Well... I headed out to the shed today with the full intentions of turning one box, maybe two, and doing some glue-ups for another couple of concepts that I want to try.

I thought I'd get the cutting & gluing out of the way first so I could play with turning while waiting for glue to dry. Bad decision. I did the basic cutting, then went to find my PVA glue. I only used it the other day, but where did I put it?

About an hour worth of shuffling boxes & moving wood later, I spotted it sitting on the end of my lathe bed, just t'other side of my tailstock. OK, so I grab it, take it to the blanks and go to squeeze some out.

Invert the bottle and... hear this oozy "thwop" noise inside the bottle. The last 1/4 of the bottle has gelled & set. It did that last time, too... and that's why I put it on the lathe bed last time, to remind me to replace it!

Anyways, the first box started off as this; it's 100x100x70mm Congo Mahogany (Thanks again, Jefferson. ) It was originally 100mm each way, but I was doing something else earlier in the week and needed a small offcut, so picked up what I thought was a Tas Oak 4x4 and sliced the end off before I realised my boo-boo. I'm having one of those weeks.

Double_Winged_Sphere_Box_002.jpg

So, 30mm narrower than I'd first planned... what to do, what to do? OK, an idea has come into my head... I'll split it down in half, to give me two 35mm(ish) deep blanks.

Double_Winged_Sphere_Box_003.jpg

Originally I was going to hot-melt glue a tenon on it for mounting in the chuck, but with the change in plan I've simply drilled both halves to take a worm-screw.

Double_Winged_Sphere_Box_004.jpg

It's going to be a winged box, of sorts, (I seem to be going through a "winged thing" phase at the moment!) so I've attached some sacrificial pieces of crapiarta to save my fingers from chop-chop. There'll be pieces attached to the remaining sides, but I couldn't scrape enough glue together to get that far.

Double_Winged_Sphere_Box_005.jpg

That's as far as I got with this particular box today...

It'll be the first I complete (once I source more glue) so, even though I've pix of several others I started, I'll wait to post them until I get around to actually doing those boxes. Just to give some continuity, and the thread doesn't chop'n'change between 'em.

(I did manage to get a solid couple of hours turning in, but as that was finishing a 14" textured bowl and a 12" winged bowl, I don't think they're eligible for this particular thread. )

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so go put the bowls in the general turning!!! Wanna see more then wood stuck together

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Eliza

www.elizasart.com
www.elvenhair.com - wooden hair stuff

"Help! I'm *in* the box!"

Sometimes it's safer to stay out of the joint. That way:

• you won't stuff things up that you didn't know you were going to stuff up;
• you won't have to curse that thing that you put over there in a I'll-never=ever-lose-it-if-I-put-it-there place; and
• and you wouldn't have started something because you knew you had run out of something else just so you could do something but never got anything done really in the first place.

Bring an old glue bottle around and I'll fill it with some Titebond for you. (just not a big old glue bottle)

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I make things, I just take a long time.

www.brandhouse.net.au

OK, so I finagled myself an hour or so of happy time on the lathe before dinner.

So... I scraped together enough glue to finish gluing on the sacrificial pieces, then rounded the lot on the BS so I wouldn't chunk my fingers.

05_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_GluSacr.jpg

Using the holes I earlier drilled into one face of each, I mounted the pieces onto a wormscrew in my chuck. And just for any novices who don't know what a wormscrew is:

06_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_WormScrew.jpg

This allowed me to hot-melt glue on some offcuts of wood as use for tenons, then to turn them round. This way I know that they're true to my work and everything should spin nice & true when I reverse mount. I also rounded the outside properly, again to reduce the finger chunking factor.

07_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_GluTenon.jpg

OK... I've reverse mounted one of the halves and made a start on hollowing it out. I want this to be nice & spherical, and exactly 60mm wide at the lip.

08_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TurnCentre.jpg

Now to work the outside, leaving a 5mm flat at the lip for future funny stuff.

09_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TurnOuter.jpg

Funny stuff? Yeah... to make something to hold the two halves together, so the lid sits on the box properly. I don't have the "extra" timber to turn a normal lip so I'll make a glue-in piece from a bit of scrap. To accomodate it, I've made a rebate just inside the lip. 2.5mm wide & 2.5 mm deep.

10_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TurnLip.jpg

And that's more or less that stage of that half complete... so time for a quick sand & polish.

11_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_Polish.jpg

Hmmm... that didn't come up too badly, did it? And I like the contrast between the Congo Mahogany and the Crapiarta. I was going to use a very dark walnut scrap for the ring in the lip, but... yet another change of plans! I'll use a light coloured wood instead!

Right. Put that piece aside and move onto the second half. It was turned in exactly the same way as the pix above, except I haven't turned the lip in it or applied a polish yet.

Now... Hmmm... I've this scrap piece of Huon Pine that's too small for anything else and I've been using as a wedge for stopping kerfs from closing when tablesawing... So I quickly throw it on the chuck and profile it...

12_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TurnRing.jpg

And once separated it has this profile:

13_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_RingProfile.jpg

The last step for the day was to turn the recess in the lip of the second half and glue the ring in. The box is almost half done! Well... the insides are almost done, anyway...

With luck I'll get some more happy time on the lathe tomorrow and I'll finish the ring and move on to turning the outside.

Don't hold your breath.

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So far looks pretty wonderful - I really really like the shine! How did you get that high a shine!

A rebated ring huh? Being clever ain't we?

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Eliza

www.elizasart.com
www.elvenhair.com - wooden hair stuff

"Help! I'm *in* the box!"

Sand to 400 grit, EEE and then good ol' Shellawax.

