School day, take two

WoodturningWoodworking

That sodding bowl was annoying me.

So, put it back on the lathe using the recess, which wasn’t completely destroyed by the catch yesterday, and re-cut the rim (and of course, half-way through that, I had another catch and the bowl jumped behind the lathe to hide in the shavings pile). Once re-seated on the chuck, I finished recutting the rim, cleaned up the lip and deepened the ogee.

Then sanding, re-staining, sanding sealer, gilt cream on the rim, lip and back while trying not to lose a finger to the dovetail jaws, and then tried out Yorkshire Grit to polish the bowl (quite impressed by that by the way).

Then, new toy, cole jaws for the lathe!

Those buttons on the jaws that hold the bowl in place, by the way, are nowhere near as soft as the name “rubber button” suggests if you accidentally stick your finger into one while the lathe is spinning…

Happily didn’t break anything, but my manicure is ruined.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in 2 Comments

Every day’s a schoolday

WoodturningWoodworking

So I thought I’d move up to a 6″ blank from the 3″ ones I’ve been practicing on so far. I had in mind as well to do some colouring work – been watching too much of woodturning Youtube I suppose. It went to plan right up until gouge touched wood for the first time, which is pretty good as these things go.

The plan was to have an ogee curve on the outside of the bowl, rising to a narrow lip and then on to a slightly wide rim with a downward sweep into a bead that the main bowl interior would cut down through. Then the outside and the rim would be stained black with bronze gilt cream in the pores to liven up the grain, and the inside would remain the natural wood colour.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in 2 Comments

Making tools

ToolsWoodturningWoodworking

So one of the tools we used in the woodturning class before lockdown, was a wide parting tool – about a centimeter or so wide. I don’t have one. And I figured, it’s just a HSS blank ground to shape and fitted to a handle. Machinists make their own lathe tooling as a basic skill, and woodturners as well for some tools (not seen any make their own bowl gouges yet though). So. To ebay, and yes, you can order metal through the post it turns out. One 12x12x200mm lathe tool blank in HSS isn’t even very expensive (though I couldn’t find anything longer than 200mm in HSS, it seems that’s the upper limit for off-the-shelf square bar sections unless you’re ordering metres and metres of the stuff).

The metal detectors says that there’s only 2-3 inches of tang in the parting tool I do have, so that much in the handle gives that length of tool, which is more than enough in a small shed.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in 3 Comments