Your Thoughts on This Please

[katellwood]

I don’t think I have posted in wood turning before and I must confess I tend to concentrate on furniture and joinery as opposed to turning. That being said a few weeks ago I fitted some shelves for a neighbour and was asked to suggest the best way to display some books on the shelves I fitted.

I decided on bookends and following a bit of googling and with inspiration from Chippendales director came up with this







However that’s not what I am asking for your thoughts on

I was given the timber from a full-size snooker table and wanted to consider what to do with the legs



The first thing to come from the legs were the above bookends however today I have had a go at something to go with the bookends and came up with a wooden vase

A picture paints a thousand words so take a look at this short WIP and give me your thoughts positive or negative both on my technique/methods and the finished article







































Forgot to take photo’s of the fluting but that was also done on the engineering lathe

If I were to make others I think I would invest in a 3” forstner bit as the boring for the glass got a little bit laborious

 

[Mike Gibson]

Love em.

 

[CHJ]

Great end products and fine finish, showing all the control of form one would expect from an engineers approach.

I'm always drawn to the controlled dimensioning and sharp detail of turnings produced as you have done, stems from early days producing stuff on a pattern lathe during an introduction to casting principles.

So easy to loose the sharp detail trying to achieve the fine finish.

 

[EnErY]

I just think that's beautiful sheer inspiration some wonderful pieces thanks for showing such quality and the tutorial is just a joy to watch this gives turners like myself the pleasure to look at other peoples work without getting their own torn to bits gives us the drive to get better my post was of a poor show in comparison to this and as a beginner im hoping to achieve this sort of standard =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>
regards
Bill

 

[nev]

Most elegant. =D>

 

[BRYAN]

Such a flimsy lightweight lathe,no wonder the coffee mug fell off.

I am just messin because I'm so envious.

Great work,well done.

Bryan.

 

[Walter Hall]

Great to see a completely different approach. Love the finished result.

Walter

 

[tekno.mage]

If I were to make others I think I would invest in a 3” forstner bit as the boring for the glass got a little bit laborious

Not sure a 3" forstner would be much less laborious than using a boring bar - as you'd be repeatedly removing the drill bit to clear shavings and allowing it to cool down - especially the deeper you get into the hole - you also have the issue of drill wander.

I am intensely envious of your lathe and tooling - I've always wanted to try turning wooden items on an engineering lathe as the prospect of increased precision appleals - and I've often thought that using a boring bar would be the answer to difficult wood drilling jobs on the lathe.

 

[boysie39]

If I were to make others I think I would invest in a 3” forstner bit as the boring for the glass got a little bit laborious

Not sure a 3" forstner would be much less laborious than using a boring bar - as you'd be repeatedly removing the drill bit to clear shavings and allowing it to cool down - especially the deeper you get into the hole - you also have the issue of drill wander.

I am intensely envious of your lathe and tooling - I've always wanted to try turning wooden items on an engineering lathe as the prospect of increased precision appleals - and I've often thought that using a boring bar would be the answer to difficult wood drilling jobs on the lathe.

I would agree with with what Kym has said ,and have to say that I thought wood turning could not be done on a metal lathe for some reason so it's true then ,The longer you live the more you learn . :roll:
Thank you for taking the time to show that it can be done and to a very high standard . =D> =D>

 

[monkeybiter]

Very nice pieces !

I would have instinctively gone for a thicker/stiffer boring bar at that length, however it seems it's not necessary in wood. I love the shavings tray!

 

[wem]

Really nice! What kind of wood?

 

[Richard Findley]

Looking good! I love the simplicity of those book ends! I think if I were making them I would have been tempted to try and put some sort of top on them but they really don't need one. Less is more as they say!! Really like them, right up my street!!

Very interesting seeing turning done from a different perspective (ie from an engineer's point of view). Nice finish too. A 3" forstner would be very expensive and honestly, in my experience, large diameters don't work all that well, unless you remove the waste in stages, with smaller drills first.

Thanks for sharing

Richard

 

[katellwood]

Hi guys thanks for the kind comments relating to the end products and my technique.

As you can possibly see the procedure's took place on two lathes, a Dominion Patternmakers wood lathe (unfortunately without the saddle and cross slide) and a large engineering lathe.

Initial sizing and a round tenon for the chuck was turned between centres on the wood lathe then the piece mounted in a nova chuck. I then placed the whole lot including the chuck in the metal lathe ensuring it was correctly centred by initially utilising the tailstock and centre

From there I mounted a 2 1/8" forstner bit initially in the tailstock chuck and bored as deep as it would let me, I then used an extension piece (which I had made on the engineering lathe) to get the bore down to approx 12"

From there I utilised the home made boring bar (made from a piece of M20 studding, this being the most suitable size of material available to me at the time I would ideally have liked it to more substantial) and continued boring until I got the diameter to the 80mm that the glass sleeve required (I allowed 3mm clearance to manage any movement in the timber used). The boring bar was surprisingly accurate, I initially started each cut slowly with the topslide then once established utilised the power feed on the lathe to the required depth (masking tape on the boring bar)

From there I made a centred end stopper for the hole and returned to the wood lathe turning the beads and coves for the bottom of the column using spindle gouges and a parting tool for the beads. I could have turned the main body here however I feel that to get the whole column perfectly parallel with a skew by hand is hard and if it were not perfectly parallel then the fluting would possibly not look right, also I did have to return it to the engineering lathe to carry out the fluting.

Once back on the engineering lathe and using the end stopper to support the loose end mounted a small router on the lathe's top slide (this is in a bracket I also made on the engineering lathe and fits to a height adjusting slide which fits where the tool post fits) from there using the powerfeed I paralleled the column then fluted it using a stop on the lathe bed.

Again back to the wood lathe for final sanding and polishing using a shellac based friction polish and wax.

The bit I was most worried about was sanding and polishing the inside of the bore as the piece was only supported one end however this was not a problem and I only wanted to sand/polish just past the depth of the glass tube (wouldn't want to stick my hand any further down with the thing whirring round)

If I were to make others I think I would invest in a 3” forstner bit as the boring for the glass got a little bit laborious

Not sure a 3" forstner would be much less laborious than using a boring bar - as you'd be repeatedly removing the drill bit to clear shavings and allowing it to cool down - especially the deeper you get into the hole - you also have the issue of drill wander.

I am intensely envious of your lathe and tooling - I've always wanted to try turning wooden items on an engineering lathe as the prospect of increased precision appleals - and I've often thought that using a boring bar would be the answer to difficult wood drilling jobs on the lathe.

Re the use of a 3" forstner bit, My technique would be (as Richard suggests) is to initially carry out a cut to a depth of approx. 1/4" with the 3" then bore out again with the 2 1/8" bit. Once bored I would return to the 3" which had already been centred and slowly carry out the 3" cut. The engineering lathe's lowest speed is 10 RPM in addition It is powered via an inverter therefore with a slow feed speed I could control the cut and any heat generated

There has been some really nice comments made on this thread and from some really professional and experienced wood turners. I would be interested to know any other techniques turners use for deep accurate boring

Really nice! What kind of wood?

Its a Mahogany based timber not sure what as identified above its an old snooker table leg so should be dry and pretty stable

Thanks again all, any further projects I will also post