Thread: A Couple of Questions

G'day Paul. Nice looking piece of Jarrah. How dry is it. How is it mounted on the headstock. Faceplate or Screwchuck.
You have done the hard stuff, it should all be downhill from here.
It should look great as a finished bowl.

nil bastardo carborundum

Macca

Hei Macca,
For rough turning these days I tend to use the face plate - nice and easy to run in 4 screws with the cordless drill.

The wood came from a Jarrah tree that came down in November - I heard about it through mulchnet and was able to score a trailer load including 3 slabs of 600mm diameter. I could have got more with a larger trailer.

I'm going to cut the slabs soon, I think I'll get about 7 or 8 more blanks of a similiar size by the time I cut round some ant holes.

Cheers
Paul

Hiya Paul,

Congratulations mate. You've done the most difficult/dangerous part. Now it's for the shaping and hollowing!

A comment about the fact that the tailstock quill that is wound out pretty far........keep it extended as short as possible in all cases. Some reasons: In this instance you put a lot more stress on the tailstock due to leverage/moments than is necessary. By winding out the tailstock far, it increases any error that the lathe center height/ alignment may have. While turning pens and other small items between center the above is not a problem, but when face plate, screw chuck or scroll chuck mounting the work, the alignment is critical.

Anyway, take it slow and easy and you'll succeed with this blank!

Hei Joe,
It doesn't look it from that angle but the tail stock is as close to the work as I could get.
I had about 5mm clearance between the bed and the work, I tried putting the tool rest behind the tail stock but didn't have the reach so I had to wind out the quill that far for the tool rest.

The next step is to carve out the inside so the walls are about an inch thick and then let it dry some more.

Cheers
Paul