Glynne
Established Member
After some 18 - 24 months doing lots of work for wife, son, daughter, mother and sister as well as trying to learn / upgrade my cabinet making skills, I thought I'd make something for a friends birthday.
As he has given me loads of logs in the past, what better than something turned?
The plan was to make a mortar & pestle from apple (food safe) and so I started with a roughly turned lump of apple.
You can just about see the faceplate ring on the bottom that I mounted on an Axminster chuck.
However as I started turning, the figuring was amazing and I thought it might be better as a decorative piece so I used my mate's recent trip to Goa to come up with a shape. I turned a spigot on the base so as I could re mount in order to hollow out the centre.
To say it took forever to get the desired shape along with the desired finish is an understatement! What with faffing around sharpening, getting arty / farty over the shape, it was like I'd never made anything on the lathe in my life.
Anyway I completed the outside profile and hollowed out the inside - before anyone asks which tools I used, I used everything I owned, in every conceivable way and probably in ways they have never been used before.
The bowl was then reverse chucked using a scrap turned to the inside diameter of the top and supported by a tail centre whilst the spigot was removed.
An immense amount of faffing then ensued as I tried to find a contrasting bit of timber for the lid. Tried some cherry, then some acacia before the brain enegaged and I reverted to the really inspirational idea of ...apple!
I simply used a screw chuck to turn a recess so as I could then reverse to shape the top. No pics but pretty basic.
Finial turned from - yes apple!
Having read a thread about the shaft of a mallet breaking, I cheated somewhat and used a tiny bit of M6 threaded bar to fix the finial to the lid. Holes drilled to 5.5mm and screwed and superglued in place.
Finished item.
View of the bottom (for proper turners)
And yes I know I should have reverse chucked the lid to get rid of the recess but by this time I'd had enough....
As he has given me loads of logs in the past, what better than something turned?
The plan was to make a mortar & pestle from apple (food safe) and so I started with a roughly turned lump of apple.
You can just about see the faceplate ring on the bottom that I mounted on an Axminster chuck.
However as I started turning, the figuring was amazing and I thought it might be better as a decorative piece so I used my mate's recent trip to Goa to come up with a shape. I turned a spigot on the base so as I could re mount in order to hollow out the centre.
To say it took forever to get the desired shape along with the desired finish is an understatement! What with faffing around sharpening, getting arty / farty over the shape, it was like I'd never made anything on the lathe in my life.
Anyway I completed the outside profile and hollowed out the inside - before anyone asks which tools I used, I used everything I owned, in every conceivable way and probably in ways they have never been used before.
The bowl was then reverse chucked using a scrap turned to the inside diameter of the top and supported by a tail centre whilst the spigot was removed.
An immense amount of faffing then ensued as I tried to find a contrasting bit of timber for the lid. Tried some cherry, then some acacia before the brain enegaged and I reverted to the really inspirational idea of ...apple!
I simply used a screw chuck to turn a recess so as I could then reverse to shape the top. No pics but pretty basic.
Finial turned from - yes apple!
Having read a thread about the shaft of a mallet breaking, I cheated somewhat and used a tiny bit of M6 threaded bar to fix the finial to the lid. Holes drilled to 5.5mm and screwed and superglued in place.
Finished item.
View of the bottom (for proper turners)
And yes I know I should have reverse chucked the lid to get rid of the recess but by this time I'd had enough....
