July Challenge - A finial box - POST YOUR ENTRIES HERE

[nev]

While I have an internet connection :roll: .....

A Finial Box

- a lidded vessel with a pointy bit on top. There may be questions as to when a box becomes a vase? all down to height vs width I guess, but in any case either will be acceptable as long as it is a hollowed form with a fitted lid and a pointy bit on top.

Usual rules:
Open to anyone and everyone.
To be made on the lathe using wood turning tools.
no minimum or maximum size.

Can be made of multiple woods if desired
Decoration, colouring, texturing is allowed
Please post 3 or 4 images of your work along with a brief note about how you made it, what tools and finish you used, what wood (if known) and the objects dimensions etc.

1 showing a general view
1 showing a lid off, top down/ internal view
1 showing an underside view
1 optional photo showing any other feature you think might be of interest

Image size please use image size 640 x 480 0.3 mp, same previous months

Please upload your pics and description between ..

10pm on the 26th
and
10pm on the 28th

After this time the thread will be locked for Judging
Results will be given on or around 30th

Good Luck 8)


Roundup

 

[nev]

Between building work, decorating and visitors I just about managed to get back to the lathe this month so here goes.

Idigbo and teak (sounds exotic but were the cheapest and only suitable sized blanks in the shop)
main body approx 3.5" wide x 8" tall and finial another 5".
body turned with skew and hollowed* with forstner bit and spindle gouge.
finial turned mainly with spindle gouge and a skew for the pointy bit
sanded to 400, red and yellow pads and EEE polish

*Could only hollow to the depth of drill bit and spindle gouge so only about half way

 

[woodiedonald]

So here's mine, the wood is Yew which i managed to keep the pith of just to the side so i have a strip of heartwood flowing from the finial down one side.

Overall height is 5 3/4", widest part is 1 7/8" and finial is 4" long with taper of 1/8" down to 1/4" over 1 1/2"

Finished with a 50/50 mix of danish oil and boiled linseed oil.

 

[Tazmaniandevil]

I'll add my paltry attempt now to lower the bar. Apologies for the photos. (I'm new to all of this)
The wood is well dried oak, and overall height is 400mm, lid plus finial is 170mm, stem is 150mm
The finial is 6mm thick, and the stem is 5mm thick. This disparity is because the finial developed an alarming tendency to splinter.
Stem & finial were turned mainly using the skew after the bulk was removed using spindle gouge. The actual vessel is 50mm in diameter by 50mm deep. Vessel was turned with bowl gouge. The walls are around 2mm thick and fairly uniform, apart from the top lip because I don't have an articulated tool to reach under the rim
The finish is a home made paste wax over shellac. Paste wax mix is 1:4 pure beeswax and liquid paraffin oil.

 

[dennisk]

A box in maple,lid in bloodwood, and finial in black walnut. Finished with DO and buffed on the lathe . Turned the box first on a screw to do the recess on the bottom, reversed and hollowed and then reversed again with cloth on the jaws for an internal grab to take care of the recess. Hot glued the lid blank to a piece of scrap and turned the bottom of the lid and then reversed into the jaws to turn the top and drill the hole for the finial.Turned the finial in the chuck. Bowl gouges and scrapers for the box,same for the lid and the finial was done with a spindle gouge and a parting tool to turn the bottom to 3/8" and part it off. Box,bowl is 4 1/2" diam x 3" high with a total height of 6" with the lid on. Really enjoyed this one, it is a 6th b day gift for the granddaughter. Thanks to all for organizing and judging and participating!

 

[Sheptonphil]

A finial box!! a quick google and the missus liked this design, so this design it was going to be.

Box dimensions are 120mm (inc. 65mm finial), 100mm diameter.
The body is made of Belo with an inlay to the rim of the box of a slug of Sycamore before hollowing to give a little contrast. The wood for the lid was sliced off prior to the bowl being made so as to get a grain match to the box. Finial and foot are of African Blackwood, a beautiful wood to turn and finish. The finial blank was tennoned into the top before the whole was turned to give a seamless transition between finial and lid, then the lid placed into the box recess and finished off to make the shape flow from box to lid. The box was reversed onto finger jaws and the foot tennoned and glued into the base and turned the next day. Tools used were 3/8 bowl gouge and 3/8 and 1/4 spindle with 3/8 skew for detail work. Sanded and sealed to 600 then buffed on the Beale system with Carnuba wax. Another challenging piece to try to master the various techniques used.

