petercharlesfagg
Established Member
Friends,
I feel sure that we all, from time to time, ignore that little voice in our head that says "Leave well alone"?
Recently I had this experience but instead of heeding the advice I proceeded with the commission thinking that "It cannot be that difficult"!
A lady wood collector asked me to take a nice Cedar wood bowl that she had purchased in the USA and mount inside it a motor vehicle mascot that I think she said her father used to drive. In the general run of commissions I thought that it wouldn't be too difficult but I did have second thoughts that I chose to ignore!!!
I set up the bowl on a bean bag to keep it steady in an angled position and proceeded to drill a recess in the inside of the bowl to take the base of the mascot. My pillar drill was rotating at 60 rpm, its minimum, and the first cut was superb.
Then the bowl slipped and before I could hit the stop button or release the pressure on the drill it carved 4 lovely half circles across the inside!!!
I sat down and wept tears of frustration!
Remounting the bowl on my Cole jaws with the live centre in place I thought that since it wasn't too out of true I could make a dovetail in the base to fit my chuck.
OK so far, then it was discovered that the coating on the bowl was similar to old glue and just balled up in my gouges, on my scrapers but I did eventually clean it off and tried to sand the outside. The wood was SO resinous, merely touching the surface made the sanding disc as smooth as a baby's bottom!
Obviously I did manage to clean up the outside and set to on the inside.
Remounting the bowl in my chuck I opened the jaws into the dovetail to ominous cracking sounds and daylight appeared through the bottom of the bowl, and the chuck was nowhere near tight!!!
Super-glue was washed into crack and the bowl set up with a weight to keep it all together for a whole day. This done I remounted VERY GENTLY!
Inside the coating was even thicker and I think I spent nearly 24 hours just getting back to bare wood! The sanding and eventual polishing took several hours more but I did achieve a nice finish but the bowl had changed colour to its original.
Next came the mascot, looking at the thing it appeared to be OK but closer inspection revealed the base to not be ninety degrees to the vertical! It being Brass I gently sanded the mount and suddenly discovered that the mounting was not only oval but also the mounting bolt was off-centre!
I reverted to a rotary tool to cut the recess because when you think about it there are so many angles involved, anyway all went well until the burr came loose in the chuck and span at about 800 rpm outside the recess!
Needless to say I left the thing for a couple of days, I just couldn't face it!
To cut a long story shorter, the pictures below show that it is now ready for delivery. In future I will listen and heed my inner voice!
Regards Peter.
I feel sure that we all, from time to time, ignore that little voice in our head that says "Leave well alone"?
Recently I had this experience but instead of heeding the advice I proceeded with the commission thinking that "It cannot be that difficult"!
A lady wood collector asked me to take a nice Cedar wood bowl that she had purchased in the USA and mount inside it a motor vehicle mascot that I think she said her father used to drive. In the general run of commissions I thought that it wouldn't be too difficult but I did have second thoughts that I chose to ignore!!!
I set up the bowl on a bean bag to keep it steady in an angled position and proceeded to drill a recess in the inside of the bowl to take the base of the mascot. My pillar drill was rotating at 60 rpm, its minimum, and the first cut was superb.
Then the bowl slipped and before I could hit the stop button or release the pressure on the drill it carved 4 lovely half circles across the inside!!!
I sat down and wept tears of frustration!
Remounting the bowl on my Cole jaws with the live centre in place I thought that since it wasn't too out of true I could make a dovetail in the base to fit my chuck.
OK so far, then it was discovered that the coating on the bowl was similar to old glue and just balled up in my gouges, on my scrapers but I did eventually clean it off and tried to sand the outside. The wood was SO resinous, merely touching the surface made the sanding disc as smooth as a baby's bottom!
Obviously I did manage to clean up the outside and set to on the inside.
Remounting the bowl in my chuck I opened the jaws into the dovetail to ominous cracking sounds and daylight appeared through the bottom of the bowl, and the chuck was nowhere near tight!!!
Super-glue was washed into crack and the bowl set up with a weight to keep it all together for a whole day. This done I remounted VERY GENTLY!
Inside the coating was even thicker and I think I spent nearly 24 hours just getting back to bare wood! The sanding and eventual polishing took several hours more but I did achieve a nice finish but the bowl had changed colour to its original.
Next came the mascot, looking at the thing it appeared to be OK but closer inspection revealed the base to not be ninety degrees to the vertical! It being Brass I gently sanded the mount and suddenly discovered that the mounting was not only oval but also the mounting bolt was off-centre!
I reverted to a rotary tool to cut the recess because when you think about it there are so many angles involved, anyway all went well until the burr came loose in the chuck and span at about 800 rpm outside the recess!
Needless to say I left the thing for a couple of days, I just couldn't face it!
To cut a long story shorter, the pictures below show that it is now ready for delivery. In future I will listen and heed my inner voice!
Regards Peter.
