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Suggestions for completing lathe project

drl

I am making "vases" for my daughters for Christmas. They are made of walnut and lyptus. Approx 6 1/2" high and 6 1/2" outside diameter. The outside of the one is almost done. The other is still in "the clamping mode." What I would like to do is to turn the inside of the vase so it is round instead of the present octagon shape. I made a similar vase previously out of pine and was able to drum sand the inside round without to much trouble. However this walnut/lyptus combo is much harder to sand and would take a lot of hours to accomplish. I'm thinking I could turn it round on the lathe which would be much faster and a whole lot more exciting :o . I currently have the basic five lathe tools that came with the SS plus I have the three specialty rests:

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_4toolrest.htm

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_90degree.htm

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_sshape.htm

I don't see that the gouge will get me very far inside the vase. Looks like the 1/2" roundnose is showing more promise. Would another tool be better suited -- perhaps a fingernail bowl gouge? Or perhaps there is another way altogether what would accomplish the same thing. The resourcefulness and "thinking outside the box" of your suggestions truly amaze me.

Regards,

Dwight

Vase 001.jpg

Vase 002.jpg

a1gutterman

drl wroteI am making "vases" for my daughters for Christmas. They are made of walnut and lyptus. Approx 6 1/2" high and 6 1/2" outside diameter. The outside of the one is almost done. The other is still in "the clamping mode." What I would like to do is to turn the inside of the vase so it is round instead of the present octagon shape. I made a similar vase previously out of pine and was able to drum sand the inside round without to much trouble. However this walnut/lyptus combo is much harder to sand and would take a lot of hours to accomplish. I'm thinking I could turn it round on the lathe which would be much faster and a whole lot more exciting :o ....Or perhaps there is another way altogether what would accomplish the same thing. The resourcefulness and "thinking outside the box" of your suggestions truly amaze me.

Regards,

Dwight

Hi Dwight,

Interesting piece that you have there. I think that your daughters will appreciate the effort that you put into these gifts! I am less then an experienced turner, so I will knot pretend to give you advice on your question]http://www.shopsmith.net/forums/member.htm?u=1485[/URL]

I understand that he does a lot of turning, and he may have an answer for you.

jimthej

I don't know how you mounted it to turn the outside. But if you have a way to securely mount it. The inside could be turned with a bowl gouge and a scraper that allows scraping on the side. Very light cuts should not tear it apart. I have the bowl set that Shopsmith sells and I think with the S-shaped rest you could get in to the bottom. http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/l_4pcbowlturningtoolset.htm

nuhobby

Hi,

Great Looking turning! Just one small word of caution. I think the technique suggestions above are good. Now, on your vase itself, I notice the segmented joints are not staggered from layer to layer. It *could* have a break-apart tendency if you remove more material. My brother had a segmented "barrel" fly apart on him 15 years ago. But I haven't tried this type of thing myself.

Good Luck

rkh2

Dwight

I am attaching a link to sawdust session 17 which Nick shows turning the inside of a bowl made with a ringmaster. It is similar to what you have done as far as how you go about turning the inside. Most of the information that pertains to what the inside of your project looks like is on the last 10 minutes of the video. Nick noted that he had the tool rest set slightly higher than the center of the inside and was going to turn from the opposite side of the lathe at a slow speed to start with. He appears to be using a small gouge which was suggested by a previous member. I can see where the scrapper would also probably work out to smooth it out after the roughness is turned. I have the universal tool rest system and see how it would be very useful for this situation. Also you will need to come up with some method of holding your project to the lathe. I would think possibly either make a jam chuck to fit in the bottom end or some jumbo jaws if you have either a talon or stronghold chuck. Right now all these items are on sale at shopsmith. Hope this info helps out.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Archives/SS117/SS117_Ringmaster_3.htm

wearymicrobe

The correct way in my eyes would be to use a reverse bowl chuck. Then using a carbide 1/2 inch edge scraper go at it. I would suggest a very very light touch because bowls without staggering the wood segments will be very unstable.

jbooher

I assume that you do not have a chuck to mount the bowl on. If so you need to glue a waste block to one end and use a face plate screwed to the block. It would be best to have a bowl gouge and a oval skew chisel. The round nose scrapper will work but may cause a problem the farther you are from the tool rest. Take very light cuts with it and make sure it is sharp. Once you have finished with the outside and inside then cut off the waste block with either a saw or parting tool. If you decide to use your bandsaw make a V shaped jib to hold you bowl for cutting.

