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I enjoy wood working a tremendous amount. I don't get to do much of it while I'm in school but before I started college I spent a fair bit of time on the wood lathe. My grandfather taught my dad and my dad taught me. Up until about a year ago I was better than dad but he spends a lot of time on the lathe now-a-days and I haven't turned since I started school. I'll get a picture of our lathe and put it up tomorrow. One thing I can't stress enough is that having a quality lathe makes a world of difference when tolerances start getting low. Below is the picture and a description. All my finishes are hand rubbed tounge oil and I personally don't think any finish is as good aside from french polishes and a few laquers but they aren't really suited for turning. I appologize too for the quick cheesy backdrop and that the flash washed some of the color out of the wood but I didn't really have acess to good lighting at the time.






Maple and walnut, the rings are captive as in they are confined to around the skinny part of the shaft only. Max dia. is about 4 inches.




Walnut and it is hollowed out down to about 3.5 inches from the bottom, total height is about 11 inches.




Cherry and another captive ring. It has a bit more red tone to it but the flash really washed out the color. Diam is approx 2 inches.




Maple with a polished stone insert. I can't remember the name of the stone but I had it around the house. Around the lip of the bowl is a dark green epoxy inlay with white speckles within the epoxy. Dia. 2 1/4".




Wormy and spaulted chesnut and the sides are thin enough that when held up you can see light through them. A steady hand was required to avoid chip-out, which there is none btw. Max Dia. approx 5 inches





Wormy and spaulted chesnut and 2 3/4 inches tall.



For the sake of the board and those viewing the page I haven't posted some of the pictures of some of my other turnings. They can be found here though - http://filebox.vt.edu/users/lskidmor/personal/turnings . If anybody has any questions feel free to ask and thank you for taking the time to look at one of my other passions

Whoah!!!! That's sweet! Had I not been so affected by sawdust when I was a kid, I would have wanted to learn a lot of woodworking from my dad.

I love oil myself as it brings out the natural beauty in the wood. I use color finishes on crap like pine. I have a block of blood wood waiting to become a gear shift knob for something that goes with the bright red. I also have a big block of purple heart I can't figure out what to do with.

Steve

Awesome!
So I take it that the amount of runout on the lathe is a big factor when things get thin? its definitely the same way with pottery. on the lathe Ive never turned anything to less than 3/8" or so. I kept getting pitting due to dull tools I guess , maybe it was due to soft wood(mahogany).
what attachments do you use for small and/or fragile pieces like those? I assume you start from the outermost point and go inwards?
what type of chisels do you use to get in those tight spaces?
how much time do you have in one of those?
those captive rings are really cool. must be nice to see em come off

Thank you for the compliments. The time kinda depends, I can make a simple box, perpendicular cylinder, in about 30-45 minutes, that's from roughing to ready for final sand. The very top goblet, the maple and walnut took several days start to finish. There was a lot of shaving a little off, test fitting, shave a little off, test fit, etc. The captive rings really aren't too hard, just a matter of having a properly shaped chisel. My brother is a timber wright and used to do a bit of chip carving so we have a fair bit of chisel bar stock laying around that we use. However what is really cheap and works well, make a holder/handle for mason cut nails and then you can shape the cut nail to whatever you want. Do a little grinding and you have a custom chisel. I'll take a couple pics of our chisel selection. Needless to say I'm pretty good with putting an edge on a chisel, be it scraper, gouge, etc.. For most woods if your chisel is sharp and you are keeping proper angle you shouldn't really need any sandpaper heavier than 220. Sometimes when you are doing end-grain on something with an more open grain, oak, walnut, etc. you will need to get a little coarser grit.

Runout is a big issue but just as big is the stiffness of the lathe base. If your rest isn't sitting perfectly still when you're working with 1/16" thick sides, you will lose part of your turning. And when you're roughing it out, it makes a huge difference to have a steady solid base. Which let me say real quick in regards to roughing, always keep your hand on top of the chisel and don't use your finger underneath as a guide like when doing fine work. My brother did this, it caught the 3/4" gouge and it jumped up, his finger rolled under, it caught and slammed down, broke the cast tool rest in half. Andrew's lucky he didn't get bone underneath, and yeah it was messy.

Feel free to ask or PM any questions and glad to see some fellow wood workers.

Steve - Have you worked with purple heart before? If not be prepared to sharpen your tools often but it is pretty.

How do you do the captive rings? That's bitchin!

That's amazing work. I tried the pottery thing in high school, not very good. I was OK at sculpting, but lost interest quickly. I'm creative, but simply not able to express my creativity in more traditional forms of art.

Very nice! I always enjoyed doing lathe work in wood shop back in school. It was probably my favorite. I never really did cool stuff like that though, it was usually stuff like table and chair legs.

That's cool though that you're doing goblets and stuff. I always did goblets in ceramics class. I like goblets.

Well I forgot to take the camera back to the house last night so there aren't any pictures of our lathe or chisel collection. The lathe is an old craftsmen, floor mounted and has approx. a 4 ft bed though with end stock and the chuck you have about 3.5 ft of working room. It also has outboard capibilities although I've only down outboard work once. The inboard clearance is about 7 inch radius. We actually have two but we converted one to a disc sander for the time being. Our chisels are mostly old craftsmen (several were my grandfather's) although we've gotten my dad some new Sorby bowl gouges that he really loves. Sorby makes a damn nice chisel. We probably have over 20 chisels to choose from although several are repeats but with longer handles. I can't stand those short little handles most chisels come with.

The captive rings aren't too hard to do. Basically you turn the goblet and on the stem you leave a disk and then work the disk down to the diameter you want the captive ring. Then you work it into a bead and with a small chisel that is 'cupped' so to speak you start carving the backside of the bead. Before you go all the way through go ahead and sand the ring and then with the 'cupped' chisel finish cutting through the backside. If you go slow and careful you can eliminate a fair bit of hand carving on the ring to smooth the backside. After that just finish turning the goblet like you normally wouldd, the ring will just ride on the shaft and generally stay out of the way, tape it need be. In all honesty the rings look harder to do than they are, the real trick is just being careful not to chip-out since you don't really have excess to sand out chips.

I'm good on the lathe and I can sculpt clay but when it comes to the potters wheel ... yeah that just ain't my thing .

I was afraid of this... You're Amish, aren't you?

No, really though, excellent work. I'm very impressed. I tried the whole woodworking thing in ~8th grade.. sanded my finger off and then I switched to Journalism class instead.

You should sell some of those! There's got to be a market somewhere for pieces like that.

I was afraid of this... You're Amish, aren't you?

Lol, thanks man, that made my morning . But I do thank you and all for the compliments.

I watched a kid, in that semester I was taking as a no credit, take the tip of his finger off on a router table. Just wasn't paying attention, learned the hard way.

I've thought about selling them but I have a lot of sentimental value attached to a lot of them and couldn't just let them go. The first two pics are the pieces I won the money for school with though.

amish... lol, i guess you have horses pulling your legacy

Those turnings are beautiful! I really love one-off handmade items, I've done a few simple things on a lathe before so I can really respect the work you've done there. Don't lose touch with your skills.

Ever try doing that coffee cup mod outta wood? lol

Those look very impressive. If I could do that I'd sell them for car funds.