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I've now turned wood for the first time. I wasn't intending to make a magic wand when I pulled a piece of sapwood off a larger slab of walnut I have plans to make a desk out of, but after I started practicing some beads and tapers, I ended up here, and it's already become a favorite toy of my 2 and 4 year old kids.

I've only sanded it through two grits, since that's all I have at home and I put a coat of paste wax on it, since that's what I had available to me and I didn't really have much time to spend on this. Now that I've made one, I will probably end up having to make another two so each boy will have one.

I made this in two days, about a half hour each day before daycare pickup, and I have some video of day two that I will embed a youtube link for below after I have some time to process the video, but here are some photos to start:







... and a teaser of what's up next for turning:



I've also started a blog here, with the post above:

http://www.airquotewoodworker.com/2013/ ... pwood.html

Video of Sunday's turning session coming soon.

Careful

Turning can be addictive!!

Nice job on your first.

Nil, now you went and done it. Welcome to the turning club Is the next project going to be a fat baseball bat:p

Well done. Much better than my first(ended up a peg leg from a 40 year old pine 4X4 piece of scrap). My second was better though, so I am challenging you there!(ice cream scoop handle from a purchase cherry blank).
I am Planning project number three. Probably a baton of some sort. Recently had a storm that downed some large limbs. Trying to figure out what the species is on the one with the best spindle is.

fredsheldon wrote:Is the next project going to be a fat baseball bat:p

Close! It's going to be a big fat mallet. I think I may bandsaw off the waste first though, so that I can use it for other projects rather than just a bag of shavings. Also, this is green wood, so it should be interesting to see how it deforms and cracks and checks over time. It should still be perfectly usable as a mallet for hitting a froe all the same.

The mallet is now done, photos and video to come as well... mistakes and all (and there were a lot of mistakes -- I'm not even yet sure how to use the skew chisel correctly on something like this -- though it worked well for my magic wand, so I had to fix mistakes from each time I tried).

It's green wood, so it's going to take some time to dry and crack on me (in fact it's already cracking at one end), so I have it sitting in a bag of its shavings now hoping that will close up over time, but I could also get some more practice with epoxy if not.

I found a nice little insect trail inside when I was turning the mallet.

Make sure all insects are in fact dead if storing this in your home or shop where there may be wood you don't want damaged!!

Sealing completely with shellac (sanding sealer) or other film forming finish so no oxygen gets inside can kill off any insects but will slow the drying process significantly.

The cracks will not "close up". These can be filled with epoxy once the wood reaches EMC and stabilizes.

Video is posted, but I am not sure how long youtube will take to process it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqsAhwi4Eo0

I am still editing the video of the large mallet, but I put another teaser photo at the end of the above video.

nil wrote:Video is posted, but I am not sure how long youtube will take to process it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqsAhwi4Eo0

I am still editing the video of the large mallet, but I put another teaser photo at the end of the above video.

I checked out your video and thought you did a great job for a beginner;
I'm a "real" beginner myself. I turned a new handle for a yard tool, out of scrap oak, it turned out okay. It's not real pretty, but it sure was functional...and it allowed me to continue using something that was once broken...good job !!!

The video is slick!!!

Yer turning technique(s) is interesting.