Thread: My way of turning goblets...

Pic 1. Marking out where I'll part later. Using a 5mm square parting tool, sharpened as a scraper. (I use this tool for all sorts of things, inc. as a bedan and it's one of my main hollowing tools for goblets. :eek: I can hear the purists cringing already. ) The double width cut not only defines where the foot of the goblet can start but also ensures I'll have enough room to work the bottom of the foot when it come time to seperate.

Pic 2. Using a spindle gouge (Umm.. probably my roughing gouge, now that I think on it! ) I simply rough out the approximate shape of the outside of the bowl. This is so I know approximately where to hollow out to... I'll clean it up later. The shape can be whatever form you want to turn; it could as easily taper out the other way but I'm going through a "semi-closed form" period. The end of the blank is chipped, but I'll cut that away when forming the lip of the goblet, which'll also shorten the blank a tad and help increase the odds of it's surviving my abuse.

Pic 3. Starting to end-hollow. Again with my 5mm parting tool sharpened as a scraper. I only hollow about an inch deep at this stage, and don't particularly worry about the thickness of the sides. Yet.

Pic 4. OK, Now I remove the tailstock and start thinning the sides. Sorry for the blurry pic, (get used to 'em!) but hopefully you can see that I'm using the parting tool parallel to the outside wall? I do NOT try to get the walls to final thickness at this stage, I leave a mm or so for the finishing cuts later.

Pic 5. Stop the lathe, inspect the lip of the bowl! As this wood's garden salvage there's cracks, cracks everywhere. [sigh] Time for the CA. I do this now to prevent the cracks spreading as the bowl is hollowed out further... or worse. Even for good quality commercial blanks, I heartily recommend this check at this stage! It can save a lot of heartache.

Pic 1. Glue's dried, now I use a bullnose scraper to make the finishing cuts on the first inch of the inside wall, to bring it to final thickness.

Pic 2. OK, we have the first inch of the bowl turned. Time to sand and finish. Here, for a "quick" finish I'll just use EEE. For a better quality goblet I'll wet-sand with Danish Oil and let it sit overnight. This finish will get knocked around a bit as I work on the next section, but at least the bulk of the work is done and it really is easier to touch up later than to leave it all 'til the end and try and sand & finish a goblet that's whipping about on a thin stem.

Pic 3. Back to hollowing out... I find the centre-column for the tailstock support to be a nuisance so I remove it at this stage. Which means no more tailstock support! :eek: I'd suggest beginners leave this in until they've almost finished hollowing.

Pic 4. Same as before, I'll only deepen the hollow by an inch. Again, I'll use the bullnose scraper to thickness the walls and again I'll sand, finish and touch up the previous finish, if needed, before hollowing out the next section.

Pic 5. Two inches finished! [Phew!] I'm about ready to start shaping the bottom of the bowl, but with 2" of tool overhanging the toolrest I'm at the limit for the tools I've used so far...

Pic 1. So, this is the scraper I use for forming inside the base. It's a home-made job, basically a 8mm(ish?) square HSS block set into a loooong rect. tube. I've already discussed this tool in another thread on this forum. The tip is rounded at one end and square at the other, so I can flip it over and use the appropriate profile for the job. Damn... just noticed the square tip is pictured, but I use the round one in my goblet.

Pic 2. The bowl is too small for me to take pix of what's happening with the tool inside. But shear-scraping and long familiarity with the tool means I can get a good finish. The good ol' finger gauges are used intensively on the inside to check for ridges, etc. but normally there's nothing that 30 seconds of 180grit won't fix.

Pic 3. So, the inside is finished. Now, using a spindle gouge I start to shape the outside bottom of the bowl. Again, there's a lot of checking of wall thickness using the finger gauge, so I know I'm maintaining a constant wall. If the outside has to "curve in" too much to look good, I'll hollow a wee bit more from inside. I leave the stem at about 1" thick where it meets the bowl at this stage, just to ensure things don't go "snap" when sanding the last of the bowl.

Pic 4. Where I finished off tonight. The bowl section is completely finished, Shellawax and all, except for the small section where I'll start refining the shape of the stem. As you can see, I always work an inch or so at a time , finishing it before I move on to the next. This leaves as much bulk as possible supporting the part I'm working on... if I tried to turn the whole length of the stem down in one "session," for example, I'd have problems with flex.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow should see the finish... unless I chuck a wobbly and throw the bloody camera to kingdom come.

