Reaching

It's not so easy to find new ways in woodturning and to create new and unique objects, the shapes in woodturning are limited and much stuff is already done sometime by someone, somewhere.

Like most woodturners, I to did copy other turners work from time to time to learn and gain expertise. Growing in tool techniques and self confidence at the lathe, is also growing as a woodturner, and this will give you the opportunity to develop your own style and challenging you to create something of your own.

Unless you are an artist, creating your own idea's and to find your own way in the woodturning scene isn’t easy, but from time to time you will manage to create some unique design idea’s and objects.
If you do so, it’s a great moment and it will give you much satisfaction.

As I’m told in a previous article, for me it is not done, to throw away bad pieces of wood.
I'm always on the search to find ways to create nice, elegant and artistic objects from apparently worthless and bad pieces of wood.(see WT issue 181 and 184)

This has become one side of my style in woodturning, the challenge creating nice pieces objects from apparently useless pieces of wood.

In this article I will show how I make an piece of Art from a split log of spalted Pear.

It will be a project for the experienced woodturner, and takes a lot of concentration.





    This is the piece of art, created from a split log of pear wood.

　

　

　

Some time ago I gathered some spalted pear logs, but was unsure what to do with them. During the drying time, the logs did split. (sounds familiar, isn't it).

Being of no use in this way I decided to split the log in two, but at that time I hadn’t a clue what to do whit the two halves of the pear logs.

I left the them on the workbench for some time until I got some inspiration what to do whit them.

I rarely make sketches, my ideas developing in the workshop and behind the lathe and are sometimes pure trial and error.
With no idea what to make from this log, I glued some waste wood spacer blocks between the two halves to create an gap from about 1 inch.

Now I had a log with a gap along the middle, but still not knowing what I should make from it.

Apart from what should be the end result, this was gone to be a tricky experience about what to create from this "open" piece of wood and how to hold and grip it in the lathe.
Going down the process, it was a very challenging process which needed much thinking about holding and mounting this object in the lathe.
It had lots of moments of high concentration, but it was never risky or unsafe.

This project will not only show you how to create an "art piece", but it shows you many other skills and solutions which can be handy for many tasks.

Safety:

Although it is quite safe to turn this piece, it is still a tricky piece to turn, so be alert of any kind of risk at all time.

Stay concentrated, think twice with every action you’re planning to do.

If you getting tired, take a break.

Most of the time, I make use of a footswitch for the ease to start and stop the lathe, but with this kind of work I use the footswitch for safety reasons.
When something might going wrong, with a quick tap on the footswitch you can stop the lathe, without the need for reaching for a power on/off switch.

Wear safety goggles or better, a full face shield.

Keep your fingers always behind the toolrest.

To prevent the piece breaking apart during turning, wrap the piece with power tape or even with some wire, turn the engrain surfaces flat and then glue plywood disks onto the end grain surfaces.

Handy hinds:

Because the split surfaces aren’t completely flat, use a polyurethane construction adhesive, this is an very strong expanding glue which fills up the gaps.

Start with a lower speed, until you are confidence and the piece is in balance, then you can speed up to a more appropriate speed.
Remove loose bark before starting the lathe.

If, in any stage of the turning process, you past out of design ideas, stop the process. Put your work piece aside and leave it for a while, the right idea will pop up automatically, it only needs time.

This kind of turning develop not only your design and turning skills, but you will learn a lot about mounting techniques, so don’t stuck on the standard ways to mount stuff on the lathe, have an open mind and be creative in solving problems.

Workflow of making "Reaching".

	Picture 1 The Pear log.

	Picture 2 The log split down the middle. Note: Pear has a spiral growth grain.

	Picture 3 The two halves of the log. The question now is, what to make from them.

	Picture 4 Some scrap wood spacer blocks are glued between the two halves…

	Picture 5 …and clamped together, to create a gap between the two parts. I'm using a strong expanding and gap filling glue to make sure I get a strong bond between the pieces.

	Picture 6 To hold the log securely in the lathe, there are glued some plywood discs onto the end grain surfaces, again with strong expanding and gap filling glue. This keeps the pieces safely together and creates supporting places for the two-prong center and the revolving center.

	Picture 7 Roughing down with a 16 mm. / 5/8 inch bowl gouge. With this kind of work, I always wear a full face protection. There is no need to be afraid for the gap in the log which will meet the gouge twice each revolution. Because the gap is small and there is plenty of wood, you will hardly notice there is a gap.

