Turning some Newel-posts.

 

Like any other amateur-woodturner, once people now you doing woodturning, I’m also regular being ask to turn something, mostly a broken or missing furniture piece. This time a carpentry firm, doing an interior rebuilding in a restaurant, needed six Newel-Posts, measuring from 1300 mm. up to 1500 mm. x 210 mm. diameter, made of steamed beech.
Turning such dimensions isn’t a amateur job anymore, but because I like the challenge in doing difficult tasks, this is the reason for accepting orders like this and it is also a good opportunity to get loose from only turning freeforms, such as bowls etc.
click on a image to entlarge it.
I had just finisht making the bed-extension, which I needed for turning the posts, when these where delivered.On my specifications they where made of two pieces each, the column and the head.
I started with the column. On each end I’d mark the center and drilled a hole, 20 mm. deep with the same diameter as the drive-center on the one, and revolving center on the other end of the column. This is done for safety reasons, the centers are now sunk deeply into the wood to prevent the column to jump out of the lathe by accident.
The columns where glued together from 40-50 mm. thick boards and the corners where roughly planed away and therefor they were not in balance, even on the lowest speed, the lathe was heavily shaking.
With a power handplane I made some strokes on the heaviest side and make the column so quickly in balance. The column is straight, with the shoulder rounded off (radius 80 mm.) followed  with a bead (dia. 140 mm. x 17 mm.) and a spigot (dia. 60 mm. x 60 mm.) for mounting the head.
From a 1000 x 40 x 40 mm. angled iron I made a long toolrest, using the old and new toolrest holder.

Roughing down the wood to a cylinder and turning to size was done with a 50 mm. roughing gouge only. Adjusting the toolrest parallel with the column, holding the roughing gouge in an undergrip, using the  indexfinger as a guide I was able to turn the column straight and reasonably smood. Further sanding smood was done with a 125 mm. sanding disc in a handheld drill, using grit from 80 up to 220.
I didn’t use a skew chisel to turn the column smood for the simply reason that I’m a self-thaught turner and not an expert with the skew (yet). This method did give the result I wanted and was a lot quicker. For the shoulder, bead and tenon I used a parting tool, a 13 mm. spindle gouge and skew chisel. The profile of the head excists of a big bead (210 x 80 mm.), two halfbeads (dia.130 and 90 mm. x 20 mm.) and a little bead on top ( dia. 40 mm. x 20 mm.).

The wood for the head was first mounted on a faceplate, the endgrain side turned straight and hole was turned for the tenon. After turning all six of them this way, I mounted a piece of 100 x 100 mm. scrapwood to a faceplate and turned a tenon of 60 x 60 mm. to accept the head. The other end of the head is supported with the revolving center. After turning the head to a cylinder, the beads are marked out and each bead is turned to a little oversize, using a parting tool and a 32 mm. roughing gouge to remove the waste wood. Turning to size is done with callipers, set to size and holding in the right hand against the revolving wood. With the partingtool in the left-hand, this is feeding in and the wood removed until the calliper slips over the cylinder. With a 13 mm. spindle gouge and beadan where the beads completed. Before removing the tailstock and finish turning the top bead, the finisht part is sanded first. After this the tailstock is removed and the top bead is finisht of and sanded.

After finishing this job I can say the lathe did cope well with these heavy columns and my conclusion so far is, I build myself a good lathe.