As pointed out earlier your glue lines are in a straight line which could cause it to break if you get over aggressive with your cuts. So take it easy.

Hope this helped.

James

jdramsey

The bowl chuck is a good suggestion. The walls look a little thin at the joints, so I would really be careful. You might want to stagger the joints on your next segmented turning. There's more strength. My dad turned some bowls, platters, vases, lamps, etc. back when he was in High School (graduated from Inglewood HS in 1955) and he gave me some of his stuff. There's a vase that he turned with similar joints to your vase. It's not in good shape. The glue joints started failing some time ago. It was a real pain trying to glue the damn thing back together. Granted, my dad made it over 50 years ago, but I'd like to think that my work will out live me. Hence, good wood, good glue, and good technique for me.

Good luck to you.

drl

I wish I had good news to post about my vases but I don't--at least for one of them. I should have updated sooner but was "depressed" with my initial results at turning the inside. Chris, James and jdramsey were all correct in their observations of the inherit weakness of my lined up joints. I do have a Talon chuck with large jaw capabilities (more on that later) which I used to mount the vase. I did not get very far into the rounding out the inside before by gouge catch and it went to pieces. Several notes here: I sawed the segments and first glued the segments long grain to long grain to get the vertical height. There were no fairlures in any of those joints i.e. horizontal axis. In fact I had fractures in the wood itself but not the glue joints. The vertical--end to end grain joints proved to be the undoing. Possiblly because I did not "joint" the parts after sawing meaning that there were not smooth surfaces to glue. It also appears that a lot of the glue got absorbed by the end grain and therefore starving the joint. And yes I believe I recall Drew mentioning applying more glue to end grain after the initial application, a lesson I won't forget. That along with not being a seasoned turner and possibly lacking the proper lathe tool(s) all resulted in pieces for the scrap bin.

Now about the Talon chuck: I used the large jaw "accessory" with 4 of the rubber buttons attached. I had previously squared up the top and bottom of the vase while the vase was mounted between centers. I had much difficulty getting the vase to run true when mounted to the Talon. Anyone tell me why it did not run true (wobbled at non supported end)?

In the meantime I ordered and received (like in two days from SS) a set of bowl turning and spindle turning lathe tools that came on sale at the oppurtune time. I'm also trying to get into a basic turning class that I found out about today.

The second vase I have successfully turned the outside but have decided to use a microplane shaper to round out the inside. Initial tries have shown to be faster than using a drum sander and less dusty besides. Shaping with the grain makes the shaper quite effective. FYI

Regards,

Dwight

horologist

Dwight,

I can sympathize, damaging or destroying a piece is frustrating!

Once you remove the vase from the chuck it will be nearly impossible to realign the piece.

It looks like you intend to fit a flat base on the vase. If this is true then it might work better if you assemble the piece with the base and then screw it into a face plate. Then carefully turn the inside of the vase first. Extreme care will be required at first until you smooth out the irregularities of the surface. Hold the tool firmly on the rest and make light cuts.

I’m guessing you had some sort of a cap over the top so you could use a center in the tailstock to support the top of the vase while turning the outside. Once you finish turning the inside you could then put the cap on and turn the outside without having to remove the vase from the chuck/faceplate.

Staggering the pieces would help to strengthen the assembly but I suspect that with care and good glue joints you could make the vase with the pieces in line.

From the picture it looks like the majority of the failures were in the glue joints. A good glue joint will be stronger than the surrounding wood. You might want to look into the type of glue you are using and how it reacts with the woods. I’m not familiar with lyptus.

