Woodturning

New Toys! / Shed / Tools / Woodturning / Woodworking — No Comments
08
Apr 20

Fixing Mushrooms

So after the last exploding mushroom, I tried turning the last two chunks of log into their mushrooms. And both times, it was looking soooo nice…

And then on almost the last finishing cut with the spindle or bowl gouge on the underneath of the cap, it caught and half the cap snapped right off, hitting me in the faceshield.

Well, maybe I had more hollowing out to do 😀
But I figured since these are going outdoors in the woods for the hedgehogs, maybe I can live with a rustic look, so I experimented by using some titebond to glue the pieces back together…

And after a day to let the glue cure (and no, I couldn’t get clamping so these were just rub joints), I put them back on the lathe at the lowest setting just for sanding and finishing.

And they held! I was rather surprised to be honest…
So up the grits from 120 to 320, then a coat of BLO, a topcoat of button shellac and then a polish with some beeswax under a heat gun, and…

So tomorrow I’ll cut off the tenons, drill a short mortice and glue a few inches of dowel into it and we can go plant these up in Fernhill.

...and maybe grab another log. I was thinking if we made a small bowl that it could be a natural birdbath or hedgehog drinking trough…

Oh, and my new nailgun arrived in the post as well 🙂 It even fits the air line connectors so I don’t have to go chasing round ebay looking for an adapter.

It works! Remind me never to glue my fingers together with this thing.
I can’t quite see it being used for much in the way of fine furniture (not that I make much that you could call fine without squinting till you went blind) but I can see it being useful for making quick things like jigs or very small simple things like small boxes for herb plants and the like.

I mean, being able to do a butt joint like that without trying to hold the two boards together and the nail in position and swinging a hammer – that’s kinda neat. And I do need to knock up a quick jig for my woodturning sharpening setup…

Woodturning / Woodworking — 2 Comments
05
Apr 20

Thank you Tom!

Tom Murphy was the mad eejit who got me to try woodturning first, when I was perfectly happy making stuff like boxes and tables. He’s been into it for quite a while now, and was always telling me I should try it. Though he also did the Jackie Chan end credits thing of pointing out the times it went sideways on him, and constantly scaring me into always wearing a faceshield…

First up today, I had to sharpen the lathe tools. I was lucky enough to get a cheap wolverine jig clone (which is well made to be fair) before we locked down and I found my original 80 grit gray wheel for the grinder as well, so today I put that back on where the wire wheel had been. Had to elevate the grinder as well with some oak offcuts, and then fitted the new jig.

From this:

To this:

Still hangs on the wall, which is nice.

For the record, yes, I know this is horrible for turning tools. Gray wheels just rip off way too much material, these should be 100 grit white aluminium oxide wheels at least, and preferably this should be a Sorby Pro-Edge, or a Tormek T4, or (and this is what I’m planning on because it’ll fit the shed better) a low-speed grinder with CBN wheels. But we’re in lockdown, so for now we’re in Teddy Roosevelt territory (“Do what you can, with what you have, from where you are”), okay? Cool.

So with that done, I reground (“sharpening” seems too fancy a word for what I did to them) the lathe tools.

On the upside, they’re now sharp and my bowl and spindle gouges are now midway between a factory grind and an Irish grind. Of course the spindle gouge got clamped in at an angle in the holder so that’s going to take a few sharpenings to sort out. Oh well. I also need to knock up a quick setting jig for these. The lines on the board and the scrap of wood I used to record the settings for the gouges are just temporary…

So then I cut off another chunk from that log (total yield: four pieces) and put it between centers. I tried to put it just a bit off-center to try to get a nice natural-looking mushroom this time.

Doesn’t look like much I know, but it’s enough to convince the lathe to vibrate a lot initally. Slow speed cutting to start.

Mostly I just wanted to get some mass off the piece and rough part of it down to balance things so I could speed the lathe up here. Doing this in green wood’s hard enough, this must be a fair chunk of work in dry wood…

Nice shavings at least. Thing with the offcenter turning is it feels like you’re cutting something that’s invisible – I’m constantly stopping to see where the most off-center bit is, remembering that spot on the rest and in space, then spinning up and feeling for the surface with the heel of the bevel on the gouge, then rubbing the bevel and trying to cut smoothly. And it went well enough for a while and then something blurred past my face and bounced off the far wall…

Well, poop. But maybe I can salvage what’s left, it seems in reasonable shape…

This time, there was a loud bang and some things hit me in the chest, shoulder and rattled right off the faceshield. I managed to find some of those parts…

Sharp enough to cut yourself on. I’m rather glad I had the faceshield on now. So thanks Tom, the paranoia about faceshields saved me a trip to the dentist 😀

Looks like the live center acted like a wedge and the piece just couldn’t hold. I guess that’s why you should turn these with a tenon. Well, I have two more pieces sawn up and sitting on the bench for tomorrow, so I guess I’ll do that with them. I must also see if I have anything that can record video and which I can mount up by the lathe, I’m irked I didn’t get video of today’s kablooie, it would have been fun to watch 😀

Woodturning / Woodworking — 2 Comments
04
Apr 20

Stole a branch…

Okay, so part of the lockdown in Ireland is that we can go outside to exercise so long as we stay within 2km of home. And Fernhill is well inside that circle for us, so we go there to walk around somewhere that doesn’t have ceilings…

I mean, look at it, who wouldn’t go there? Calum even gets to chase squirrels. And they do the whole fairy-door-in-the-tree thing as well. Like this, only this is from the woods near Seafield hotel in Wicklow last year:

But Seafield has mushrooms and toadstools as well and Fernhill doesn’t:

Thing is, Fernhill had the tree surgeon in before the lockdown and they haven’t had a chance since to haul away all the logs…. so I stole one. Just picked it up and walked away with it. Probably getting some odd looks in the process. Certainly got some from Claire…

There is a plan, apart from a life of larceny and looting in a pandemic.

First off, hack off a lump of the branch while being annoyed I don’t have a bandsaw big enough for that job.

Next, stick it on the lathe…

Roughed out. I think it’s got some mild spalting in there.

Ah, the mess. Funny how nobody mentions this when telling you woodturning is fun. Also, say hi to the new air compressor. It picked a fun time to arrive 😀 Air hose hasn’t arrived yet though, so it’s dormant for now. And only a 6 litre capacity, so no impact wrenchs. It fits into the shed though, which is a major plus, and it’ll do grand for airbrushing and brad nailers.

Bit of carving with parting tools, bowl and spindle gouges and it’s time to sand. Until that 3D printing gets done, we’re on janky extraction setup for the dust. Works though.

Then BLO, a coat of button shellac and some beeswax and….

I reckon I can get three or four of these out of that log. Then we’ll take them back up to Fernhill and plant them beside the fairy doors. Feck ye Seafield, we’ve got toadstools too 😛

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