Hardenfast
1st May 2008, 10:37 PM
Evening all.
I haven't had time for any lathe work over the last few months, but the wet weather of late gave me a few hours to have a play. Segmented bowls are my passion so I decided to have a shot at another one.
I still had heaps of reclaimed staircase components from a recent renovation in Sydney, comprised of sections of Australian Cedar and Kauri Pine. It's a very ordinary collection of old, old timbers from a 130 year old terrace house in Redfern - apparently the original Redfern Police Station. It's sections of newel posts & balusters (Aus Cedar), treads & stringers (Kauri) - all full of nails, screws, tacks and covered in layers of old paint and shellac. Pieces like this:
72543
It takes some work to get usable sections out of this stuff - dodging nails (not always!), old mortice slots etc - and it can be hard on your equipment. However for segmented works you only need relatively small pieces, so it's not too hard to slice up enough bits for a bowl. I like the contrast between the Cedar and Kauri, and they are close enough in density so there's very little differential movement. I reckon by now it's probably fairly well seasoned too. :)
So, in my usual cavalier way I started off with no actual design in mind - just cut up a few bits and see what they suggest. I wanted to do something with a bit of geometrical feature so made up a disc for the base out of 12 wedge shape pieces of Cedar separated by 1mm slices of Kauri. It looked like an interesting start.
72542 72535
I followed that up with some segmented rings - some six segments & some twelve - to build up some height. I decided to experiment with fitting a few shapes (diamonds etc) into the centre layer just to see how it's done.
There's a little bit of mucking around but it's not too hard. Before the bowl had the top layers added I cut a chuck mortice on the inside with a forstner bit, put it on the lathe and shaped the bottom.
72536
Once that was done, for the top layer I cut up another twelve wedge shaped segments of Cedar - again separated by 1mm Kauri slices to match the base, but I made this layer 50mm deep so I had a bit of material to shape a rim out of. I always use just a Selleys Tradesmans Choice PVA for all segmented jointed - never had a failure with it. I find I can cut the segments and leave them to dry in rings while I'm doing other things. It actually doesn't atke too long to cut & glue up the pieces.
So anyway, when it was dry I threw it on the lathe via the base mortice I cut earlier and roughed out the inside & cleaned up the outside.
72537 72538
A quick sand through the grits up to 600 - one coat of Shellwax - and there it was - SEGMENTUS GEOMETRICO! Over all size around 250mm diameter by 110mm high.
72541
I'm quite happy with it as a quick experimental project, and am looking forward to getting a little more adventurous when time permits. Despite the extra work required in reclaiming this old timber there's a certain appeal in producing something like this, and there's a bit of history to it as well.
By the way, thanks to TTIT and others I've now developed a fetish for producing eggs out of any offcuts which look interesting. Trouble is, everyone who sees them wants one of each so I'm now trying to make 3 or 4 of each timber when I do them. Here's a few in a segmented bowl I made a while back (same reclaimed timbers!). I had just done 3 eggs from some spalted hoop pine which came out quite well.
72540
Let me know what you think.
Wayne
I haven't had time for any lathe work over the last few months, but the wet weather of late gave me a few hours to have a play. Segmented bowls are my passion so I decided to have a shot at another one.
I still had heaps of reclaimed staircase components from a recent renovation in Sydney, comprised of sections of Australian Cedar and Kauri Pine. It's a very ordinary collection of old, old timbers from a 130 year old terrace house in Redfern - apparently the original Redfern Police Station. It's sections of newel posts & balusters (Aus Cedar), treads & stringers (Kauri) - all full of nails, screws, tacks and covered in layers of old paint and shellac. Pieces like this:
72543
It takes some work to get usable sections out of this stuff - dodging nails (not always!), old mortice slots etc - and it can be hard on your equipment. However for segmented works you only need relatively small pieces, so it's not too hard to slice up enough bits for a bowl. I like the contrast between the Cedar and Kauri, and they are close enough in density so there's very little differential movement. I reckon by now it's probably fairly well seasoned too. :)
So, in my usual cavalier way I started off with no actual design in mind - just cut up a few bits and see what they suggest. I wanted to do something with a bit of geometrical feature so made up a disc for the base out of 12 wedge shape pieces of Cedar separated by 1mm slices of Kauri. It looked like an interesting start.
72542 72535
I followed that up with some segmented rings - some six segments & some twelve - to build up some height. I decided to experiment with fitting a few shapes (diamonds etc) into the centre layer just to see how it's done.
There's a little bit of mucking around but it's not too hard. Before the bowl had the top layers added I cut a chuck mortice on the inside with a forstner bit, put it on the lathe and shaped the bottom.
72536
Once that was done, for the top layer I cut up another twelve wedge shaped segments of Cedar - again separated by 1mm Kauri slices to match the base, but I made this layer 50mm deep so I had a bit of material to shape a rim out of. I always use just a Selleys Tradesmans Choice PVA for all segmented jointed - never had a failure with it. I find I can cut the segments and leave them to dry in rings while I'm doing other things. It actually doesn't atke too long to cut & glue up the pieces.
So anyway, when it was dry I threw it on the lathe via the base mortice I cut earlier and roughed out the inside & cleaned up the outside.
72537 72538
A quick sand through the grits up to 600 - one coat of Shellwax - and there it was - SEGMENTUS GEOMETRICO! Over all size around 250mm diameter by 110mm high.
72541
I'm quite happy with it as a quick experimental project, and am looking forward to getting a little more adventurous when time permits. Despite the extra work required in reclaiming this old timber there's a certain appeal in producing something like this, and there's a bit of history to it as well.
By the way, thanks to TTIT and others I've now developed a fetish for producing eggs out of any offcuts which look interesting. Trouble is, everyone who sees them wants one of each so I'm now trying to make 3 or 4 of each timber when I do them. Here's a few in a segmented bowl I made a while back (same reclaimed timbers!). I had just done 3 eggs from some spalted hoop pine which came out quite well.
72540
Let me know what you think.
Wayne