Workingwoods Blog

Posted By Vaughn on July 23, 2010

This is another piece of ash firewood that I picked up at a local lot that was going out of business.  Unlike many other woods, ash is usually a fairly stable wood that doesn’t crack when drying. However, this one did, and usually that’s a good excuse to toss it into the firewood pile, but I decided to see if it would survive the ride on the lathe anyway. Click on any of the pictures below to see a larger version.

At the beginning, it was a fairly innocuous-looking piece of wood…

Next step is to drill a 1″ hole to inset the spur center (the pointy thing, for you non-woodturners) into the wood…

The spur center is driven into place…

And the chunk of wood is mounted on the lathe…

This, sports fans, is what shrinkage cracks can look like…

Starting to get things rounded up…

Now it actually looks like something. I dunno what, but it’s something. The knob on the end is called a tenon, and later that’s what I’ll attach to the lathe while I hollow out the inside…

As I started shaping the top, I discovered that the bark inclusion was hiding another crack…

Let’s get out the crack-measuring tool…

Yeppers, it’s deep…

So is this one and several of the others…

What the heck, let’s see if it’ll survive the hollowing process…

Looks like it worked after all. It won’t hold water very well, though…

The crack at the bark inclusion turned out to be a whopper…

But I think it looks kind of nice…

And it’s all very well ventilated…

This piece ended up being 12 1/2″ wide and 8 1/2″ tall — one of the biggest hollow forms I’ve made. It has a soft, hand-rubbed tung oil finish that seems to compliment the natural flaws in the wood. Hollowing a piece of dry ash this size is a lot of work, and the cracks made it that much more adventurous.

Feel free to comment, critique, or question!

Category: Hollow Forms | No Comments »
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Posted By Vaughn on February 6, 2010

This is the big ash piece I showed progress pics of in the last blog entry. It ended up about 16 1/2” wide and 9” tall to the highest tip of the edge. It’s finished with natural Watco Danish Oil, and hand-buffed lightly with a white synthetic abrasive pad.

It ain’t perfect, but I’m pretty happy with it. Between the size and the unique natural edge, it’s an attention-grabber in person.

Comments and critiques are welcome and encouraged, as always.

Category: Bowls | No Comments »
Tags: ash, bowl

Posted By Vaughn on January 24, 2010

I usually don’t show a lot of progress pics, but the piece I turned last night was kinda interesting, so I figured I’d share it. Pardon the overabundance of photos.

I started out with a piece of dried ash from recent ‘Going Out Of Business’ giveaway at a local firewood lot. This chunk had a wavy outer surface, which looked promising for a natural edge bowl. The dimensions on the bark face were about 24″ by 18″. I started with a beater chisel to make a flat spot for the faceplate…

Then I used long hex head sheet metal screws to hold it. I don’t drill pilot holes. I just drive the screws in with an impact driver.

Here’s the initial blank mounted on the lathe. It’s blanks like this that make me glad I got the dropped bed extension for my 3520B.

Here’s another view. Notice that the spindle indexing pin is in place. The piece was pretty badly out of balance, so needed to use the electric chainsaw to trim it up a bit on the lathe. I use the indexing pin to hold things in place while I’m cutting. Also note the lathe is not even powered up. That’s just a reminder to not hit the switch with the spindle locked.

And here’s the blank after a bit of chainsaw balancing…

Tool rest and extension in place…now the fun can begin.

Do you really want to stick a piece of sharp steel into that?

Making a little headway. The ash is dry and hard, so progress is slower than on a piece of green wood. It’s also still pretty unbalanced, so I was running in the 250 to 325 RPM range at this stage. I would have preferred a bit faster speed.

A while later, it was down to this shape, about 17 1/2″ across.

And a look from the headstock side…

After reversing the blank, I did the final cleanup on the outside of the bowl. The next step was to hollow the inside out. Doesn’t this look like it’s gonna be fun?

Making some progress, but it’s slow going. I was using my Monster Indexer (Oland-style tool bit holder on a heavy handle) for the bark removal stages. You can also see that I’ve slid the headstock back and am now turning over the regular bed, not the dropped extension. This reduces the slight vibration that’s introduced by using the tool rest extension. Even though it’s heavy steel and iron, the extended tool rest vibrates more than the regular one.

Getting there, but the bottom is still about 4″ thick, and the walls are still too thick as well.

Finally to the finished dimensions. I was fighting some tearout, so I used a spray bottle and some water to help make the cuts a bit cleaner. (You can see the wetter spots in the picture.) I still had a fair about of 80 grit work to do on the tips along the rim. I’d rather spend extra time sanding than risk blowing a piece up trying to take the proverbial just one more cut.

And here’s how it looked at the end of the evening. (OK, I guess 4:00 am is not really “evening”.) I still have more sanding to do, plus a bit of reconstructive surgery on a couple spots of bark, but this is pretty much how it’s gonna look when finished. It’s 17 1/2″ wide and about 8″ tall at the highest points.

I should be showing finished pics in a week or so…

Comments, finger-pointing and name-calling are welcome. 

Category: Bowls | No Comments »
Tags: ash, bowl, natural edge

Posted By Vaughn on January 22, 2010

Wednesday night I was turning a big ash bowl and I started hearing a ticking sound. I stopped the lathe, and did some investigating. I’ll let the pics tell the story…

This was some of the wood I picked up a week or so ago at the local firewood lot. (I had thought it was jacaranda, but it’s ash instead. Bonus. And it’s about dry…10% or so moisture.) I pulled some more metal out of the blank before I started (that’s a whole other post), but the head of this nail was buried a good 3 inches or more into the tree. It had been there a long time.

No bowl gouges were harmed in the making of this post. I guess cryo treated powdered metal is harder than 30 year old nails.

BTW, the bowl ended up a bit smaller than it was when these pics were taken. See the pith near the rim in the first pic? By the time I turned that away, my 22″ bowl was down to about 17 1/2″. Ah well, it’s just wood. I hear the stuff grows on trees.

Category: Bowls | No Comments »
Tags: ash, bowl, lathe, nail

Posted By Vaughn on January 2, 2010

This is a post from one of the woodturning forums I frequent. I figured it would be an interesting way to get the blog off the ground…

My friend Mark Cothren’s to blame for this one. Although his ‘rough block’ bowls have a different look, I unabashedly took Mark’s idea and ran with it.

This one is red eucalyptus with some neat curl. It’s about 12″ x 7″ or so. (packed up right now, and I’m not in the mood to go dig it out.) The ends are rough cut (chainsaw and bandsaw). I shaped the bottom a bit to put it on a foot and raise the edges off the table, but I intentionally left the bottom rough. The finish is buffed Formby’s Tung Oil Finish with more of Don Pencil’s PL compound. (No buffing on the rough parts.)

I rather like the branch knot that ended up defining the rim of the bowl…

This shows some of the subtle curl revealed on the inside of the bowl…

There’s also the pith from a small branch near the bottom of the bowl…

I intentionally left deep tool marks on the bottom (except inside the foot) to continue the rough vs. smooth contrast…

So…thanks for the inspiration Mark. I did another one in jacaranda (it’s not as nice as this one), and will likely continue to try the idea when the right blanks present themselves.

Whatcha think? Comments are open for all…

Category: Bowls | No Comments »
Tags: red ironbark natural edge eucalyptus bowl

Posted By Vaughn on January 1, 2010

Here’s the first post of the new Workingwoods blog. Don’t know quite yet what this blog will contain or offer, but I guess we’ll all get to watch and just see what happens.

For now, here’s a picture of a happy bug, taken during (and about 1/2 mile from) the Station fire in the foothills of Los Angeles.

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