First project on the new lathe
Last sunday, the weather cleared up enough for me to play with the Lathe and make what is referred to as a "Turned Box". Basically, it's a round box with a matching lid.
I grabbed one of the Avacado logs that my brother left me a couple months ago and cut a rough block with my chainsaw. Then I screwed a mounting plate to one side and put the block on the lathe.
After roughing out the piece to a fairly cylinidrical shape, I unscrewed the mounting plate and mounted the opposite end of the piece into a chuck so I could finish the side where the mounting plate had been attached.
I then sliced the cylinder into two pieces using a thin parting chisel, separating it into a "box" and "lid" parts.
With the box piece still in the chuck, I hollowed it out with a bowl-scraper chisel and cut a fine lip around the top using a skew chisel. I throughly sanded using various grits of sandpaper, all the way down to 400-grit.
I then mounted the lid into the chuck and with my calipers, carefully mesaured a recessed lip to match the box. I frequenty stopped the lathe and held the box up to the lid to see if it fit tightly.
After progressively sanding the bottom of the lid down to 400-grit, I then flipped over the lid and carved out a decorative "handle" on the top side, and sanded that as well.
An viola! A turned box made entirely from a solid piece of Avacado wood:
The entire project, from Chainsaw to first coat of oil-based finish, was a little over an hour.
So far, only the inside of the bowl contains a coat of finish. I'm debating whether or not to finish the outside, or leave it "raw" so you can smell the Avacado wood. It has a very sweet aroma. It has a knot hole that goes all the way through at one point, and it would take too heavy a finish coat to seal it up, so I think I'm going to leave it like it is.
I turned a few other pieces Sunday before I got tired... this weekend is supposed to have nice weather, so I'm likely to spend several more hours out there having fun.
I grabbed one of the Avacado logs that my brother left me a couple months ago and cut a rough block with my chainsaw. Then I screwed a mounting plate to one side and put the block on the lathe.
After roughing out the piece to a fairly cylinidrical shape, I unscrewed the mounting plate and mounted the opposite end of the piece into a chuck so I could finish the side where the mounting plate had been attached.
I then sliced the cylinder into two pieces using a thin parting chisel, separating it into a "box" and "lid" parts.
With the box piece still in the chuck, I hollowed it out with a bowl-scraper chisel and cut a fine lip around the top using a skew chisel. I throughly sanded using various grits of sandpaper, all the way down to 400-grit.
I then mounted the lid into the chuck and with my calipers, carefully mesaured a recessed lip to match the box. I frequenty stopped the lathe and held the box up to the lid to see if it fit tightly.
After progressively sanding the bottom of the lid down to 400-grit, I then flipped over the lid and carved out a decorative "handle" on the top side, and sanded that as well.
An viola! A turned box made entirely from a solid piece of Avacado wood:
The entire project, from Chainsaw to first coat of oil-based finish, was a little over an hour.
So far, only the inside of the bowl contains a coat of finish. I'm debating whether or not to finish the outside, or leave it "raw" so you can smell the Avacado wood. It has a very sweet aroma. It has a knot hole that goes all the way through at one point, and it would take too heavy a finish coat to seal it up, so I think I'm going to leave it like it is.
I turned a few other pieces Sunday before I got tired... this weekend is supposed to have nice weather, so I'm likely to spend several more hours out there having fun.