After the Cascade Woodturners club asked me to do a demo, I needed to make a practice run. After the last whistle, a viewer suggesting making the whistle in a way that it could be tuned instead of relying solely on the depth of holes drilled in the cylinder. This whistle is tuned by inserting […]
Read More...To dispel my ball turning phobia forever, I decided to do a large, hollow ball. What’s different? Well, on a large ball, any irregular surface is more apparent. Even more is that I’m having to turn blind. I cannot check wall thickness as I work the wood — I have to rely on measurement taken […]
Read More...I am interested in multi-axis and off center turning. However, any change to the turning axis presents challenges and risks. This project, from hard maple, follows an example in “Woodturning Methods” by Mike Darlow. On the first axis, I turned the body, foot, and a mounting disk. Then I mounted a wood faceplate with a […]
Read More...In my last video I turned a couple of wood balls to overcome a long running phobia – a concern that I could ever turn a perfect wood sphere. But I did it. One requirement was to have a process that I described in that video. However, part of the process required a set of […]
Read More...One project during a week long woodturning class a few years ago was a wood ball using a jamb chuck. I failed miserably to get the ball smooth. It ended up very rough and out of round. With this failure, I feared being able to make a good ball. Since then, I’ve looked for a […]
Read More...On my lathe, I don’t think about cleaning the inside of the spindle or tail stock, but I should. Gunk can build up in the morse taper of these areas and throw off how well your drive and tail centers seat, center, and hold your work. The gunk can also cause damage to these tools. […]
Read More...In this video, I try my hand again to turn an eccentric goblet. I’ll turn the eccentric stem separately from the cup and the base just to keep things a little easier. The stem is 2×2″ maple about 6″ long. I started turning with the axis running almost corner to corner. Then as I finished […]
Read More...I cut tenons regularly to join different pieces of a project together. They’re a common element but I really hate it when I cut one too small. The flip side is stopping the lathe so often to creap up on the perfect size. Many times I’ve used a open end wrench to help size. But […]
Read More...Rather than respond to the challenge of an eccentric tea light, I choose to turn a segmented tea light with a bonus saucer to set it on. The style of segmentation is called open segment meaning that there are gaps between the segments making up the ring. However, nearly every open segment requires a couple […]
Read More...I’ve turned several tops on my lathe but never a tippy top. A tippy top should start normally, then flip over onto its spindle. During this process, it reverses its rotation. Physics students create monstrous equations to explain this reversal that are totally beyond me. This wood is poplar with a walnut spindle. The poplar […]
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