Bill Lantry
Member
- Messages
- 2,663
- Location
- Inside the Beltway
Well, folks,
Back in October (yes, October!), it was Ms Perez's birthday. Ms. Perez is from San Antonio, and she's one of several people the U keeps employed to keep me on track (believe me, it's not a one person job!
Anyway, I wanted to make her something for her birthday. So I slapped a big old hunk of cherry on the lathe, and started going at it. It was almost done when suddenly it flew apart. Dang! I asked her supervisor what I should do. She said "Don't tell her, just make another one, and surprise her when it's done." Well, one thing led to another, and then over christmas break I found myself staring at a chunk of green Hickory. So I slapped it up on the lathe. Everything went fine, it had a nice shape, I finished it with lacquer, but it was, well, I don't know, a little dull. It just wasn't as nice as I would have liked. I resolved to do better.
So, friday night, I chucked up a chunk of the linden I brought down from Vermont last summer. It had an odd shape. The first thing I did was to turn it round, to see what I could do with it. As I turned it towards the form it suggested, it wanted to crack. So what else is new? But here's the wierd thing:
I got out the thick CA (gap filling) glue. I've done this before, and always had trouble hiding the glued spot. Anyway, I got the outside sanded. Suddenly, I remembered seeing something (not sure where) about people using CA as a finish. So I said 'what the heck', and rubbed the whole outside with CA. Shined right up. Hmmmm...
The inside took awhile, but went without incident. I went back to shellac for the finish. Outside looked great, inside less good. But I soldiered on. Went out yesterday morning, and the inside was thinking seriously about cracking. Even though it was getting a little out of round, I decided to sand the inside, and do the CA number. Stopped the crack, *and* it looked great. Double hmmm....
The outside bottom, though, needed some work, as the wood is soft, and there were some chuck marks. So I made my first ever jamb chuck. It did serve it's purpose, but I wasn't thrilled with the performance. So I finally bit the bullet and started a longworth chuck (first time I've ever done any plunge routing). I had a fantasy that everything would just turn like magic as I reverse rotated the two disks. That didn't happen, but it will be seviceable as soon as I find some rubber baby buggy bumpers...
Anyway, here's the objet (not sure it counts as a bowl!) About 8" wide by 6" high, linden, finished with CA and shellac.
Thanks,
Bill
Back in October (yes, October!), it was Ms Perez's birthday. Ms. Perez is from San Antonio, and she's one of several people the U keeps employed to keep me on track (believe me, it's not a one person job!
Anyway, I wanted to make her something for her birthday. So I slapped a big old hunk of cherry on the lathe, and started going at it. It was almost done when suddenly it flew apart. Dang! I asked her supervisor what I should do. She said "Don't tell her, just make another one, and surprise her when it's done." Well, one thing led to another, and then over christmas break I found myself staring at a chunk of green Hickory. So I slapped it up on the lathe. Everything went fine, it had a nice shape, I finished it with lacquer, but it was, well, I don't know, a little dull. It just wasn't as nice as I would have liked. I resolved to do better.
So, friday night, I chucked up a chunk of the linden I brought down from Vermont last summer. It had an odd shape. The first thing I did was to turn it round, to see what I could do with it. As I turned it towards the form it suggested, it wanted to crack. So what else is new? But here's the wierd thing:
I got out the thick CA (gap filling) glue. I've done this before, and always had trouble hiding the glued spot. Anyway, I got the outside sanded. Suddenly, I remembered seeing something (not sure where) about people using CA as a finish. So I said 'what the heck', and rubbed the whole outside with CA. Shined right up. Hmmmm...
The inside took awhile, but went without incident. I went back to shellac for the finish. Outside looked great, inside less good. But I soldiered on. Went out yesterday morning, and the inside was thinking seriously about cracking. Even though it was getting a little out of round, I decided to sand the inside, and do the CA number. Stopped the crack, *and* it looked great. Double hmmm....
The outside bottom, though, needed some work, as the wood is soft, and there were some chuck marks. So I made my first ever jamb chuck. It did serve it's purpose, but I wasn't thrilled with the performance. So I finally bit the bullet and started a longworth chuck (first time I've ever done any plunge routing). I had a fantasy that everything would just turn like magic as I reverse rotated the two disks. That didn't happen, but it will be seviceable as soon as I find some rubber baby buggy bumpers...
Anyway, here's the objet (not sure it counts as a bowl!) About 8" wide by 6" high, linden, finished with CA and shellac.
Thanks,
Bill