There's two tricks: when applying EEE buff it in hard, then use a clean cloth to remove all of the excess. Keep using clean bits of the rag until absolutely no more "colour" comes off the wood.

When applying Shellawax, it's gotta get hot. And I mean finger-burning hot. It can be a painful exercise if your rag is only thin. DAMHIKT. I stand so that I can see the light reflected in the surface while buffing, and keep burning my fingers, moving the rag back & forth until I can't see any "rings" moving in the reflection as I move the rag.


I really don't have much choice. My wood was only 7x10x10 and when I split it in half (2x 3.5x10x10) I've only just barely got enough to make the shape of the box I have in mind. When it's finished, you'll see that any mistakes in the shape I make will be pretty obvious.

So... not enough wood to add the lip? The only answer is to glue more in... and if I'm gonna do that, I may as well make it into a feature...

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Didn't get much done this arvo.

Started with the half with the ring glued in to make the lip and cleaned it up a bit. Sanded & polished while I was at it.

14_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_RingGlued.jpg16_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_Polish2.jpg

Of course, at this stage it's mandatory to do a test-fit. Mmmm... not bad. A bit sloppy, but I was a bit over-enthusiastic in sanding the Huon. Very, very soft stuff.

You may be able to see why I left that shoulder around the outside of the lip... it'll hopefully seperate the two curves to give the impression that they continue on inside. It's not so obvious right now.

17_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TestFit.jpg

Do you reckon I can get away with calling it finished and passing it off as a "mirrored mushroom" box?

So... that makes two halves of the two halves finished. The easy half, unfortunately. I must've had a brain-fart yesterday, because I'd originally planned to turn the other sides first, which would have been easy to jam chuck.

Now I have to do it the other way around, and this side is much harder to jam chuck.

19_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_JamChuck.jpg

You can see it's only a tiny thing that fits inside the bowl of the box... and being hemispherical there's not going to be any "jamming" about it. Bugger, bugger, bugger. No choice but to bring up the tailstock support.

20_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TurnTop.jpg

Well... that half is finished. I'm really not happy with it at this stage, but because of my blunder I had to bring the tailstock up and I simply can't get the tools in at the angle I need to proceed further.

I think the wings are a consistent thickness (another blunder - I put my spring calipers down for a second and they promptly shot through on holidays. So I had to finish the job by guesstimating with my fingers. ) but the body of the box itself is too thick. I'm guessing it's at around 7-8mm thick, when I only wanted 3 or 4mm.

21_Dbl_Winged_Sphere_Box_TopFinished.jpg

The moment of truth will be when it goes through the bandsaw and has the sacrificial pieces removed. Then any errors in formwill show in all their glory details.

So... it's not getting the chop just yet. I'll wait until I've turned the other half later this week, as in the meantime I may just possibly have a brainwave over a simple method to remount it and bring it to the specs I want.

I won't be holding my breath.

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What you need is some really tall Cole jaws. Or my doh-nut chuck that I haven't made yet but that is in my head.

Curious to see what this qill look like in the end.

How did you mount that little bit of houn in the chuck? Has it got a waste block too? or just a tennon or worm screw? I think I need to make a similar thing for something I have in mind.

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anne-maria.

Tea Lady
(White with none)

ceramics exhibition and blog I am part of.http://www.jacpromotion2011.com/

Me too!

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Eliza

www.elizasart.com
www.elvenhair.com - wooden hair stuff

"Help! I'm *in* the box!"

I'd call it "Fat Lady wearing tight fitting togs"

(bathers for you Vics)

ing. Hmmph.

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I make things, I just take a long time.

www.brandhouse.net.au

I like it! Y'know, I may just make a box along those lines...

BTW, I've always called 'em togs too!

I have all these things. Somewhere.

I've found that cole jaws are terrible for this sort of thing. Esp. when they have "long" jaws. They're OK for light finishing cuts when cleaning up a foot, for example, but I want to do some serious removal.

If I'd thought ahead, that piece of MDF I used to fix the jam-chuck "dome" to the faceplate would've been some 8" diameter. Then I could simply drill a few holes in it to take coach bolts and convert it into a donut-chuck, with the dome still centering everything.

That way I could remove the donut & use the tailstock to get to the point I am now (which needs constant measuring of the wing thickness, hence a donut would be in the way) and then replace the donut to do the bit I haven't done.

Thanks, TL! I think that's exactly how I'll do the second half. And maybe remount the first so I can get it where I want it.

Basically, one winged bowl upside down on another. With the bodies hopefully forming a sphere.

Simply slapped on a worm-screw. I didn't particularly care what happened to the waste bit out of the middle, just so long as I didn't hit metal with my chisel.

Although I have put it back in my scrap box. One never knows when those odd-shaped bits will come in handy.

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G`day your right about the cole jaws being risky DAMHIKT.
Mick

P.S. Looking very nice so far

Amazing stuff, Skew.

Almost makes me want to buy a lathe, but then I realise how many years it would take to make boxes like this.

So I'll follow your thread and continue to be impressed.

Tex

Didn't say I didn't like it. Just a spot of fishing.

One day I'll get round-to-it and turn the lathe on, and what I knock out will look a darn sight worse than two fat ladies wearing tight fitting togs . In the meantime I'll just look and watch.

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I make things, I just take a long time.

www.brandhouse.net.au

C'mon
get a lathe, they're fun ( and we all can't be as good as skew)
I also find mine is a stress release tool - now how do I get the commonwealth govt to pay for it

BTW
Skew your ideas are absolutely brilliant

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regards
Nick (I really don't need a Stubby!)
veni, vidi, tornavi