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View Full Version : Turning green wood - the finer details



Don Nethercott
4th May 2002, 12:53 PM
I have all this green camphor laurel and jacaranda wood. I want to rough turn some of it into bowl shapes & similar so it dries faster, but not quite sure of the procedure.
If I hold the piece on the chuck (VicMarc) with a screw and turn the base, then turn it around and hold the base in the chuck and turn out the centre of the bowl - 2 questions - will the green wood hold in the chuck? and when it is dried, how do re-turn the base so I can finish and polish it after drying (and warping)and to refit it to chuck to do the rest of the bowl.

Mark Wardle has some info on his site about turning green wood but it leaves out some of the minor? details so important to a beginner like me.

Thanks for your help
Don.

rsser
30th May 2002, 10:44 AM
Yes, the base recess can be held again in the chuck if it hasn't warped too much. If it has, hold the bold between a jam chuck and the tail stock and retrue the recess.

Or you can leave a post in the bowl hollow to refit to the spur drive, and then retrue the recess.

Use a bit of scrap ply between the tailstock centre and the recess.

The remaining nipple in the recess can be sanded out with one of those neat 1" flexible pad discs.

A vacuum chuck can also be readily made to hold the bowl inverted. Use google to search the web for designs. Mine cost me about $30 in materials. (Of course, you have to have a hollow headstock spindle). Or you could spend the $130 for a Vicmarc.

Just remember when holding green wood with the metal chuck to use three or four layers of glad wrap. This will avoid the metal staining the timber.

Cheers,

Ern

Bruce Bell
31st May 2002, 07:39 AM
Don use a face plate to mount the green bowl first up then turn the outside to shape leave a spigot to hold in your Vicmarc chuck the turn the inside. Leave a recess to return the bowl once dry. no need to use anything else with this method. I do this every day and turn out up to 50 bowls a day using this method. It is quick and effective you can change the foot once you return the dry bowl.