Oval Bowl in Chinese Raintree

[dai sensei]

Back in 2013 I rough turned a bowl from Chinese Raintree or Golden Raintree (Oelreuteria elegans). After only 12 months I found it turned into a football :o and the previous 30mm sides were now ~15mm with no chance of saving it as a round bowl :~. I have been staying at Powderpost's (Jim's) place for a few days and he had a home made oval chuck so we decided to give it a go and try and save it .
On an oval chuck it spins the piece on an oval path and so you can only cut and sand at one point as it rotates known as the "sweet spot". It gets very confusing as you can't look at the top as you are turning like normal, you can only look at the sweet spot, almost makes you a bit dizzy. It took a bit to orientate/adjust the chuck to suit the deformed shape but we managed to giving us a ~5mm wall thickness.

381342

I had to cut a fair bit off the faces to get it flat and then I didn't get the shape perfect. It is very hard to determine the shape when only one spot stands still. Pretty happy with the result :cool:, given it was my first effort, especially considering the blank was destined for the fire. I should also note, this was all done on a small Woodfast midi

381343 381346

381345 381344

[Acco]

Great recovery :2tsup:

[Ironwood]

Nice work Neil and Jim.

[Dalboy]

A great save and a good looking bowl.

Sounds like a good project to make a oval turning chuck for those out of shape rough turned blanks. I also sometimes turn my blanks rough and find them quite out of shape so far been lucky that I have always been able to get a round bowl out of them when turned

[artful bodger]

Nice save you guys.
Have only ever heard of Raintree when visiting Mossman in FNQ. What a stunning looking tree those ones were that were growing on the main street with the lichen/moss dripping off them.
For such a nice looking tree I gotta say the timber is a bit of a let down visually. Not meaning to be critical of the save.

[powderpost]

A great save and a good looking bowl.

Sounds like a good project to make a oval turning chuck for those out of shape rough turned blanks. I also sometimes turn my blanks rough and find them quite out of shape so far been lucky that I have always been able to get a round bowl out of them when turned

I first read about the oval turning chuck in a very old book on tuning. David Springett's book, "Adventures in Wood Turning", has detailed instructions for building one. I have built three, each one being an improvement on the durability of the previous model. The chuck used for this project hadn't been used for about five years. It most certainly had the cob webs shaken out of it with this exercise.

Jim

[Dalboy]

I first read about the oval turning chuck in a very old book on tuning. David Springett's book, "Adventures in Wood Turning", has detailed instructions for building one. I have built three, each one being an improvement on the durability of the previous model. The chuck used for this project hadn't been used for about five years. It most certainly had the cob webs shaken out of it with this exercise.

Jim

Thank you Jim

I knew I had seen one somewhere, just dug out my copy of that book. Once I have done a few other bits will have a go

[artme]

Well done Gentlemen!!!:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

I had some Chinese raintree but the borers got to it before I did!

[Christos]

That's an interesting read and my first thoughts were you needed to finish off the lathe but then you mention the oval chuck.

Well done on the bowl.

It has given me some things to think about.