Skew,

Good thread, keep 'em coming, nice finish straight off the tool too.

Cheers.

ahhhh... I've been waiting for the ChiDAMN goblet tutorial.. great read so far, learned 2 good lessons already

thanks Skew, i am adding this to me library.

Skew, many thanks for the tutorial.
Tashammer, how do you save this?? Just copy and paste into a word processor??

Originally Posted by OGYT

Skew, many thanks for the tutorial.
Tashammer, how do you save this?? Just copy and paste into a word processor??

well, i just save the page via the right click button (Firefox browser) and then i convert it to a pdf. Given that i am the only one that sees it, i then edit it a bit by removing all the extraneous material, such as background page colours.

I either use NVU a freeware webpage editor OR Acrobat, though Acrobat i find can be tricky (that's because i don't really know what i am doing).

One reason i edit the pages is to make things clearer. Another reason is when i print it out i don't want to use up ink unnecessarily. Getting rid of ads, borders etc makes it a smaller file too.

Oh, if you save the webpage as a whole make sure you save it as a complete page and not just text which comes out with no formatting and all joined together.

I have a directory called Downloading and in that sub directories one of which is Wood, then other aub directories under wood...hmm

D:/
/Downloads
/Wood
/Wood/turning
/Wood /Turning/tutes
/Wood/Turning/tutes/Skew_chidamn/

It just keeps things together, except when i get too clever and end up with something so complicated i cant find anything.

In essence, it's my 12 Step method - i take what i need and leave the rest.

Well, back to the shed. The bowl was finished yesterday, that was the hardest part. Today only the stem is left to do and it will probably take me longer to post these last msgs than it took me to turn. ie. It's the easy part.

Before starting, I gave the bowl a once-over and noticed a few small scratches I missed yesterday. It was only a matter of a few seconds to resand & finish, something I could not have done if I'd already turned the stem.

Pic 1. Using the roughing gouge, I clear away some of the blank so that I can work on the first 1 1/2" or so of the stem. Again, I'll be doing it section by section, finishing as I go and always leaving as much bulk as possible on the headstock to provide maximum support to the section I'm working.

Pic 2. Finished shaping the top of the stem, ready for sanding & a finish. You can see from the fine shavings on the lathe bed that I use very light touches of the tool at this stage. It also helps to boost the lathe RPM, as the closer to the centre the slower the wood is moving. This is particularly true when applying a friction finish such as Shellawax. Just don't forget to reduce it again when working on the foot and parting off! :eek:

Pic 3. Again with the roughing gouge, prepping the central section of the stem. This time you can see different sized shavings on the lathe bed... I see no reason not to take big cuts when there's plenty of wood to work but as the diameter reduces I take progressively lighter and lighter cuts so things don't go BOOM. .

Pic 4. The central section of the stem, all finished. The more observant of you'll notice that while I was at it I reduced the diameter of what will be the foot, and also deepened the parting rebate. This is because the foot looked to large (width-wise) in proportion to the bowl... I like the foot to be the same size or just slightly smaller than the widest part of the bowl.

Pic 5. The top of the foot finished. Next, the second most "perilous" part, but often the most frustrating... parting off!

There is nothing worse than having an otherwise "finished" piece and losing it due to a moment's inattention. A sneeze... a blink at the wrong time... some yobbo walkin' up from behind and asking "Wotcha doing?" :eek::mad: I've lost more goblets at this stage than any other, even thoughparting's a simple matter and doesn't take much in the way of skill! [sigh]

BTW, if you ever come up behind me while I'm parting off and ask "Wotcha doing?"... be warned: irate turners with sharp tools in their hand are not interested in light social commentary!

Pic 1. Using my scraper profiled 5mm parting tool (again... or should I say "still?" ) I cut a shallow trench to one side of the rebate I left for parting. Not very deep, only a couple of mm. I do not want the tool to bind and initiate a destruct sequence!

Pic 2. Now I swap to the other side and repeat the process, only cutting to a couple of mm deeper than the first side. Swapping from side to side, it only takes some 30 seconds to whittle the centre down to about an 1"-1 1/2" this way. Quicker to do than describe.

