Thread: This would have hurt

That's a fair lump of firewood that has gone missing Ted.
In other words, it is a good job that Ted missed being hit by a lump of firewood.

Be careful, eh?

Alan...

Ooooh, that would've been a skid mark moment. Glad you're okay.

My thoughts still remain, where did the other piece go? You must have a very large shed or your lathe is outside.

Originally Posted by Christos

My thoughts still remain, where did the other piece go? You must have a very large shed or your lathe is outside.

If one has a messy shed with far too much stuff stacked around, a piece can ricochet behind something and hide for quite a while.

I had a 100mm mushroom lose about 1/3 that I could not find, searching high and low. I eventually found it under the lathe bed in the shavings, glued it to its mate and finished.

Ooer! Lucky!

However... my first thought on seeing the pix was: "Wot? You didn't roughly round the blank first? Seriously?" I mean, it is seriously out of round.

Keeping out of the line of fire is important, yeah... but there are other equally valid steps that should be taken first!

1. Significantly out of round pieces tend to be 'hammered' by the gouge, at least until the corners are knocked way back. And you already knew that the blank had a potentially tricky flaw...

2. Rounding it down before mounting - whether with a bandsaw, chainsaw, arbortech or even a hand-saw or hammer & chisel - would at the least expose more of the flaw and let you judge the 'likelihood of failure under spin' more accurately.

3. If the flaw is bad enough, it may fail while simply rounding down. Much better for this to occur while sitting flat on a bandsaw table, for example, than after you've already loaded the blank up with inertial forces on the lathe. (ie. 'tis far, far less likely to come flying off the bandsaw at yer noggin. )


Sorry if I sound like a promo for some safety advocacy; it feels like that's all I've been posting recently.

But even so...

I am glad you were standing out of the line of fire. I think next time you see a piece of wood with a similar inclusion, you will expect it to come apart.

robo hippy

People start with round blanks???

Originally Posted by Christos

My thoughts still remain, where did the other piece go? You must have a very large shed or your lathe is outside.

If you did more turning you'd know

Duck and quiver.

Thats one heck of a chunk Ted glad your ok I guess it something we all fear its frightening tho that just small shard is all it takes to end up in emergency.



Still its a nice bit of timber and Man is ruler hope it comes out the way you envision it even now.

I'm with Skewy - way too far out of round and an accident waiting to happen.

Thanks for the replys
Christos. The spot where I think it landed is where I throw all my "might be usefull" offcuts. About 4m from the lathe. When I get time I'll have a good look.
Bobt,Paul39and Scew. As I said this was a roughout of a wing bowl and the square bit you can see is the wing, at this stage about 20mm thick, although I'll admit it looks bigger in the picture.The bottom of the bowl had already been shaped and was in balance. It flew apart as soon as I started the lathe before I had even touched it . It was running fast though, because that is how you have to turn bowls like this to reduce the time you are turning air.
The point of the posting was to show one should never become complacent.
Ted

Originally Posted by turnerted

G'day
On Monday I picked up a load of bottlebrush from the side of the road and have spent the last couple of days roughing out winged bowls.
This was the last of nine and I had finished the bottom and turned it over ,mounted in the chuck and turned the lathe on when about a third of the bowl flew off never to be seen again. An exciting moment.This bowl was 270mm across the wing and is sitting in a 120 chuck. I was pushing my luck because this had a prominent bark inclusion running through it but I thought it was worth the risk as I think it would have looked great.
I had already finished roughing out the bowl from the other half of the log and it held together.It remains to be seen if it survives drying then returning.
A good reminder about keeping out of the line of fire.
Ted

Hi Ted ... many compliments on how lucky you've had , you did not hurt and this is very important stay out of the line of fire is right, but if I can give a little advice when I work with pieces of this type which have defects or cracks, for safety wrap in cling film (in Italy is Domopack ) .. if a piece of wood "flying away", is a big help to not get hurt .. ...

Originally Posted by turnerted

The point of the posting was to show one should never become complacent.

Thanks for sharing, Ted...

If we learn from our mistakes then we learn more from our collective mistakes.

Ted's story reminded me of a story a mate told me. He worked in a joinery shop. A "Real Joinery" shop when they employed Joiners. Anyway when the boss came onto the floor to change the knives in the spindle moulder all the blokes went on "high alert" because nearly every time the boss turned on the machine a piece of "shrapnel" would be released from the spinning spindle sending it somewhere in the workshop. He remarked that not a word was ever spoken but it was a given that everyone needed to "take cover". Would you believe that no body ever got hit by the errant knife. There must have been some angles guarding all the blokes