dai sensei
15th October 2006, 07:21 PM
After scoring the cedar last weekend :cool: I couldn’t resist turning something out of it. I took the piece that had the chainsaw tooth in it to turn a platter ~350mm dia. I roughed out the base with a spigot and it was looking pretty good, apart from a lot of large cracks that originated from the sapwood:mad: . They did not go all the way to the edges, nor full depth, so I though with a bit of resin it might survive:rolleyes: .
I also had a bowl I had green turned from the Swamp Mahogany. I had soaked it in the 50/50 metho detergent mix for 3 weeks and dried it for 3 weeks and it had dried out Ok, but the mix didn’t stop it cracking:mad: . It too had extensive cracks, but not extending all the way.
During the week I set about filling the cracks ready for this weekend. The rot on the cedar had started to set in, so I used a router bit in my dremmel to remove it back to solid timber, before filling it with black resin over 6 casts (due to the shape). I also filled the cracks in the SM bowl with clear resin over 4 casts.
Today I started with the SM bowl and all was fine until I started to sand. I had finished the outside to 1200 and was slowly getting down the grits on the inside when the whole thing started to open up along the crack lines:eek: . When I stopped the lathe I also found numerous new smaller cracks:( . Luckily I was only sanding at 900rpm so it didn’t explode:rolleyes: . I filled the cracks with CA and thought I’d do the cedar bowl while the CA got to full strength.
Put the cedar bowl onto the Vicmarc and started to form the inside of the bowl. It was all going nicely:cool: , so I cranked the speed up a touch to 1600 and watched the shavings fly:D . Then all of a sudden bang:eek: , and before I could say WFT was that:confused: , another larger bang :eek: :eek: followed by something hitting me in my shield. I hit the floor and was then showered with a mixture of shavings, dust and broken glass:o .
The first bang was a large slice on one side of the crack separating from the platter. The second bang was the remaining platter, because it was out of balance, separating from the spigot. Apart from hitting me, it also took out my light showering me in glass:mad: .
As you can see from the photos, I obviously didn’t get rid of all the rotten bits:o and the resin just couldn’t stick:mad: . All it took was to get to the critical thickness combined with the speed of the lathe to give way:rolleyes: . I decided to give up on the platter idea and use what was left for pen blanks;) .
After a quick cupper to settle the nerves:o , I got stuck back into the SM bowl. I managed to sand it gently at a slow speed back to 1200 and apply Shellewax, EEE and Glow before it was time to nock off:cool: . I was glad to see it didn’t come apart. Just have to turn off the spigot now and finish the bottom. I’ll put it in my donut bowl holder, so should be no risk of coming apart:rolleyes: .
Cheers
I also had a bowl I had green turned from the Swamp Mahogany. I had soaked it in the 50/50 metho detergent mix for 3 weeks and dried it for 3 weeks and it had dried out Ok, but the mix didn’t stop it cracking:mad: . It too had extensive cracks, but not extending all the way.
During the week I set about filling the cracks ready for this weekend. The rot on the cedar had started to set in, so I used a router bit in my dremmel to remove it back to solid timber, before filling it with black resin over 6 casts (due to the shape). I also filled the cracks in the SM bowl with clear resin over 4 casts.
Today I started with the SM bowl and all was fine until I started to sand. I had finished the outside to 1200 and was slowly getting down the grits on the inside when the whole thing started to open up along the crack lines:eek: . When I stopped the lathe I also found numerous new smaller cracks:( . Luckily I was only sanding at 900rpm so it didn’t explode:rolleyes: . I filled the cracks with CA and thought I’d do the cedar bowl while the CA got to full strength.
Put the cedar bowl onto the Vicmarc and started to form the inside of the bowl. It was all going nicely:cool: , so I cranked the speed up a touch to 1600 and watched the shavings fly:D . Then all of a sudden bang:eek: , and before I could say WFT was that:confused: , another larger bang :eek: :eek: followed by something hitting me in my shield. I hit the floor and was then showered with a mixture of shavings, dust and broken glass:o .
The first bang was a large slice on one side of the crack separating from the platter. The second bang was the remaining platter, because it was out of balance, separating from the spigot. Apart from hitting me, it also took out my light showering me in glass:mad: .
As you can see from the photos, I obviously didn’t get rid of all the rotten bits:o and the resin just couldn’t stick:mad: . All it took was to get to the critical thickness combined with the speed of the lathe to give way:rolleyes: . I decided to give up on the platter idea and use what was left for pen blanks;) .
After a quick cupper to settle the nerves:o , I got stuck back into the SM bowl. I managed to sand it gently at a slow speed back to 1200 and apply Shellewax, EEE and Glow before it was time to nock off:cool: . I was glad to see it didn’t come apart. Just have to turn off the spigot now and finish the bottom. I’ll put it in my donut bowl holder, so should be no risk of coming apart:rolleyes: .
Cheers