	Picture 8 Close-up of the action. I always use the tools with a under grip, this gives a good view on the tools action and to my opinion is better to control the tool. There is no need for a firm grip from above.

	Picture 9 The log is roughed down to a cylinder, now it is time to decide what will be the top and bottom of the piece. The spigot will become the bottom side. Meanwhile the idea has come up to hollow out the top endgrain to create a sort of vessel.

	Picture 10 Forming the spigot, with the 9 mm. / 3/8" bedan tool.

	Picture 11 To hold the piece on the bottom side, a piece of scrap wood is screwed to a large faceplate. The surface is trued up and a chamfer is made to receive the spigot of the work piece.

	Picture 12 The spigot is glued in place with some strong expanding and gap filling glue. This gives more rigidity as would give a chuck. Because of the gap, it wouldn’t be safe to use a chuck anyway. The surface is trued-up and made smooth for the steady rest.

	Picture 13 Because of the gap in the middle, there is no change of using a regular steady rest (if I had one) Here I'm using a homemade steady rest from Medium Density Fiberboard. To make it run smooth, the contact surfaces of both, object and steady rest are loaded with candle wax.
Making a simple steady rest for one time use only. I made a steady rest out of some medium density fiberboard. A sheet of medium density fiberboard is mounted on a faceplate and the hole in the middle is cut out, which fits the circumference of the object exactly. Round of the edges and sand the freshly cut surface smooth and load it with a lot of candle wax. Cut the "steady rest" across the middle of the hole. The steady rest was fixed with some scrap wood and clamps to the lathe, because it would be for one time use only.

	Picture 14 The top of the object was to gone be hollowed out, therefore the plywood disc is to be turn away and is no longer supporting the two halves. So, I cut a ring from some plywood to fit on the top end grain surface.

	Picture 15 Cut a tennon in the top section to fit the ring and glue the plywood ring in place. (This of course was done before hollowing) The plywood ring gives stability while hollowing the top endgrain and will hold the two halves together when shaping the outside later on.

	Picture 16 Hollowing the top side endgrain is a little bit tricky because of the gap down the middle, but will give no problem. Here I'm using a homemade "Rolly Munro" tool, which works very well.

	Picture 17 Close-up of my homemade tool. It is based on the principle of the "Rolly Munro" tool, but a little bit bigger. The cutter is 13 mm. / 1/2 inch in diameter, mounted on a 16 mm. / 5/8 inch shaft. The total length of this tool is about 100 cm. / 40 inch.

The principle of the "Rolly Munro tool", is a round cutter with a open top depth gauge. The shavings coming out on the top and the top guard acts as a depth gauge and protects the tool for dig ins. It's a very easy tool to use and you can cut into end grain easily and still get shavings. This tool is completely homemade, the HSS cutter was hand turned on my woodturning lathe, with a straight "toothpicker tool" with tungsten toolbit insert. The carrier and the depth gauge are handmade with the aid of a press- and hand drill and a lot of grinding, filing and polishing.

	Picture 18 Close-up of the cutting head inside the "vessel".

	Picture 19 And the cutter in action.

	Picture 20 View from turners point of view, showing the depth gauge riding against the wood. If any sanding of the "vessels" inside should be necessary, because of the gap, it has to be done with the lathe stationary. In this stage, I got the idea to create some form of fingers in the hollowed top end, so there will be no sanding the interior in this stage.

	Picture 21 Now it's time to shape the outside, but the overhang was a little bit to big to do this free ended, therefore I turned a recess in the rim and fitted a faceplate in a revolving center to steadying the object. Now you can see the importance of the plywood ring on the rim, it will prevent the object to separate due to the centrifugal forces of the revolving. Note the staining where the steady rest was, there is little to none burning marks.

	Picture 22 Shaping the outside. I give the piece a slight concave design, with the bottom a little bigger as is the top. (The shape is gone be like a "cooling chimney " from a power station.) In this case, shaping the outside is done with only a roughing gouge. Sharpen the gouge for the finishing cuts to give it a smooth as possible surface.

	Picture 23 By shaping the outside, the plywood ring on top becomes to small to be save enough and to protect the two halves from separating by the centrifugal forces.

	Picture 24 Therefore I fitted a plywood disc onto the revolving faceplate and turned a chamfer in it. On top of the work piece, I turned a spigot (see picture 23) to fit the chamfer…

	Picture 25 … and all is safely locked up again.

