turnerted
2nd May 2011, 06:08 PM
G'day
Here are my latest two disc lamps.The first is Iron bark. The disc is 270 mm and the overall height is 490mm .The second and third are either side of a Coolabah burl lamp 270mm diam by 480 mm high .
The finish is DO on both .
This was the hardest bit of coolabah ,or anything else, that I've ever turned .I even had difficulty just getting the blank trued up . Supprisingly the first face was not that difficult to turn but when I turned it over that's when the real problems started . At one stage I was sharpening three gouges at a time and using each one for a few seconds untill it went blunt then sharpen them again . I thought the problem may have been grain orientation related so I tried running the lathe in reverse and turning from the other side of the lathe, but it made no difference.
As I got closer to the outside perimeter of the disc , where the radious of the curve is smaller I could get virtually nothing but dust off . In desperation, I decided to attack the wood with an angle grinder , starting with P24 grit , it worked quite well and I worked my way through the grits . I was quite happy with the result and I don't think anyone could pick which side I used the grinder on .
I would be interested in any suggestions of a different aproach I could have taken since I still have enough left of this burl slab left to do another lamp .
I do most of my cutting with a pull cut and have the wings on my bowl gouge fairly well swept back .
I also tried a scrapper with no effect .
From the shape of the edge of the burl slab I could determine that the difficult side would have been the side closest to the trunk of the tree which I suppose means that was the oldest side but since the slab was only about 50mm thick , It's hard to see how that could be relevent also this side had just been sawn whereas the easier side had been surfaced .
I look forward to your comments and suggestions.
Ted
Here are my latest two disc lamps.The first is Iron bark. The disc is 270 mm and the overall height is 490mm .The second and third are either side of a Coolabah burl lamp 270mm diam by 480 mm high .
The finish is DO on both .
This was the hardest bit of coolabah ,or anything else, that I've ever turned .I even had difficulty just getting the blank trued up . Supprisingly the first face was not that difficult to turn but when I turned it over that's when the real problems started . At one stage I was sharpening three gouges at a time and using each one for a few seconds untill it went blunt then sharpen them again . I thought the problem may have been grain orientation related so I tried running the lathe in reverse and turning from the other side of the lathe, but it made no difference.
As I got closer to the outside perimeter of the disc , where the radious of the curve is smaller I could get virtually nothing but dust off . In desperation, I decided to attack the wood with an angle grinder , starting with P24 grit , it worked quite well and I worked my way through the grits . I was quite happy with the result and I don't think anyone could pick which side I used the grinder on .
I would be interested in any suggestions of a different aproach I could have taken since I still have enough left of this burl slab left to do another lamp .
I do most of my cutting with a pull cut and have the wings on my bowl gouge fairly well swept back .
I also tried a scrapper with no effect .
From the shape of the edge of the burl slab I could determine that the difficult side would have been the side closest to the trunk of the tree which I suppose means that was the oldest side but since the slab was only about 50mm thick , It's hard to see how that could be relevent also this side had just been sawn whereas the easier side had been surfaced .
I look forward to your comments and suggestions.
Ted