Post a photo of the last thing you made

[Stigmorgan]

Thats about as ambitious as you can get on that lathe. The stand is a bit light so likely not helping either. I also sometimes resort to an electric plane to take off the high spots on out of balance blanks. For those wanting to try this its with the lathe stopped. Skim some off, spin up and if still too much bounce stop, identify heavy point and repeat. The heavy point rotates to the bottom if you take the belt tension off. Easy to do on those lathes where the weight of the motor supplies the tension.
Regards
John

Definately at the limits of the lathe, even now I can't get the tool rest under the piece which is a PITA but if I reduce it down to get the rest under it I will have to drastically reduce the length too or the whole thing will look out of proportion. I'll get it there just gonna be a slow process. Need to get some more shaping done then a good amount of hardener on it to get my final cuts done.

 

[Adam W.]

@paulrbarnard that's beautiful. I only just started the other half present today and to be honest it's scaring the cr@p out of me at the minute, I mounted it between centres then had to use a small plane to remove some high spots, then on my lowest speed (450) I had to chase the lathe around the garage while I rounded it off, it bounced so much that even now with it "rounded" it still wobbles isn't perfectly round to the centres.
View attachment 124347View attachment 124348View attachment 124349View attachment 124350View attachment 124351View attachment 124352View attachment 124353View attachment 124354View attachment 124355View attachment 124356

More wood than lathe................I love it.

 

[Stigmorgan]

More wood than lathe................I love it.

Go big or go home there's still every chance it could fly apart, there's a lot of cracks running the length of it that go very deep, once shaped I'll throw som resin in to help hold it together.

 

[pulleyt]

This year's Christmas presents for the family

These build on the prototype pot-pourri style box I made last September, For these I have embellished the kumiko lids with more detail. The boxes are made from beech offcuts with maple lining. The kumiko is also cut from maple.

A couple of photos from the journey

 

[Stigmorgan]

This year's Christmas presents for the family

These build on the prototype pot-pourri style box I made last September, For these I have embellished the kumiko lids with more detail. The boxes are made from beech offcuts with maple lining. The kumiko is also cut from maple.

View attachment 124432

A couple of photos from the journey

View attachment 124433

View attachment 124434

Wow those are stunning, bet it takes some serious patience to put all those little pieces together.

 

[Lefley]

Made a box for my paint store manager that always gives me lovely deals and fast service.

 

[Cooper]

As Stigmorgan is posting pictures of logs I thought I'd join in. I was given a few Yew logs some time ago and I thought they would have dried out enough to use for Christmas presents. However the logs were much wetter than I expected and turning them was like unwrapping hot spaghetti.
I wanted to show the contrasting colours of the grain on a pot with a lid I was making but realised that none of the heart wood would show so I gave it a stem which makes it a bit urn like, rather morbid. I went in just over 10cm which was quite difficult with such a tight space to work inside.
I decided that candle sticks would show up the colours better. I've had to cook the pieces in the microwave to get them dry enough to put some wax on.

 

[thetyreman]

This year's Christmas presents for the family

These build on the prototype pot-pourri style box I made last September, For these I have embellished the kumiko lids with more detail. The boxes are made from beech offcuts with maple lining. The kumiko is also cut from maple.

View attachment 124432

A couple of photos from the journey

View attachment 124433

View attachment 124434

superb!

 

[Stigmorgan]

As Stigmorgan is posting pictures of logs I thought I'd join in. I was given a few Yew logs some time ago and I thought they would have dried out enough to use for Christmas presents. However the logs were much wetter than I expected and turning them was like unwrapping hot spaghetti.
I wanted to show the contrasting colours of the grain on a pot with a lid I was making but realised that none of the heart wood would show so I gave it a stem which makes it a bit urn like, rather morbid. I went in just over 10cm which was quite difficult with such a tight space to work inside.
I decided that candle sticks would show up the colours better. I've had to cook the pieces in the microwave to get them dry enough to put some wax on.
View attachment 124509 View attachment 124511View attachment 124512 View attachment 124516

Those are gorgeous .
My sycamore log combined with what I'm sure is failing bearings are kicking the cr@p out of me, got it as close to shape as I could, could only turn at slowest speed without it bouncing all over the place as long as I only took light scraping cuts which still left a huge amount of tear out, ive spent 7 hours working on it today and about 4 of those are sanding at 60grit to fine tune the shape and remove the tear out. I now have it to a shape I'm happy with and I've filled all cracks and a few bug holes with a 3d pearlescent stuff I bought at poundland yesterday, it sets like a resin, so far doesn't seem to soak into the wood so should sand back quite nicely.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... combined with what I'm sure is failing bearings ...

