel to each other.  The blocks are arranged in the order they will get glued together.  That’s shown in an edge on view in the bottom photo which shows how the thin layer is sandwiched between the thicker outer layers.

With the glue cured the clamps are removed and a rough circle ¼” larger than the finished piece is drawn on the top face.  Also, a 1 1/8” mounting hole gets drilled, both of which are completed in the left photo.  Next is to cut the round blank from the square block.  In the right photo you can see how I use as push stick to keep my fingers from being in line with the direction the blade is cutting.  A useless bit of information on the push stick.  It’s the same one I have used on various machines for over 40 years and it does have a few chips and marks where it has done its job.

A couple minutes later the blank is cut and ready to mount on the lathe.  The process for mounting and squaring the blank in the lathe is the same as the other blanks.  Once that’s done, I turn the blank to a smooth slightly oversize cylinder.  The pencil line on the end of the blank is close to the final diameter.

Once again because I am trying to make a matched set the bowls need to be turned identical to each other and that means another template.  In the top photo the outer edge of the bowl shape has been cut out on the scroll saw and the waste bowl shaped is greyed out.  It just needs a little finish sanding to fair the cut edge.  Because I will need to flip the piece end for end during turning a tenon will be left on the bowl.  That’s marked with the red arrow and will be cut next.  The bottom photo is after the space for the tenon has been cut along with a set of reference dimensions (red ellipse) to be used to get the bowl close to shape.

With the template in hand, I can go back to the lathe and turn the blank to its final diameter.  Once that’s done the template information is transferred to the blank.  The circle on the end of the blank is the diameter of the tenon that will be used when the blank is reversed to hollow the bowl out.

Using a parting tool, steps are cut to the depth listed at each of the reference lines.  The intersection of the step’s vertical and horizontal faces gives me the outside diameter of the bowl plus about 1/32” at that point.  The red arrow points to a typical diameter.  From here the excess material gets cut away in a rough arc. 

Here is after the first few passes knock off the corners and some work has been done to shape the blank into a rough curved surface.  Once smoothed a bit more the template is used to find high or flat spots which are then marked for adjustment.  One note, this is a subtractive process only.  If a cut is made too deep then the whole bowl shape has to be shifted toward the 4-jaw chuck on the left and even this is limited so material removal is done judiciously.

This is the completed shape turned and sanded to a 90% finish.  The tenon that is sticking out of the bowl’s bottom at the right is temporary.  It will be used for the jaws to grip while the inside of the bowl is hollowed out and later removed. 

Next Up – Finishing the Bowl & Making the Lid

Turned Art Object – #8 Finish Base & End Cap Prototype

With the template completed it’s a process of turning the blank to match the template.  While not hard it does take a bit of time since I do a lot checking to make sure I don’t overshoot and remove too much material.  The top two photos are a face and edge view of the turned blank.  The only thing left to do is sand away and blend in the pencil center line of the blank identified with the red arrow.  The bottom photo is a closeup that shows how the template fits nice and tight against the turned piece.

Doing layout for bottom cutout and the vertical arc come next as I want to have everything laid out before I start cutting.  Starting with the simplest is the arc on the bottom side of the base.  This cutout is not centered on the blank but is offset towards the outer edge of the blank by 9/16”.  Using that point a 2 3/16” radius circle is drawn giving the cutout for one base.  The same layout is done for the bottom base but it’s not shown for clarity.

The last or vertical curved cut is the most problematic to layout since I have two intersecting curved surfaces that make up the layout line.  In the two renderings below the top one shows what is to be cut away and the bottom one shows the cut away face in white.

To mark the cut line vertical lines are laid out ½” apart starting at the center point of the arc working out to the rim.  Next the distance from the flat face back toward the curved cut plane is transferred to the existing top turned surface.  These dimensions are shown in the top drawing.  The bottom photo shows how the offset dimensions are transferred to the actual base using a set of digital calipers.

Once these individual points are located, they get connected using a French curve to form a smooth fair curve which gives me my cutting line per the top red arrow.  Also, the bottom red arrow points to the somewhat faint cut line for the lower opening.

With all the layout done it’s over to the bandsaw where the top photo shows the order of the cuts necessary to separate one of the bases from the turned blank.  The bottom photo is after the first cut and the piece is ready for the cut to remove the lower opening.

To smooth out the bandsawn edges and remove any high spots so the arc is a fair curve the drum sander is used.  The reason the filler pieces are still attached is to provide additional stability and help keep the piece square to the table while using the bandsaw and the drum sander.

From the drum sander it’s back to the bandsaw shown in the top photo to cut off all but about 1/16” of the filler pieces.  After they are cut off the disk sander is used to smooth the cut and remove the last little bit of filler.  It’s then back to the bandsaw the cut the arc on the face of the base.  The bottom photo shows a series of relief cuts at the top that will help me make the final cut and a finished cut at the bottom. 

Once again, the drum sander is used to clean up the bandsawn face and smooth out the arc of the cut.  A little hand sanding and this is the result.  I do have to make one more decision that I will defer until later as the piece starts to come together and that’s whether to leave the intersecting faces at a hard sharp edge or soften them.  Well, that’s one base down and one to do.

Here is what both bases and bodies now look like and with a little help from Photoshop this is what the base and body could look like later on when they get assembled.

I had planned on next making the bowl that goes in the center of the piece but have decided to hold off on that for a bit because I am looking at different ways to make the blank it will be turned from.  While thinking about how to do that I am going to do some work on the bodies’ two black end caps also not greyed out.