Pic 3. Before turning away the remaining 1" or so I start shaping the underside of the foot, hollowing out the middle to give it a cupped profile. This'll make the goblet more stable on rough(ish) surfaces and, IMHO, looks much better.

Pic 4. This is the dangerous moment. I stopped the lathe to "pose" this photo 'cos it's too damned risky otherwise. 'Sides, I scared the hell outta myself when taking the previous pic. (That's why it was blurry. ) I turn the remaining section down to about the same thickness as the stem, then I reach over the headstock/chuck with my left arm and support the top of the stem. Don't try to support the bowl, it's best to hold it at the pictured spot. DAMHIKT. You can see that I brace my fingers against the toolrest. This take practice, of course, else you can actually cause a wobble and break the stem. [shrug] With my right hand I hold the tool at the ferrule, with my index finger also braced against the toolrest for better control, and slowly, slowly nibble away at the last few mm.

Pic 5. TA-DAAH! A good, sharp knife or chisel will clean up the centre, followed by a light sanding and a coat of finish. Always, always, always apply the same finish to the underside of the foot as you have to the rest of the goblet, else it will warp, split and otherwise cause grief. BTW, I like to leave that "step" in the middle because people have, on occasion, put the goblet down pretty hard and "driven" the stem through the foot! :eek::mad: This extra bit of thickness helps prevent that. It can, of course, be detailed a bit... rings or beads scribed into it like a bulls-eye. Which I do for my flashier pieces, but I was feeling lazy this time.

Finally.

Pic 1. The finished goblet (3"x7 1/4") a bit wider than I'd guesstimated but also a tad shorter. For those who don't remember, 'tis Pittosperum finished with Shellawax.

Pic 2. It's all over bar the cleaning. Who'd believe one little goblet made that much mess? [sigh] And it's worse behind the lathe, where I'm too lazy to clean!

BTW, this was a "quicky" goblet, hence the Shellawax. For a sale or competition, I'd have been wet-sanding with Danish Oil instead of Shellawax at each stage and waiting overnight for it to dry between each step. After it's seperated it's a case of adding more coats of Danish, with at least 24 hours between. But that's more a finishing thing, not turning, so this is the only time I'll mention it. (Or have I already? :confused: )

great tute skew.

have you tried it with out the tailstock? by the look of you photos, it looks quite awkward.

at school yesterday i got shown how to turn a goblet by a member of the cessnock woodturners and we used vicmarc 120 and shark jaws and we didn't use the tailstock and all turned out well.

cheers

G'Day Skew

Great tut answered a lot of questions, so will print off and use as reference.
Thanks Bernie

Originally Posted by ss_11000

have you tried it with out the tailstock? by the look of you photos, it looks quite awkward.

at school yesterday i got shown how to turn a goblet by a member of the cessnock woodturners and we used vicmarc 120 and shark jaws and we didn't use the tailstock and all turned out well.

Yes, I rarely use the tailstock. However, as I think I mentioned somewhere along the line, the length of the blank determines whether a tailstock or centre-steady needs to be used. The longer the blank, the higher the risk that it'll all go horribly wrong. Think of a blank as a lever... the longer it is the less effort it takes to lever it out of the chuck! Hence the more chance that a slight catch will create a UFO.

As a rule of thumb for 2"-3" diameter blanks: <8" is fine held in just the chuck (assuming shark jaws or similar are fitted!), 8"-10" really needs tailstock support and >10" needs a centre-steady. (And the wider the piece, the shorter the above lengths.) To give you an idea of how much difference it makes, I don't have any problems at all under 6", while with 6"-7" goblets I probably have a 1 in 10 failure rate. For 7"-8" it's more like 1 in 4 and 8"+ ... well it's a 100% failure rate unless I use a tailstock.

This blank was around an 8" overhang, so I used the tailstock for safety until I'd hollowed out the first inch... and from then on I was working 7" and less from the headstock, so could do away with it.

I really don't recommend trying to turn a goblet longer than 6" on the first attempt. I'm not saying a beginner can't do it, but there will be all sorts of headaches and dramas along the way. It should be fun and there's enough important little things to learn without having to handle UFO's too.