 

[sammo]

My Ash box with Ebony finial.

Box is 13 cm high & 11 cm at it's widest part, the bottom of the box is just over 10 cm (I wanted a small taper)

I used a bowl gouge and round nose scraper for the box, and skew for the finial.

The finish is sanding sealer followed by friction polish

My original finial was far to simple - better described as a knob to lift the lid off So I removed it and turned something more appropriate.

 

[heatherw]

Here's my entry. Enjoyed making this but didn't have enough time to do all the variations that i wanted to try out.

The wood is sycamore - after all, i've got a whole tree to use up.... This time it seems to have spalted, must be all the rain we had this winter, it's not usually so easy to spalt things here.

First of all I drew some shapes i liked and tried to get them in proportion. I would have liked a narrower opening for the lid but realised that it would be technically impossible for me to execute. So I compromised with something i thought i could manage, although challenging. I cut a long chunk of sycamore and turned it to a cylinder. Then I turned a spigot on one end, reversed it into the spigot jaws and turned a dovetail spigot on the other end which i then parted off for the lid. At this point I didn't know exactly how I was going to do the lid but assumed that it would have to be held somehow. i would have like to have made the finial and the lid all in one piece, but decided that it was too risky.

Next I turned the outside of the box and then hollowed it out the best I could - I used everything I could think of inside that box - except the skew - but only parts are as thin as I'd like them to be. Sanded and sealed and waxed and polished, parted off and reversed onto jam chuck to finish underside. mounted lid, turned underside and fitted to box, then made another jam chuck to reverse it to and turned the other side into a dome shape. marked the centre for drilling.

Then I chopped off another chunk of sycamore and, after having drawn some finials tried turning them. Realised that I need yet another set of jaws for the chuck but made do with what I had in the end. I did as much as possible between centres and then rechucked and turned the wobble away. It's at times like this that I realise my eyesight is going. The finial would have been longer but in the end this one looked to be in balance with the box. I then realised that with the box lid being domed I would have to undercut the base of the finial quite a lot, but I couldn't get close enough with the spindle gouge, it fouled on the chuck. In the end I had to change jaws again to the pin jaws, which aren't meant to be used in compression as they've only one screw per jaw, so I had to be careful to take really fine cuts and then I could just about get in with the skew.

The lid is quite a tight fit, I'll have to try to ease it off somehow, but didn't have time today. I forgot to measure the box, but it's about 8 or 9cm in diameter and 12 or more cm high with finial. I'm afraid there's dust on some of the photos, didn't see it until I enlarged them, that eyesight again.

 

[Melinda_dd]

Ok so heres my entrance for this month.
Didn't think i was gonna do one as the garage is still floor to ceiling with stuff from the move, however I've cleared a passage through to the lathe, and a ft square to work in so I can turn..... cant find half my tools or sandpaper, so not the best!!!

Turned from spalted beech with a wenge finial.
Turned a spigot first then the outside using a faceplate, with a bowl gauge and skew
Then reversed on to my k10 chuck to do the inside With a bowl gauge.

Used the faceplate again to do the inside of the lid using bowl gauge and spindle gauge, then reversed on the chuck to do the ouside of the lid including a motice for the finial.
I did it this way as had to be made from 2 separate bits of beech.
Both finished in friction polish

Then turned the finial out of an off cut of wenge from work.
Turned using a skew.
Finished in 1 coat of sanding sealer (think i should have used a couple more coats to fill the grain) and 1 coat of friction polish.

 

[monkeybiter]

First entry for a while, determined to make an effort. I've combined my entry with a gift to be given next week, so that also set some additional requirements.
The whole thing is Elm, turned from a blank smaller than the finished piece :shock: I 'cored' a cone out of the blank using two parting tools then finishing parting with a hand-held hacksaw blade, underneath, pulling cut while turning. It was interesting. The resulting cone was then turned over to make the lid.

The finial requirement was met, I think, in that the knob has a point seen in the photos. The recess around the knob was undercut with a homemade hook type tool that normally gets used for captive rings.

The lid and the box underside were finish turned in a pine jam chuck.

The finish is one and a half coats of sanding sealer, with microcrystalline wax buffed up as a final coat.