Making the caps starts by tracing them onto a piece of plywood that will be used as a pattern.  Because the caps have an overhang, I couldn’t just trace them but used a steel washer whose distance from the center hole to the outside edge matched the desired offset.  It’s a simple matter to hold the washer against the piece and trace around the piece.

After looking at the drawn result I decided to soften the perimeter out and make a smooth curve from the nose of the pattern around the bead to the back corner.  The left photo shows the piece being cut out on the scroll saw and the right-hand photo shows the finished pattern.  In it you can see how the shape was modified going around the beads.

Because I wanted the top of the cap to taper to the sides a jig is needed so the taper on the blanks is consistent and repeatable.  The jig starts out by making a tapered wedge whose angle matches the one on the cap.  Layout lines are added on the ends at the top and along the long edges to delineate the material to be removed.  I drew both tapers to make sure it looks right but will only cut one side using a hand plane.  Since this is the key part, I did some testing to make sure it was right.

The left photo shows the completed jig ready to be tested.  The right photo shows a poplar test blank the same size as what will be used for the real caps.  Process is to run it though the thickness sander which will gradually remove the red triangle and make the taper.  Since this is the first piece the right stained brace will also get sanded down.

Here both sides of the cap blank have been tapered.  To get identical tapers the blank gets flipped end for end after each pass through the sander until the tapers meet at the top center of the blank.

Last is to trace the pattern onto the beveled test blank, cut it out on the scroll saw and set it in place to see how it looks.  The overall shape is good but think it’s a bit thick and perhaps has a little too much overhang.  I will take a look at it again a couple of times to see if adjustments need to be made before proceeding.

Next Up – Making the Bowl Part 1

Turned Art Object – #7 Cutting Center from Body & Starting Base

With the tapers finished cutting out the center of the body is next.  It gets cut out on the bandsaw but the arc of the center is too small to be cut smoothly with the ½” blade on my bandsaw so I have to take out little slivers to make a wider opening for the blade to make the cut.  I just know someone is going to ask why not change the bandsaw blade to a narrower ¼” blade which could have made a clean cut.  That’s true but the time needed to swap out the blade, reset the saw’s guides for the narrower blade, make two cuts the swap the blade back out to the ½” one would take longer than what it will take for me to clean up the cut.  While the resulting cut does look a little like it was made with an ax it’s not a problem since everything inside the white line is waste.  One thing a little different is the small tab left at the point of the red arrow.  That was left to hold the plywood backing disk that’s screwed to the center section in place.  I really didn’t know for sure how the assembly would react if the center section and the disk was cut completely free since the main body would now be floating unconnected to the disk.   

Removing the center section is easily done with a little prying with a screwdriver.  Now all that remains is to use the drum sander to clean up the rough edges shown in the top photo so they are flush with the inside edge of the white line.  However, before sanding the oak black wood insert on the back side of the body needs to have the bead protected since the plywood disk that was doing that is no longer there.  The bottom photo shows a layer of tape added to provide a buffer to keep from rubbing the bead on the cast iron top of the sander.

Here is what the setup looks like for the sander.  The drum is 3” in diameter and has a 60-grit sleeve on it.  A few minutes of work and the rough edge is cleaned up.  Changing the sleeve from 60 to 120 grit and another pass across the edge gives a smoother surface and gets rid of most of the scratches.  The rest will get taken care of in a bit.

To make sure the inner half circle is a really round a paper circle is used to check for any out of round spots.  With that done the last little bit of woodworking on this piece is to soften the current sharp edge where the just sanded surface intersects with the dyed face of the oak insert.  The red arrow in the bottom photo points to the rounded edge.

India Ink next gets applied to the inner face of the oak inserts along with the center cherry piece to blacken and blend the three pieces together so it looks like a single surface.

Getting back to working on the base is next.  I left off with the center block glued up in the clamps.  Once it had cured the cherry pieces were glued on to give me a finished glued up blank the bases will be made from.  This photo shows that block with the 2 ½” mounting hole drilled and the circle laid out to be sawn on the bandsaw.

Here the blank has been cut to a rough circle about a ¼” larger than the finished size.

Mounting and getting the blank as close to square with the lathe’s axis is next, using the same method as before.  With that done the tail stock is run up against the blank and its point marks the center of the blank as it’s mounted in the lathe.  All that’s done in the top photo.  In the bottom photo the blank has its face trued up square, the edge brought down to the final diameter and a pencil reference line centered on the outer edge.  There are also a couple of circles on the face that will give me a rough idea of where the bottom of the base will be.   That’s because when the piece is spinning at speed the demarcation line between the cherry and the filler will be blurred. 

Making a template for the outer profile of the base is next.  Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as printing off the bottom of the base and using that because the bottom of the base does not line up with the center point which distorts the shape.  To get an accurate profile the pattern needs to be a section that runs from the middle of the face on the outer edge to the center of the blank.  In the left drawing below the 4 1/16” dimension runs from the middle of the outer edge to the center.  Next is to bring the point where the full width of the base intersects the 4 1/16” dimension (red line) and draw a circle there (red arrow).  Last is to measure the distance from the outer edge to the inner circle which is 5/8”.  From here all that’s needed is to draw a 3” wide rectangle then make an arc whose high point is 5/8” in shown on the right.

The template is made similarly to the previous ones except rather than cutting it out on the bandsaw I used a recent acquisition, a scroll saw which gives a much cleaner edge.  The saw is shown in the top left photo below and the top right photo shows the template ready to be cut out.  In the bottom photo the template has been cut out and it shows how much cleaner the cut is versus the bandsaw.  All that needs to be now is just a little sanding to cleanup and fair the curve then it’s ready to go.

Next Up – Finish Bases & End Cap Prototype