Spindle Turning

mountain4don · Post by **mountain4don** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:56 pm

I have on hand random width 3/4" thick oak that I had planed on three sides for all of the door and window casings and moldings I am building, plus some built in cabinets and shelves. I think I bought 2 or 3 thousand board feet of it from a local mill. All dried to 11% moisture I think. When I got it the lengths were all about 9' long and widths from about 8" all the way up to 18". And some beautiful wood it is. Straight grained with few knots. It was not long after I sold a bunch of oak trees off my farm to the same saw mill. Some of which were 4' in diameter. So I select similar grain wood and cut strips about 1 3/4" wide and glue them together face to face. And then trim them down to 1 1/2" with the jointer.

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 5:30 pm

mountain4don wrote:I have on hand random width 3/4" thick oak that I had planed on three sides for all of the door and window casings and moldings I am building, plus some built in cabinets and shelves. I think I bought 2 or 3 thousand board feet of it from a local mill. All dried to 11% moisture I think. When I got it the lengths were all about 9' long and widths from about 8" all the way up to 18". And some beautiful wood it is. Straight grained with few knots. It was not long after I sold a bunch of oak trees off my farm to the same saw mill. Some of which were 4' in diameter. So I select similar grain wood and cut strips about 1 3/4" wide and glue them together face to face. And then trim them down to 1 1/2" with the jointer.

My grain orientation comment was so as to avoid the two halves expanding AWAY from each other.

IIWM, I would strongly consider obtaining some thicker oak so that the jointing and glueing and orienting can be eliminated. Trade a wide board or two! You already have an insider relationship with the saw mill.

mountain4don · Post by **mountain4don** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:23 pm

So, your suggesting that I saw down a couple more 4' diameter oak trees and have them sawed to 2" thick and then I can plane them myself and dry them in the barn for a year or two? I was looking for something a little easier then that. Maybe I will glue up a couple of test runs and see what trouble the glue joint causes. I have glued up pieces before and ran them through the jointer and I couldn't even see the joint. That is with carefully selected grain on the pieces. And I thought glueing up pieces of wood were real common when doing bowls? And I don't hear of any trouble turning them?

greitz · Post by **greitz** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:34 pm

How critical is that 1 1/2" diameter? You're likely to lose a bit of thickness in the roughing-down and sanding stages, especially if you're off-center even a little when mounting the spindles. If you can live with 1 1/4" instead, then the project sounds a lot easier.

"Manly muscle" shouldn't be necessary if your tools are sharp. I agree with Terry's recommendations- sharp tools, light touch, practice first on pine. Are you using one of the existing spindles as your template for the duplicator?

I've never tried a spindle longer than 12". With a 1" diameter, 12" long hard maple spindle, it gets a little whippy turning the middle portion unless you use a very light touch. So a steady rest would probably be very helpful.

Good luck!

Gary

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:40 pm

mountain4don wrote:So, your suggesting that I saw down a couple more 4' diameter oak trees and have them sawed to 2" thick and then I can plane them myself and dry them in the barn for a year or two? I was looking for something a little easier then that. Maybe I will glue up a couple of test runs and see what trouble the glue joint causes. I have glued up pieces before and ran them through the jointer and I couldn't even see the joint. That is with carefully selected grain on the pieces. And I thought glueing up pieces of wood were real common when doing bowls? And I don't hear of any trouble turning them?

I assumed the saw mill had oak other than that from your trees!

Anytime you glue, potential problems are possible that do not appear for a while.

You may very well be successful depending upon many different factors.

I was merely trying to remove some.

saminmn · Post by **saminmn** » Tue Jul 17, 2012 10:56 pm

mountain4don wrote:I have on hand random width 3/4" thick oak that I had planed on three sides for all of the door and window casings and moldings I am building, plus some built in cabinets and shelves. I think I bought 2 or 3 thousand board feet of it from a local mill. All dried to 11% moisture I think. When I got it the lengths were all about 9' long and widths from about 8" all the way up to 18". And some beautiful wood it is. Straight grained with few knots. It was not long after I sold a bunch of oak trees off my farm to the same saw mill. Some of which were 4' in diameter. So I select similar grain wood and cut strips about 1 3/4" wide and glue them together face to face. And then trim them down to 1 1/2" with the jointer.

Hi, I am currently reading a library book "Joining Wood" by Nick Engler. If I understand it correctly, glue joints will be strongest if the grain orientations can be maintained. So, if one of the boards you plan to face is flipped over, the joint would be stronger. I am sure someone with real experience will straighten me out if I got it wrong.

Edit: Sorry, I may have miss understood what you meant by face to fave, if you meant machined face to machined face, then never mind my comment. I have been looking at drawing of radial and tangential grain orientations. Anyway my comment may well be irrelevant.

scollins · Post by **scollins** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:37 am

Nothing to be scared of here if you prep your wood properly and pay attention during your glue up. I like to orient all of my pieces ready to go before I grab the glue bottle so there are no accidental mismatches. To glue that many I would buy a roller for the glue bottle and be set to gang clamp the glue ups.

As for turning, I do not find either pine or oak to be "grabby" if the tool is sharp and presented to the wood correctly, but then again my turning technique is practiced enough that I usually start sanding at 3-400 grit (higher on small projects). You will save time and effort if you bevel the corners on a band saw first so that you start with an octagon. I would build a simple V-groove jig to run the blanks thru the band saw. You might consider using a carbide tip for your cutter. I have seen an EWT tool cut off and inserted as the cutter in a Vega duplicator to get a cleaner cut.

Check out this link for a pedestal that I turned: http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/attachm ... 1319625130
The grain is the only way that you can find the glue lines. With the final stain even the ribbon stripe grain blended in.

nuhobby · Post by **nuhobby** » Wed Jul 18, 2012 9:10 am

All the above info is good.

I've had an oak-laminated "food smasher" that I turned for my wife, which is still in great shape after a lot of washings. I think I had used Titebond 3 glue for the moisture resistance.

I did have one coffee-mug I turned from a lamination of cherry planks that is separating a little now. But in this case it was my fault -- even during glue-up I could see my small boards weren't totally flat, and they would have sprung open slightly right then if I didn't have the glue-up clamped tightly.

As long as your boards are stable and well-jointed prior to glue-up, I'll bet they last a long time.

mountain4don · Post by **mountain4don** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:22 am

I received the rest of my lathe duplicator today, and it has the steady rest with it. The spindles I am turning are 27" long leaving a couple inches of trimming space to spare on each end. The shaped section is only 14" long in the center and the center bulge is 5" long out to the 1 1/2" diameter adding to the spindle stiffness when I will be turning the center. And the dimensions are not real critical as long as they are all roughly the same and I don't think the eye will be able to compare the actual dimensions with the originals farther up the stairs. The actual glued up pieces are a little thicker than 3/4" and I am ripping them from wide boards with the same grain and folding the adjacent pieces together face to face and gluing them smooth face to smooth face. And clamping them with several clamps on each one. I have now glued up two test spindles and will square them up using the jointer and trim the ends square before setting them up in the lathe and lathe duplicator. And then the test comes. Now, if I could figure out how you all put pictures on here I would present a picture of the original spindle and my progress with a reproduced one.

terrydowning · Post by **terrydowning** » Thu Jul 19, 2012 11:37 am

Follow the instructions here for adding photos
http://shopsmith.net/forums/showthread.htm?t=114

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