Probably not. The lathe isn't designed for stuff that size.

 

[Stigmorgan]

It's big but there's very little weight in it and it's a lot smaller than when I started, there's easily an inch and a half between the piece and the bed, the wobble is only out at the end and I can feel the back bearing pulsing as it spins, a few of my smaller pieces have had tool marks opposite eachother as if the piece was slightly oval, I had assumed it was down to the wood distorting during turning but now I'm not sure, I think I'm going to replace the bearings regardless, at least then I will know for sure.

 

[kinverkid]

If you've not changed the bearings on the DML 24 before, there's an excellent post on The Ultimate Handyman where a member called Retired shows the machine stripped down and how he changed the bearings with plenty of photographs along the way.

Gary

 

[clogs]

Lefly
that pot is lovly.....can I ask how u got the gree colour....
was it just stain.....?

Stigmorgan,
was there a vid at the bottom of ur last post...got the arrow but no vid.....
just interested....

Plus as it's Xmas, anyone made any of those hollow tree novelties as in Fine Woodwrking....?

 

[bourbon]

lathe work again, I'm still trying to get my finishing right.

 

[Stigmorgan]

Lefly
that pot is lovly.....can I ask how u got the gree colour....
was it just stain.....?

Stigmorgan,
was there a vid at the bottom of ur last post...got the arrow but no vid.....
just interested....

Plus as it's Xmas, anyone made any of those hollow tree novelties as in Fine Woodwrking....?

The video is there for me, not sure why you can't play it, it's only 15seconds long

 

[Lefley]

Lefly
that pot is lovly.....can I ask how u got the gree colour....
was it just stain.....?

Stigmorgan,
was there a vid at the bottom of ur last post...got the arrow but no vid.....
just interested....

Plus as it's Xmas, anyone made any of those hollow tree novelties as in Fine Woodwrking....?

The color is achieved by coloured resin. I put the block of maple in a vacuum chamber with the color or colors of resin poured in. I weight the wood down so under resin. Then pull a vacuum which sucks all air outta wood. When bubbles slow down turn off vacuum and release lid. Resin replaces air in wood. I then bake at 200f to activate resin. Then I turn it. The softer parts take more resin while the harder parts less or none . This is a box I did for the fireman’s ball as a donation. It was done with two colors to try and create flames,

 

[paulrbarnard]

The color is achieved by coloured resin. I put the block of maple in a vacuum chamber with the color or colors of resin poured in. I weight the wood down so under resin. Then pull a vacuum which sucks all air outta wood. When bubbles slow down turn off vacuum and release lid. Resin replaces air in wood. I then bake at 200f to activate resin. Then I turn it. The softer parts take more resin while the harder parts less or none . This is a box I did for the fireman’s ball as a donation. It was done with two colors to try and create flames, View attachment 124598

Wow very effective!

 

[kinverkid]

That is really nice Lefley. I would like to see some close-up shots of the grain/burr too if you have some.

Gary

 

[Nelly111s]

Just made a bookcase for a Catholic School who wanted the inscribed top and waney edge sides "to make it look like it was coming out of a tree". 3 shelves were mortice and tenon, the rest housing joints. Made from solid olive wood to the customer's spec. A couple of "in work" photos too.

 

[Stigmorgan]

Took most of today but I got the outside finished, hollowed out as much as I could with is a disappointing 4 inches but I was getting more catches than cuts. Having started the hollowing I can now really see how bad the wobble is, one section of the rim is 5mm while the opposite side is 10mm. Something really isn't right and I can think of 3 possible reasons,
Headstock bearings (I can feel a "pulse" in the back one)
Tailstock live centre bearings (cheap from amazon)
The stand /floor isn't level
So I'm going g to be ordering new bearings in the new year when I'm back from holiday, while on holiday I'll be visiting Yandles and plan to pick up a couple of new live centres and I'm considering removing the stand and bolting the lathe to the cabinet worktop and try find somewhere else for everything stored there