CameronPotter
20th February 2006, 09:08 AM
Hi,
Yesterday I had some mixed success - I turned my favourite pen so far (jarrah with a crosscut insert of sassafras that comehow went chatoyant).
Fantastic, problem is that I tried several other things that all failed. :mad:
1. Black wattle. This was looking really great, but then suffered blow out on an end. I turned down to the tube and glued on a section of jarrah as a highlight. This worked well, but then the other section tore out in the middle. Right! I thought, I will have one part black wattle with a highlight, the next part will be jarrah. So doing this, I thought maybe the wood is playing up a bit, so I decided I would try to finish it to shape (it wasn't far off) with the ol' 80 grit gouge. Even this caused blow out!! :eek: Grrrrr. Any suggestions about what went wrong?
2. Tried a myrtle burl pen. The only problem is that it wouldn't grip on the mandrel. I tightened the screw and the wood still spun almost freely. Then, I checked the ends and it appeared that the wood had receded from the brass tube a bit (don't ask me how). So I went and used the pen mill to sort it out again - went back to the lathe and tried again - same problem. At this point I gave up in disgust and went inside deciding that maybe it wasn't my afternoon for turning.
Anyway, any hints or tips about what might have gone wrong would be gratefully appreciated.
Cam
Yesterday I had some mixed success - I turned my favourite pen so far (jarrah with a crosscut insert of sassafras that comehow went chatoyant).
Fantastic, problem is that I tried several other things that all failed. :mad:
1. Black wattle. This was looking really great, but then suffered blow out on an end. I turned down to the tube and glued on a section of jarrah as a highlight. This worked well, but then the other section tore out in the middle. Right! I thought, I will have one part black wattle with a highlight, the next part will be jarrah. So doing this, I thought maybe the wood is playing up a bit, so I decided I would try to finish it to shape (it wasn't far off) with the ol' 80 grit gouge. Even this caused blow out!! :eek: Grrrrr. Any suggestions about what went wrong?
2. Tried a myrtle burl pen. The only problem is that it wouldn't grip on the mandrel. I tightened the screw and the wood still spun almost freely. Then, I checked the ends and it appeared that the wood had receded from the brass tube a bit (don't ask me how). So I went and used the pen mill to sort it out again - went back to the lathe and tried again - same problem. At this point I gave up in disgust and went inside deciding that maybe it wasn't my afternoon for turning.
Anyway, any hints or tips about what might have gone wrong would be gratefully appreciated.
Cam