As a test you could try cleaning up the edges of the broken vase, reglue and you may yet be able to salvage it.

Troy

a1gutterman

Hi Dwight,

If you try this again, maybe a tounge-in-groove joint will improve the glue's holding ability, or use a glue joint router bit on the edge, to improve the hold. For both of these applications, you will have to add a little more material to your project.

charlese

I was in the middle of posting when I decided to look up gluing to lyptus. I then found Troy had posted exactly the same things I wanted to say. So I'll just add these two links you can use for reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyptus

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm

Chapter 9 of this Forest Products Lab's manual deals with gluing, but I didn't find a reference to gluing eucalyptus or lyptus.

The manual, however is a very good reference for most all things dealing with wood.

a1gutterman

charlese wroteI was in the middle of posting when I decided to look up gluing to lyptus. I then found Troy had posted exactly the same things I wanted to say. So I'll just add these two links you can use for reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyptus

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm

Chapter 9 of this Forest Products Lab's manual deals with gluing, but I didn't find a reference to gluing eucalyptus or lyptus.

The manual, however is a very good reference for most all things dealing with wood.

Hi Chuck,

Is there something about Lyptus that concerns you about glueing it? The first link that you give shows it glued in strips to maple and purple heart. As no mention is made there about glueing difficulties, I wonder if there really are any?

charlese

Is there a problem ? I really don't know! Lyptus is a hybrid of two Eucalyptus species, according to Wickipedia. Being non-familiar with eucalyptus (but I thought it was oily) I was wondering. That's why I gave links to these sites. As we can see, there some builders that really love lyptus. It works good, is heavy, is hard, but no one says how it glues.

I was pretty sure the Forest Products Laboratory would have something on eucalyptus, but it evidently has not been used as a popular wood long enough for them to evaluate.

I have noted that wood turners are the first to experiment with exotic woods. They find out about the characteristics of these woods before anyone, but it is hard to find any documentation. It is usually limited to turning publications.

This is a quote from Wickipedia - subject eucalyptus: "...Outside of their natural ranges eucalypts are both lauded for its beneficial economic impact on poor populations[1][2]:22 and derided for being an invasive water-sucker,[3] leading to controversy over its total impact and future.[4] It is a fast-growing source of wood, its oil can be used for cleaning and functions as a natural insecticide, and it is sometimes used to drain swamps and thereby reduce malaria risk.

a1gutterman

charlese wroteIs there a problem ? I really don't know! Lyptus is a hybrid of two Eucalyptus species, according to Wickipedia. Being non-familiar with eucalyptus (but I thought it was oily) I was wondering. That's why I gave links to these sites. As we can see, there some builders that really love lyptus. It works good, is heavy, is hard, but no one says how it glues.

I was pretty sure the Forest Products Laboratory would have something on eucalyptus, but it evidently has not been used as a popular wood long enough for them to evaluate.

I have noted that wood turners are the first to experiment with exotic woods. They find out about the characteristics of these woods before anyone, but it is hard to find any documentation. It is usually limited to turning publications.

I understand your concern. It does look like the hybrid is being produced by Weyerhaeuser and is a recommended (environmentally) replacement for oak, cherry and mahogany. I wood guess then, that it wood knot be hard to work with. If Weyerhaeuser wants to sell it, they wood knot want it to be hard to work with. Just a thought.

greitz

I've turned four "ring" bowls out of lyptus, using TiteBond III to glue the rings together. That was close to two years ago, and no glue joint failure yet, even while bouncing a couple of the bowls off the floor a few times. (Yes, I freely admit that I'm clumsy!)

Lyptus is very hard- sharpen the lathe chisels frequently. If you attach it to a faceplate, I'd predrill the holes for the screws also.

Rockler carries lyptus in several different thicknesses. I used 1-1/4 inch stock for the bowls.

Gary

curiousgeorge

If you ever wonder about gluing different substances together, this site may help...

http://www.thistothat.com/index.shtml