Hollow Form UFO Spaceship For My Old Friend ET
I worked for Atari, the video game company, when the movie ET came out. The movie was a blockbuster. Our CEO immediately purchased the video game rights and shoved it thru design and production in record time to have the game in stores for Christmas. We made millions of the ET game.
Alas, ET the game was a dog, the biggest video game flop of all time. Christmas sales were fantastic. But, customer returns in January were incredible.
What were we to do with all those games? We tried everything we could think of: dis-assembly, recycling, crushing, and landfills. Theft was always a huge concern.
Once, we waited until the landfill opened up a new deep area. We sent around twenty truckloads of games including ET to be buried. But word got out anyway and people showed up with shovels to dig up games. To prevent this scavenging, we ordered trucks of concrete poured over the games that had been dumped. To add insult to injury, we had to pay dump fees for the concrete in addition to the games.
Recently the news featured an archaeological dig at the landfill with great mystery. They got it all wrong.
In memory of ET, I made this spaceship or UFO from walnut. It is about 3″ high and 7″ in diameter finished with walnut oil.
No, my good friend – you did cheat. You didn’t cheat in the result, only in the suggestion that you could achieve it by hollowing. I
oops, hit the wrong key. I am still making new tools for deep undercuts of hollow forms, i was looking forward to a new idea.
Now that I’ve called you a cheater let me offer my compliments on your series of videos. I’ve made jigs for a dollar three eighty (never knew where that $1.38 came from, but it is an old NY line for almost nothing) from your inventions.
I plan on some long grain vases with full opening and thin walls (I know you have done that, but I want to make them deeper and thinner walled). We share both goals, the purist and the practical (I made 57 orange an black spinning tops a the last minute for my PU 57th reunion,I expected 20 in the off year, they all come back on the fives and tens. But as it was ’57s ’57th there was greater attendance – I had to crank up the lathe at the last minute. No problem, I love making tops as they are all different. If I goof they go to the garbage, or more likely to someone who will spin them once.
Current project on the machine is a hollow form, about 3″ diameter and 2″ high with a half inch hollowing hole. Using Ellsworth style tools, but not his recommendations. One eighth cutters,in his format, on 1/4 shafts. I think that may be as small as one can go, If the tip is less than 1/8 there is too sharp an end – but I’m going to try it anyway, next time I order cutter blanks. Mybe 3/32s would work, but I won’t count on it as that would be tough for freehand sharpening.
Best, Jon
Sounds like you’re making a habit of pushing the limits. 🙂
Tops are fun, sound like you were the hit of the reunion.
Alan