Turning a pedestal

[JPG]

DRAIN?????


Oh! A FUNCTIONAL sink bowl!

[masonsailor2]

Lots of shop time today. I finished up the zebrawood bowl that the sink sits in and glued up all the rings for the main pedestal.
Paul

[masonsailor2]

All the segmented discs are now sanded and tomorrow will be glue up. It’s impressive how flat of discs the SS disc sander will produce. The main object of the glue up will be to keep the hole down the center aligned to facilitate the drain pipe for the sink. My plan is to use a piece of 1 1/2” pvc down the middle wrapped in wax paper to keep things aligned.
Paul

[masonsailor2]

The rings are all glued up and almost ready for turning. I will be gone for a week so it has plenty of time to harden.
Paul

[masonsailor2]

Back in the shop today and got the pedestal mounted on the lathe and roughed out. Very slow going due to the hardness of the zebrawood and having to stop fairly often to put a new edge on the chisel. Now that it is balanced I can turn up the rpm and start shaping it.
Paul

[TDC]

I like your license Plate.

[masonsailor2]

Wow. This is tough going. Sharpening chisels about every 5 min but it’s getting there. I got the bottom half done and will get to the rest hopefully tomorrow. End grain zebrawood is like concrete.
Paul

[algale]

Looking good!

[BuckeyeDennis]

That’s already a striking looking piece — I can’t wait to see it with the finish on!

Having turned a couple of small pieces of ebony, I can imagine the dulling that big pedestal can dish out. I assume that you’re using HSS — have you ever using tried carbide tools on this sort of wood?

[masonsailor2]

I have tried the Richard Sorbey version of the carbide chisel. I am generally not a fan of them because they scrape instead of shear and for me they tend to dig in and be difficult to control. Since the zebrawood and ebony don’t shear cut anyway I tried it again and had the same experience of being hard to control. It worked better for a final cut where I was just smoothing but for roughing it was not a great experience. I am using the SS roughing gouge which cuts really well but dulls pretty fast. I broke down yesterday and ordered a roughing gouge from Doug Thompson in hopes the edge will last longer. I have two other chisels by him and they really do hold an edge much better. It will probably not arrive in time for this project so I will continue using the HSS Shopsmith chisel. As long as I keep it sharp the cut is very smooth. The SS chisels are actually pretty good steel and have served me well over the years. I put longer handles on them and have changed the grind on them over the years but they perform well. Fortunately using the sharpening jig I have it only takes about 10-15 seconds to produce a new edge so it is doable but I am sharpening after about 5 minutes of turning.
Paul