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bassmansimon
6th March 2013, 09:06 AM
After coming back from a week in Tasmania, I was having Huon Pine scent withdrawals, so I decided to hack into a square blank that I have had sitting around for a year or so, and created my first square turning.

Sanded to 320, then polished with UBeaut EEE then finished with UBeaut Shellawax Cream.

For the shape, I originally turned it perfectly square, but I thought a bit of a curve on each of the sides would work well. To do this, I just laid it on a linisher on a slight angle on each side. This effectively created a nice curve on the sides (when viewed from directly above).

Final dimensions are 165mm square, and 40mm tall at the corners.

Other than the indents from the chuck jaws, I'm really happy with it.

Comments and feedback very welcome :U
Simon.

http://oi46.tinypic.com/qq1ifl.jpg

http://oi49.tinypic.com/26451dc.jpg

http://oi47.tinypic.com/14mx8vq.jpg

Rod Gilbert
6th March 2013, 09:29 AM
Hi bassmansimon,
A great first effort the bowl look's great watch those corners with the fingers.
Regards Rod.:2tsup::2tsup:

Skew ChiDAMN!!
7th March 2013, 11:19 AM
Nice job. So, are you hooked on winged bowls yet? :D

FWIW, gluing sacrificial pieces onto the edges and turning the blank round first can save your fingers a lot of grief when sanding, plus avoid a helluva lot of tearing on on the leading/trailing edges. It's a simple matter to cut the sacrificial pieces away then touch up on a linisher later.

The indents from the chuck jaws are a PITA aren't they? :sigh: (Again, you can glue on a sacrificial tenon and remove that later... but sometimes it's just nice to throw a piece on a lathe without great forethought and just have fun, innit? 'Specially Huon... gotta love that smell!)

Paul39
8th March 2013, 10:31 AM
bassmansimon,

Very nice!!

You can remove the indentations on the foot by putting the piece face down on some padding and taking a long strip of sand paper about 1/2 inch wide and sanding around the foot like polishing a shoe with a rag.

Keep turning the piece 1/4 turn and go round & round.

Yes, it is a pain.

bassmansimon
9th March 2013, 11:02 AM
Thanks yes it's a bit annoying. I'll try that trick, thanks.

artme
9th March 2013, 04:48 PM
Noice!!!:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

Tim the Timber Turner
9th March 2013, 05:28 PM
The indents from the chuck jaws are a PITA aren't they? :sigh:

These can be avoided by making the foot size the same as the chuck jaws when the jaws form a perfect circle.

This is when they are only open about 2 or 3 mm.

At this size there is maximum wood to metal contact.

This equals maximum holding strength.

On soft or easy to mark timbers one turn of masking tape can help to avoid marking.

Any more than one turn and the work holding ability will start to get spongy.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Tim:)

bassmansimon
9th March 2013, 05:42 PM
Thanks for the tip Tim. I know about making the foot smaller so that it fits better, but was a bit nervous about making my dovetail because I had a bad experience once where I had a dig in the timber causing the foot to be smaller than my chuck jaws even at their tightest.

Didn't know about the tape trick.

Tim the Timber Turner
9th March 2013, 08:40 PM
I usually aim for 4 or 5 mm larger than the closed jaw size, if I miss that size there is still a chance I might get a second go with it.

When cutting the foot to size, you might like to try scraping with the point of a sharp skew with the tool held parallel to the bed of the lathe.

With care you can make cuts of a millimetre or less. You need of course to allow for the slight dovetail.

If you try and cut the foot size with the tool at 90 degrees to the lathe bed it is difficult to control the amount of material being removed.

Remembering that for every millimetre removed the diameter gets 2mm smaller.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Tim:)

surge82
12th March 2013, 04:56 PM
nice bowl sim!! :D:D:D:D

smiife
13th March 2013, 07:40 PM
hi simon,
very nicely done ,shame about the chuck marks,heon pine is very soft
timber ,i sometimes wrap masking tape around the tenon,that helps
also i have made a template out of perspex/plastic to ''size the tenon''
hope this helps
cheers smiife:2tsup:

bassmansimon
14th March 2013, 08:21 PM
When cutting the foot to size, you might like to try scraping with the point of a sharp skew with the tool held parallel to the bed of the lathe.

With care you can make cuts of a millimetre or less. You need of course to allow for the slight dovetail.

If you try and cut the foot size with the tool at 90 degrees to the lathe bed it is difficult to control the amount of material being removed.

Hi Tim, I'm working on another bowl at the moment, and using the skew with the tool held parallel to the lathe bed worked much better. Thanks for the tip.