Flower pot revisited

Glued the two halves together last night. Not as good a fit this time. I should have used a jig to make sure all of the staves were the same size. Now that I relooked at them, at least one stave is visibly a different size.

This new pot will be about 4 inches tall when I'm done. I still haven't tried to re-load the picture, maybe this weekend.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

Another pot

Of the stave pot, I glued it together yesterday and tonight sanded the top flat. I tried turning a lip in the bottom so I could insert a bottom piece, but the cedar is soooo soft that it tore more than turned on the end grain. At his point I knew I would not try to turn it round. I turned a bottom to fit and glued it in. 80 grit sandpaper really helped get a decent glue surface. I then later went out to the shop and grabbed the scrap from the first project and set up a jig to cut another set of 8 staves. Here you see these pieces glued as two halves, rubber banded together while it dries. Then I'll sand them to fit and glue them together. Since it is tall, and too small at the base, I will probably whack off the bottom 1/3 of this before I try cutting a base.

Bummer. The picture link software is not working tonight. Probably the java update messed it up. I'll have to post the picture later.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Tapered Staves

I've always wanted to turn a flower pot, so today I cut some cedar fencing into some tapered staves. I went for 8 staves and made them relatively small so I was sure I could handle them on the lathe. The angle of the miter gauge was supposed to be 4.85° and the table saw blade at 21.89°. Like I was going to hit those numbers. I went with 5° for the miter and 22° for the table saw. I set it so the base of each piece was 1.5". The boards were all cut to 6" in length. I butted 3 joints together and used painters tape to hold them together, added lots of glue and used tape to hold 4 sections. After the two semicircles were together I added rubber bands to act a clamps. A close look at the top will show that the two halves do not meet perfectly as expected, but they are closer than I thought it would be.

After the glue dries I will sand each half flat and join them together. Once dry I will throw it on the lathe and turn a fitting for the bottom. But the shape is already kinda cool, so I may not end up turning this one at all. I'll run it by the chief gardener.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.

Bracelet Setup

I said I would post how I setup for turning bracelets, so I grabbed a bunch of pictures tonight to post them. I started with a shot of the multi-tooth spur drive I use for the initial turning. I have two spur drives and this one is the larger size. Both came from the Woodcraft store. I then take the block of wood, and these are about 2.5" thick and about 3" square (more or less). I use the yellow plastic gizmo to locate the center by drawing a center line from each corner. Rarely do they actually meet, but they get close enough that I can use an awl and punch a center point. Using the center points as a guide I then mount the block between the centers regardless of the two facing surfaces being flat.

Once the wood is clamped securely, I run the lathe at a speed I feel comfortable with, in this case about 1800 RPM. Using a roughing gouge I bring the block into a round shape. I then use a parting tool to reduce the diameter at the end away from the drive spur to create a surface and a shoulder to grab the block with in one of my adjustable chucks, as shown. At this point I am ready to begin turning the block into whatever I want, and most recently that has been bracelets. Later on I'll include more pictures of those as well as finish the process here. The length of the tenon is about 1/4".

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

Bangles

I took a break from working on the new router cabinet, and created a set of bangles, or bracelets from myrtle wood. There was one not pictured that I used to gauge the size I needed. It had about a 2.35-2.4" inside diameter, which turned out to be slightly small. I had 4 differently ladies try it on, and it did fit 2 of them. Anyway I gave it to one of those two and went back to the shop to create some more, with a slightly larger inside diameter. Here are three more each at 2.5+". It does not take much of a size change to get them to fit. The outside diameter is about 3", meaning each band is about 1/4" thick. The bracelets are 1/2" tall and are sealed in a walnut oil-shellac mix.

I started each bracelet with a 2" thick piece of wood that was glued to a waste block. I turned and separated the bracelets and from the leftover center I was able to create this small bowl. The rim is actually larger than the center of the bracelets as that was part of the original wood block leftover after separation.

Enjoy, and be careful of the splinters.