	Picture 26 To hold the two halves, after removing the scrap wood spacerblocks, the two halves are gone to be hold by four rods. Therefore holes have to be drilled. To do this, I made a template to make sure the holes are in line with each other and to prevent breakout where the drill comes out.

Making and using the drilling template. The template is made from a piece of medium density fiberboard. Determine where the holes have to be drilled in de object and measure the diameter on this spot. Cut out a semi circular out of the fiberboard so the template will fit the smallest diameter of the object. Measure out where the holes have to be drilled and draw a centerline on the fiberboard across the cut out area. Drill a hole in the middle of the fiberboard, along the centerline. Adjust the template on the object so the holes on each side of the gap are equally divided. Use a long drill and drill from one side until the drill reaches the second halve of the object, turn the object over and drill from the other side trough and trough. Measure the diameter in the lower part of the object where the holes are gone be and make the template fit to this position. Again, determine where the holes have to be drilled and draw a new centerline on the fiberboard. Drill a new hole along the new centerline, you can't use the previous drilled hole.

	Picture 27 This is the template with a cut out which fits the smaller diameter in about the middle of the object. A centerline is drawn where the hole is to be drilled. First, drill a pilot hole with a long 6 mm. brad point drill and drill as far as the drill will reach, but at least until the drill enters the opposite side of the cut out wall.

	Picture 28 Turn the template over in the lathe and drill from the other side. Determine now which diameter the rods will be to keep the pieces together and enlarge the pilot hole to this diameter.

	Picture 29 The holes in the middle of the object will cause no problem, the template will fit square to the object. But on the lower part of the object, this will be a little bit awkward, due to the shape of the object. Draw some radial lines next to each other where the second template fits the object.

	Picture 30 The shape of the object makes the template won't fit in a right angle to the axis on this spot. So, place the template on the object until it has a right angle with the surface.

	Picture 31 Make sure the centerline on front and back part of the template are lined up with one and the same of the circular lines drawn across the circumference.

	Picture 32 Close-up where the centerline on the front part of the template meets one of the radial lines on the object, the centerline on the back part should meet the same radial line. This will make the drilled holes are in right angle to the axis of the object.

	Picture 33 The result, nice clean cut holes with no tear out…

	Picture 34 … and perfect in line.

	Picture 35 Now it’s time to shape the rim. The plywood ring is to be turned away, therefore the object is wrapped with tape for security.

	Picture 36 Carefully shaping the rim with the roughing gouge.

	Picture 37 I drew some kind of fingers to the walls of the vessel….

	Picture 38 …. and cut them out with a jigsaw.

	Picture 39 To keep the object in a fixed position for carving and sanding the fingers, I made a kind of brake device. By tightening the clamp, the spindle will turn heavier and this gives me the opportunity to work on the object in a fixed position. I can turn the object by hand to whatever position I want.

	Picture 40 Wrap a strip of sanding cloth around the finger and sand it whit a back and forward motion. This will round of and smoothing the fingers. Using grids from 100K to 400K.

	Picture 41 I power sanded the whole object with a 125 mm. sanding pad in a drill, paying attention to only using the lower part of the disc. Again using grids from 100 to 400K.

	Picture 42 To hold the object securely by parting off, I made a lid which fitted the top of the fingers. Fix the lid with some tape and lock the revolving center to it. Make an clearance groove with a parting tool and to keep it safe, release the object from the faceplate with a handsaw while the lathe is stationary.

	Picture 43 The overall shape so far. I made a top and bottom lid for remounting to the right circumference after the scrap woodblocks are removed.

	Picture 44 The two halves are separated and the scrap blocks are removed. Hand sand the whole piece from 180K to 400K, sanding with the grain. Meanwhile I had worked out the complete design of this object. It should be to symbolize two hands, holding a cup, saying "please give me some food or water". I called it: Reaching What’s left, is to turn four rods to connect the two halves together and a cup to fit between the fingers. The rods where made from Grenadille and the cup from Yew.

	Picture 45 …and the final result. The dimensions are: H= 320 mm. x D= 160 mm. The whole object is finished with three coats of Lemon Oil.

	Picture 46 The tools used: from the top - 32 mm. Roughing gouge, 10 mm. Bedan, 16 mm. Bowl gouge, 13 mm. Hollowing tool.