What did you do in your shop today?

What looks like Mango is Spalted Mahogany sap wood. The joints are bordered with cocobolo. My second attempt at hand cut dove tails. Still too sloppy for me. Especially the floor of the joint but I'm learning.


Ahhh. Yes. I thought that waz too many bug holes fer spalted mango.
I like the stand!!
 
Well, I departed from my usual pen and keychain weekend routine. Was stabilizing a few goodies, and cooking a few off, and had a ton of other goodies laid out to play with after a visit to the craft section at Wally World yesterday, but I also elected to slice a burl in half and prep it to turn a bowl yesterday, so I did that instead.

Now I know some of you are saying, "Rocky turned a bowl?" :scare3:

But, alas... Yes, I did! Decided to leave it natural edged and finish the innards out and it turned out kinda purty!

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And, I knew someone was gonna say, "Let's see the bottom!" So I took pictures of that too!

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And, I had so much fun turning the first one, I decided, "What the hell! Let's turn the other half too!" So I did!!

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And, along about here somewhere, someone is gonna say, "Well how big is it?!"

Well, I didn't feel like measuring all of those rough edges and computing depths, and thicknesses, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so...



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Bottle Brush Burl compliments of the @Spinartist visit last week. Finish is CA. Of course it is impossible to buff something of this nature out and find that beautiful CA shine without leaving strings and buffing compound residue everywhere in the live edge, so I spent an hour or 3 wet sanding with BLO at 1000 and 2000 grit, then opted for the buffer in a bottle, and broke out the Novus 2 polish and buffed them to high gloss shine.

Got a little thin on one side of the second bowl before I realized it. Kind of a challenge turning these little rascals, there just ain't a lot of room for live center, rest, and turning tools in front of a bowl the size of a snuff can let me tell you!! But it was fun!!

Thanks Lee!
 
Well, I departed from my usual pen and keychain weekend routine. Was stabilizing a few goodies, and cooking a few off, and had a ton of other goodies laid out to play with after a visit to the craft section at Wally World yesterday, but I also elected to slice a burl in half and prep it to turn a bowl yesterday, so I did that instead.

Now I know some of you are saying, "Rocky turned a bowl?" :scare3:

But, alas... Yes, I did! Decided to leave it natural edged and finish the innards out and it turned out kinda purty!

View attachment 125992

View attachment 125990

And, I knew someone was gonna say, "Let's see the bottom!" So I took pictures of that too!

View attachment 125991

And, I had so much fun turning the first one, I decided, "What the hell! Let's turn the other half too!" So I did!!

View attachment 125993

View attachment 125994

View attachment 125995

And, along about here somewhere, someone is gonna say, "Well how big is it?!"

Well, I didn't feel like measuring all of those rough edges and computing depths, and thicknesses, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so...



View attachment 125996


Bottle Brush Burl compliments of the @Spinartist visit last week. Finish is CA. Of course it is impossible to buff something of this nature out and find that beautiful CA shine without leaving strings and buffing compound residue everywhere in the live edge, so I spent an hour or 3 wet sanding with BLO at 1000 and 2000 grit, then opted for the buffer in a bottle, and broke out the Novus 2 polish and buffed them to high gloss shine.

Got a little thin on one side of the second bowl before I realized it. Kind of a challenge turning these little rascals, there just ain't a lot of room for live center, rest, and turning tools in front of a bowl the size of a snuff can let me tell you!! But it was fun!!

Thanks Lee!

Dude! That's AWESOME!
 
Wow rocky! Incredible job on those!! Nicely done sir.....
 
I believe I have both sold already; a mere 3 hours after posting pictures of them on Facebook.

If you don't mind my asking what did you get for them? I wouldn't have the foggiest idea what the value on something like that is but have been asked to turn a couple of things and still am not sure what to charge.
 
Told the lady $40 apiece, explaining there was a lot of time involved hand sanding and finishing, and she went from I simply have to have one, to that's cheap, they will look beautiful in my home.
 
Is that an old Craftsman sander? looks a lot like mine, except mine doesn't have the chrome knobs, probably did at one time.... nice setup BTW

Thanks, Yep, 1950's Craftsman. Paid 10.00 for it in a thrift store, had a new motor still in the box I wasn't doing anything with at the time. When I rearranges the shop I pulled it off the bench as I wasn't using it much. Now I need it for a couple jobs, don't want to put it back where it was so using some cheap lumber built a stand for it, has a shroud/box around the head so I can hook the dust collector hose to it and almost all the dust goes bye bye.
 
Well, I departed from my usual pen and keychain weekend routine. Was stabilizing a few goodies, and cooking a few off, and had a ton of other goodies laid out to play with after a visit to the craft section at Wally World yesterday, but I also elected to slice a burl in half and prep it to turn a bowl yesterday, so I did that instead.

Now I know some of you are saying, "Rocky turned a bowl?" :scare3:

But, alas... Yes, I did! Decided to leave it natural edged and finish the innards out and it turned out kinda purty!

