Thread: 6ft deep hollowing bar demo at the Gold Coast Woodturners Club open day.

Next, the outside & the top are roughed out & a hole is drilled down the centre with a forstner bit on an extension bar.

Now the piece is transferred to the long bed lathe that has the deep hollowing tool set up on it.

The tip gets a quick touch up on the grinder & is set at the right angle & then work begins on the hollowing process.

Notice the little bulb mounted beside the tip so the turner can see what is going on.

The lathe has to be stopped on a regular basis to blow out the shavings & check the progress.

If you look back up at the middle pic in post 2, you will see that has turned a foot/spigot/dovetail on the base of the rough shape to allow it to be remounted in a large chuck for finishing after it has had time to dry.

In the first pic below, the 'team' are 'parting off' a piece that was turned earlier in the day with a saw.

The 2nd pic is that piece sitting in a corner waiting to dry.

The 3rd pic is of one that had been roughed out ahead of time & it had been cleaned up & sanded the day before.

You can see the 'refinement' that has gone into the shape of the pieces.... had a bit to do with that.

OK, now I am out of photos but you should all be able to see how this is done.

A big thank you to the Gold Coast Woodturners Club & , I enjoyed myself.

Now, before anybody asks, the deep hollowing tool used in this demo is not commercially available although the tip used is.

If you want one like it, you have to build it yourself.

Great work on the pics Cliff I reckon that hollowing rig is a slight case of overkill for the size of the forms but you work with what you've got I suppose
What type of lamp is it?? - often thought it would be nice to have some light while I'm hollowing rather than just checking with the pen-torch after each clean out

It is a small 12V bulb with 2 prongs on it stuck into a 2 pin socket held in place with a handful of cable ties.

Pretty neat tool. I like the parallel bars to support the rear, too.
I'd love to see it pushed to the limit - a 6 foot vase.

Thanks for posting the pics, Cliff.

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

It is a small 12V bulb with 2 prongs on it stuck into a 2 pin socket held in place with a handful of cable ties.

Cliff, I don't have a deep hollowing system, but built a light system to go inside my forms.

I used an LED array (cold light and no glass to break) and - at last found a use for one of those old mobile phone 5V chargers, to power then.

I didn't make this set up, I was visiting & I had the camera.

Cliff TY for the WiP some dimensions would be nice of the vessel Pls.

Time to upgrade the camera to one which also does Video

That one will do video, but even just with stills alone there is 203Mb.

You'll have to wait for the man who owns the gear to check in on this thread to get dimensions... I was just a visitor on the day who happened to have a camera.

Isn't this the same or similar setup that Brian McEnvoy of Canada designed??

The hollowing bar is along the same lines of Brian McEvoys. I bought the plans a couple of years ago and used these to build the system. Along the way we made a few changes / improvements. The tips and tool holders were purchased from Brian McEvoy as they are not easily manufactured. The light is a 12v light that is run at 24v - it does blow bulbs occasionally

I'll measure the forms and put down the exact dimensions - I would guess the finished form is approximately 400mm tall. The bar will hollow a lot longer but I need to make up a steady system first.

I enjoyed the day immensely and will post WIP's once I get a suitable steady system built with larger pieces.