Wood Shop: walnut

Showing posts with label walnut. Show all posts

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Hollys Walnut Bowl Pt 2 Preliminary shaping

Good Morning All,

Ive been looking at the turning blank since Tuesday and Ive decided to shape it into a calabash bowl. Calabash bowls have a narrow opening at the top that is smaller in diameter than the widest part of the bowl. Ive never made one before and I think this shape will fit the shape of the turning blank. So off we go.

Shaping the bottom
Since the blank is still attached to the faceplate I decided to shape the bottom of the bowl first. So I took the whole thing back to the wood shop and re-attached it to the lathe and the first thing I noticed was an ominous looking series of cracks in the surface of the blank. The bottom needed to be trued up and the bark was still attached to the blank too. These are all problematic features and have to be dealt with first:

I like to take a straight edge to check the flatness of the bottom of bowls and platters. It can be difficult to see small subtleties and its important for the bottom of the bowl to be flat so it wont spin on a flat surface:

Ive gently shaved the bottom flat and Ive also located the center of the foot and marked off a 2 inch diameter circle and a 3 inch diameter circle. Im not sure yet just how Im going to mount the bottom of the bowl onto the lathe and so these two circles will let me either center a small faceplate or create a recess for my Nova chuck. Those can stay there for the time being:

In this photo you can see the flattened bottom clearly. Ive roughly marked the widest part of the bowl in white pencil. Approximately 1/3 of the bowl will sit below this mark and 2/3 will sit above this mark:

Time to begin shaping the blank. There is a lot of wood to be removed before we get to our final shape:

You can see in this photo how Ive rounded off the upper 2/3 in preparation for really narrowing this portion of the bowl.

Here is the bowl several minutes later:

And about 10 minutes later:

Time to take the blank off the lathe and stand it up to see clearly what the shape looks like. I think the general shape of the bowl is good. My next step is to shape the bottom a little more, cut a recess in the bottom for my Nova Chuck and smooth the wood. I like to get the bottom of any bowl nearly finished before I flip it over and re mount it. Its much easier to do this now rather than later:

Here Im cutting a recess in the foot of the bowl with my tailstock removed and a drill chuck inserted into its place. You can see the big Forstner bit Im using for this:

The Forstner bit will produce a recess with straight sides and well need to dovetail the sides so the chuck will fit into the recess more securely. Im going to do this with the small parting tool you see in the photo. This takes only a minute or two to accomplish and it makes the chuck sit more firmly in the recess of the bowl:

Here is the finished recess:

This photo shows how Ive cleaned up the bottom and sanded it smooth. The bark is still there but its firmly attached and very smooth now so I think Ill just leave it:

Ive taken the bowl off the lathe and removed the faceplate. In this photo you can see the chuck being screwed into the recess in the bottom of the bowl:

And Ive flipped the bowl over and remounted it on the lathe. In the photo you can also see cracking radiating out from the center of the bowl. The pith of the tree is causing this and it has to be removed so Im next going to remove about the top 1/2 layer of wood and you can see how Ive marked that off in the photo:

Heres another problem that has just shown itself-a branch. You can see it at the top of the bowl. This will cause problems as well so Ive begun removing it as well. Ive also cut another recess in the bowl to help the wood fibers relax a little:

Here is the blank with the top 1/2 inch of wood removed and Ive gotten more of the branch removed as well:

Here is a side view of the photo. Im hoping that the radial cracking will ease up now that Ive removed the pith.
The top of the bowl needs to be narrowed and the diameter of the bowl needs to be narrowed too and so tomorrow thats what well work on.

Im going to leave this out in the workshop and stop here for the day.

See you tomorrow,
VW

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

a little more detail copper top table claro walnut table

as i was a little rushed setting up for open studio, i feel a couple of our pieces that we finished last week deserved a few more comments and photos, so here they are, along with some other photographic highlights from the weekend ... click the photos to enlarge them ...

above the open studio shop photo is a better photo of the claro wlanut slab table we had on display this weekend. it is leaving tomorrow with the ladderbacks to spend the summer at the vermont visitors center in guilford. a lot of folks (about 600,000 stop there per year) enter vermont from massachusetts and connecticut on route 91, and were hoping that some of them will see our work and contact us with new commissions .. it seems like we ought to be able to get at least one or two out of 150,000 or so. summers a good time here ...

this is a close up of the under structure with our new base design using polished and welded 5/8ths" rebar. people almost smiled when they noticed the rebar ... it fits in with our bethlehem steel and bridges series too.

for the copper table, which was the other big furniture hit of the weekend, we started out with a 1/2 size model a month or so ago. i did that on my own nickle, even before i actually got the commission for the big table. i figured i couldnt go wrong with whatever i wound up with, and i was intrigued with the clients concept as well as my concept for executing their ideas. it also was a test of my local sheet metal shop on the execution of the design ...

the clients loved the model and i even found a half size chair mockup i made a long while back to contribute a sense of scale. this is it in the raw and our only objection was that the copper didnt lay perfectly flat and humped and rattled occasionally, a problem i expected to get worse as the individual sheets doubled in size. i also figured there are only so many nails you can apply before it would look too naily.

so, our solution was to get some weldwood contact cement and glue each copper piece to the plywood and 2 x 10 substrate as we went along. before we got our veneer bags, this was our typical process for installing central inlays in our dining tables. it also works great for male/female lamination forms. these are mostly 2 ton hydraulic jacks you can get quite cheaply on line or at your local hardware. i think i have about a half dozen. be sure to support the table underneath before cranking them up.

the last little bit of design was stablilzing the two base pieces and supporting the 9 span, which we did with sams help and a little twisted and welded steel ...

tah dah ...

after sanding and sort of polishing the copper and the nails with some red 5" round scrotchbrite pads we found at the hardware store, we applied a chemical called liver of sulfide (outside please... rotten egg smell) and today, after some back and forth, i oiled it with a polished on coat of linseed oil which blended the fingerprints from the weekend and made it look like a beautiful old penny. i absolutely love the look and i have a couple proposals to send out for other sizes and different bases. liver of sulphur is available from dickblick art supply. clean the copper first with dish soap and a little ammonia. follow the directions and rinse neutralize (2 spoons of baking soda to 2 cups of water) the copper when it looks they way you want it to. the initial cleaning seems really important ...

here jim patinas the 1/2 size mockup. you can clearly see the before and after here.

a view down the tables 11 length ... its off to Connecticut tomorrow ...

and we have a 10 claro walnut table that is virtually finished, slightly ahead of the house where it is going to live. it needs only a final topcoat and some polish. i thought about setting it up on its base for the weekend, but its really heavy, and the shop was too full, and maybe wed drop it, or someone would scratch it ... in the end, we left it on edge, covered with soundboard and only occasionally allowed interested visitors to have a peak ... enlarge this one. it has a great fiddleback figure over its entire length and is without a doubt the most consistently figured slab i have ever seen.

we did set up its blackened base though .. folks are always amazed at the minimalness of the structure, but that is made up for by the weight of it. steel prices have skyrocketed lately though and that is the reason we are exploring other base deisgns like the rebar above. just the steel and the cutting was $1800. and then the pieces still have to be drilled and tapped, ground and polished, sanded, patinated and finished, a process that almost doubles the cost of the steel. i get a lot of inquires on these, but few takers.

sams spark screens above and wills custom banjos below were also much discussed items.

hes got a pete seeger type longneck in the works at the bottom of the photo above. the fretboard for that one is as long as the entire new daffodil picolo banjo below.