Commissioned Gift – #2 Laminated Blank & Turning Process

Making a blank where the main body is walnut and has a maple and cherry laminated center is next.  This starts with making the maple-cherry-maple lamination which is about ¼ inch thick.  That’s done by taking two thin pieces of maple and gluing them to a thicker cherry center as shown in the top photo.  Once the pieces are glued small pin nails (red arrows) at each end are used to hold the pieces together during clamping so the pieces don’t slide out of alignment.

Here is the inlay clamped between cauls that will keep the three-layer stack flat while the glue cures.  The top caul has plastic laminate on the face so the glue won’t stick to it and the bottom caul has had packing tape applied to the face that the glue doesn’t stick to it either.

Because I wanted the laminated piece to run at a 45-degree angle through the blank a 45 degree angle gauge is used to set it in place.  A handscrew clamp is used to securely hold the blank at the angle then it’s run through the bandsaw.  The bottom photo shows the cut piece ready for the inlay to be glued in place.

After cutting a piece of the laminated stack a bit oversize it’s glued between the two halves of the walnut.  The halves are glued on one at a time to keep them from slipping around when being clamped together.  It takes a little longer but it’s a lot easier and I have plenty of time. 

With some of the turning blanks cut to size I could start work on them by drilling the hole in the bottom of the blank for the magnet, its cup along with the pilot hole for the screw that holds the cup in place and will hold the blank in the mandrel.  In the left photo is the drill for screw’s pilot hole.  The piece of masking tape on the drill bit is my depth gauge for getting the depth right.  On one of the early turnings the hole got drilled too deep and when the blank was turned to shape, I ended up with a hole at the top of the turning.  The middle photo is the Fostner bit used to drill the hole where the cup will sit.  The black line on the bit is my rough depth gauge.  This type of bit is used because it leaves a flat bottom hole.  On the right the cup has been inserted so I can check to see if the depth is correct.  The depth of the hole needs to be really precise.  If it is too shallow then the magnet will set above the bottom of the wood and could scratch the refrigerator.  If it’s too deep then the magnet loses some of its holding ability.  I shoot for the magnet being set down so I can just be able to feel the lip of the wood with my fingernail.  Probably the thickness of a couple of sheets of paper.

The turning starts with the walnut laminated blank whose assembly was shown earlier.  Here the top photo shows how the mandrel and turning blank gets mounted in the 4-jaw chuck that’s on the left, with the live center on the right stabilizing everything.  The bottom photo shows the finished turning.  From here the mandrel and turned piece are removed from the chuck and another blank screwed on to the mandrel then turned.

Next up is a piece of mesquite.  Once the top and bottom diameter is turned three very narrow decorative bands filled with a turquoise inlay get added.  Process for the V groove starts by using a parting tool to cut the groove then using a wire to round and burn the groove.  That’s followed by some light sanding of the grooves to remove the loose burned wood so the inlay will stick.  The top photo shows all the done plus having the rough inlay installed.  For more detail on how the inlay is added please click here.  The bottom left photo shows the base groove finished and the bottom right photo shows all three done. 

For the next piece I decided to try and add some inlayed copper wire.  Taking the Texas ebony blank, I turned the bottom below the pencil line and the top third to their final shape.  That’s followed by cutting a notch and adding a small hole at the top of the notch indicated by the red arrow.  The middle photo shows the thin 22-gauge copper bell wire (.025”) bent to fit into the small hole in the notch.  The bottom photo shows the wire inserted into the hole and ready to wind in the notch.

The left photo shows the wire wrapped and with a dab of the UV cured resin in place to lock all the wraps in place.  Filling the rest of the notch with resin and curing it is next.  Last is to turn the excess resin away, add the turned waist to the piece and finish sand.  To make the resin completely transparent it is sanded up to 3,000 grit.  In the photo the resin is still a little hazy but that will clear when the lacquer finish is applied.

Mounting the turning blank for turning is done with the screw shown that runs through a hole in the mandrel (red arrow) into the pilot hole previously drilled in the blank.  Most of the time that works fine but, in this case, because bloodwood is so hard the screw twisted off.  As much as I tried to remove the screw it refused to budge so this blank becomes “designer” firewood.  Since I had extra material, it wasn’t a big loss.  Just cut and drill another bloodwood blank changing the pilot drill used this time to one that is 1/64” larger in diameter and it worked out fine.