View attachment 125992

View attachment 125990

And, I knew someone was gonna say, "Let's see the bottom!" So I took pictures of that too!

View attachment 125991

And, I had so much fun turning the first one, I decided, "What the hell! Let's turn the other half too!" So I did!!

View attachment 125993

View attachment 125994

View attachment 125995

And, along about here somewhere, someone is gonna say, "Well how big is it?!"

Well, I didn't feel like measuring all of those rough edges and computing depths, and thicknesses, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so...



View attachment 125996


Bottle Brush Burl compliments of the @Spinartist visit last week. Finish is CA. Of course it is impossible to buff something of this nature out and find that beautiful CA shine without leaving strings and buffing compound residue everywhere in the live edge, so I spent an hour or 3 wet sanding with BLO at 1000 and 2000 grit, then opted for the buffer in a bottle, and broke out the Novus 2 polish and buffed them to high gloss shine.

Got a little thin on one side of the second bowl before I realized it. Kind of a challenge turning these little rascals, there just ain't a lot of room for live center, rest, and turning tools in front of a bowl the size of a snuff can let me tell you!! But it was fun!!

Thanks Lee!
i I would like to know how you chucked that up to turn.
 
Thanks, Yep, 1950's Craftsman. Paid 10.00 for it in a thrift store, had a new motor still in the box I wasn't doing anything with at the time. When I rearranges the shop I pulled it off the bench as I wasn't using it much. Now I need it for a couple jobs, don't want to put it back where it was so using some cheap lumber built a stand for it, has a shroud/box around the head so I can hook the dust collector hose to it and almost all the dust goes bye bye.
Well you certainly got a better deal than I did. Although mine had the stand with it and a mobile base. It had the original motor on it. 1/3 hp. I had an extra 1/2 HP I put on it. works great but no dust collection shroud. I use it out in my open sided shop, turn the fan on it and blow the dust into the ozone:sarcastic:
 
I started making an urn box for my moms friends husband. I'm using bocote for the sides and spalted curly maple for the top and bottom. I'll put some ebony splines in as well.

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i I would like to know how you chucked that up to turn.

You're the second to ask that question...

I grabbed a piece of 3/4" plywood, ripped it to 2", cut 2" x 2" blocks off of it, and glued them to the bottom of the burl.

Used my Bullseye Center Finder to find center, chucked the plywood, used the tailstock to clamp the burl in place with live center precisely on my marked spot. Allowed the first one to set long enough for the glue to stick it in place good, (half hour or so) removed and clamped it, chucked up the second block and did it all over again. Likewise, removed and clamped it good and tight after it had set a bit.

Turned them, then used a 1/8" parting tool out of my mini tool set to part the plywood off. Touched the bottom up on the belt sander.

The other guy also asked how I turned them without blowing the bark off the outside. And there, I turned them slow. They were a little out of balance, I wasn't sure how stable they were, so I slowed it down and took my time.
 
You're the second to ask that question...

I grabbed a piece of 3/4" plywood, ripped it to 2", cut 2" x 2" blocks off of it, and glued them to the bottom of the burl.

Used my Bullseye Center Finder to find center, chucked the plywood, used the tailstock to clamp the burl in place with live center precisely on my marked spot. Allowed the first one to set long enough for the glue to stick it in place good, (half hour or so) removed and clamped it, chucked up the second block and did it all over again. Likewise, removed and clamped it good and tight after it had set a bit.

Turned them, then used a 1/8" parting tool out of my mini tool set to part the plywood off. Touched the bottom up on the belt sander.

The other guy also asked how I turned them without blowing the bark off the outside. And there, I turned them slow. They were a little out of balance, I wasn't sure how stable they were, so I slowed it down and took my time.

If you do another one can you take and post pics as you go? I'm too stupid to understand words, I need pictures. Tony
 
Last night I got a couple more rings glued on the segmented bowl I have going and used the bandsaw to split the other rings down close to the finished size and then used the drum sander to work them down to the final thickness.

Discovered one thing that is mildly annoying about my new bandsaw. The plastic throat plate sits *just* below the surface of the table. Normally this would not be a bad thing - in fact, it's probably a good thing. But when the piece you're cutting fits down into that depression it puts a hitch in your giddyup trying to split the ring. The overall piece I'm trying to cut is obviously far larger than that but the length of most of the segments just fit down in there.

I 'solved' it by turning off the saw and flipping the ring around and cut from the other side. This is not the optimal solution as the cuts don't necessarily line up directly. This has to do with my push stick, I'm sure. For the push stick I cut a piece of 3/4" ply about 8" square and then glued another piece of 3/4" ply to one side. My thought was that I could push the ring through the blade and keep pressure against the fence the whole way through. The problem is that after you flip the ring around you have a kerf and it's more difficult (at least without more practice) to keep pressure in the correct place and the front of the ring slightly leaves the fence.

Luckily I have great confidence in my abilities to be extremely accurate so I had plenty of room to sand down to the final thickness. :lol2: (I really need a sarcasm smiley here)
 
I put some fine saw dust under the circle on the lip....works great for me....
 
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