Next Up – Turned Magnet Blanks & Christmas Ornament Test

A Commissioned Gift– #1 The Start, Materials & Basic Sizing

Shortly after I finished the Turned Art Object I was approached regarding an unusual request for a commissioned project.  It is a gift for person who has followed my work for some time and really likes the things I do.  What makes it different is that the recipient is not the person making the request but a close friend who actually is sponsoring the commission.  When I asked what they had in mind or what sort of piece was wanted the answer was surprising.  It didn’t have to be big or small, functional or decorative just something that I had designed or made.   Now that’s a pretty broad description and open-ended request.  After some discussion with the requestor, we decided to not do a single large item but focus on several smaller items that would be functional, decorative or both.  In the end we decided on a group of refrigerator magnets, a small decorative box and a lathe turned Christmas ornament.

I decided to start out with the refrigerator magnets since the turning process is pretty well worked out as I have made more than 20 of them for my wife.  While the turning process is defined the turning blanks themselves are open to a variety of woods, different inlays, multiple laminations and how they may be combined.  Right now, some are going to be made from one material, some are going to be from laminating different woods, some will have inlay and others will be whatever comes to me as I am making them.  Going into my collection of saved small blocks the initial material pass shown in the left photo consisted of walnut, cherry, Texas ebony, bloodwood & maple.  Later on, I added oak, mesquite, leopardwood and locust shown in the right photo.  

As mentioned above some of the fridge magnets will be made from laminated blanks.  In the photo below the top three blocks are left over cutoffs from other projects that I have been storing for an unknown project and this is it.  The pieces below them are all cutoffs from the Southwest Segment Bowl I made and I am sure they can somehow be put together to make an interesting blank, I just need to figure out how.  If you want to see in detail how those pieces were made click here.  In addition, I may come up with some other laminated blanks.  It all depends on what strikes my fancy.

This is a blank that’s a little over an inch square and contains twelve individual pieces.  I had made a few of these some time ago for fridge magnets and didn’t turn this on so will use it as a general guide for the new blank.

Three of the smaller pieces at the left in the above photo are aligned so the cherry and maple pieces alternate.  The top photo shows them set in the clamping jig that will be used to keep them aligned while clamped and glued while the bottom photo shows how they are clamped to keep all the edges flush.

Here the top photo shows the glued up blank ready to be cut in half and the bottom photo gives a front and back view of what they look like cut in half ready to be glued up.

Gluing the two cut pieces together is next.  They are arranged so the grain is at right angles to each other and with the maple sections up against the cherry ones as much as possible.  A spring clamp provides pressure to hold them while gluing additionally a small steel square gets clamped to one part so the two pieces stay 90 degrees to each other.

Once the glue cures and the clamps are removed this is what the blank assembly looks like and as you can see there are some overhangs that need to be cut off to end up with a square turning blank.  Glued together this way there are all sorts of angles and contrasting woods adjacent to each other.

Squaring up the assembly by removing the single layer overhangs is next.  Since the piece is way too small to use the table saw the band saw is used.  However, to cut safely a handscrew clamp is used to keep my fingers a safe distance away from the blade.

Here’s what the finished blank looks like after it was cut and the faces cleaned up with the large disk sander.  Also shown are the pieces that were cut off of it.

At this point I had a good collection of rough sized blanks.  Most are sized to final width and thickness but nearly all still need to be cut to final length.  What’s shown here starting with at the back row - left is locust, oak, mesquite, walnut, Texas ebony, and leopardwood.  In the front are the two multipiece glued blanks and on the right laying down is a piece of bloodwood.  

Since the leopardwood scrap was a bit oversize, I decided to cut the turning blank out on the diagonal.  This is so the grain would also run diagonally rather than top to bottom or side to side adding some additional visual interest to the piece.

Cutting down some older laminated cutoffs to the needed fridge blank’s size is next.  While too small to hand hold in the chop saw they were big enough with this setup holding them securely in place they could be safely cut on the chop saw.  The bottom left piece is the one in the saw that will later get cut on its diagonal (pencil lines) with the bandsaw.  The one on the right gets its first cut on the chop saw then cut to final size on the bandsaw.

Here are the two finished turning blanks.  For the left blank you can see how cutting it on the diagonal makes it look different.

Next Up – Laminated Blank & Turning Process