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As I mentioned in this thread, Larry Merlau, a.k.a. The Ambassador, sent me some of his Michigan chocolate, and the boxes got to my house Monday. That night I went out to the shop to play with it.
Since we all know Larry is turning vicariously through all of the spinny folks he's been sending wood to, I figured he deserved a boatload of pics so he can share in the fun of making something on the lathe. So, you turners will have to forgive me for posting so many shots of the process...they're for Larry.
To start out, I needed the square blanks to resemble something round. With the help of a couple reject bowls I had laying around the shop, I used a lumber crayon to mark perfect circles on the face of each blank. You can see the blue lines showing the exacting degree of absolute accuracy I hold myself to...
Along with perfectly exact lines, it's necessary to follow them with absolutely no mistakes. This pic shows the kind of tight tolerances necessary for this type of work...
After several painstaking minutes, two round(ish) blanks emerge. There's some promising figure peeking out from the side...
In looking at the blanks, I see that the smaller one has some cracks developing, so it's the one I decided to handle immediately. The other blank had some finer cracks, so I stuck it in a garbage bag and poured about half a gallon of water on it to keep it moist until I could get to it Tuesday.
The outside face of the blank was pretty rough, and I needed a flat(ish) spot in the center of it, so I took care of things with a few strokes of a Forstner bit on the drill press. I could have used a bigger bit, but I already had one in the drill press and was too lazy to change it. It did the trick just fine...
The flat spot gave me a place to put the spur center. (That's the pointy thing on the left side of the blank, Larry)...
The other face was already relatively flat, and that's where the live center went. (The pointy thing on the right side of the blank, Larry)...
A few minutes later, it's stating to resemble a bowl...
And a few minutes after that, it's even more bowl-like...
Continued in the next post. I told you I had a lot of pics...
Since we all know Larry is turning vicariously through all of the spinny folks he's been sending wood to, I figured he deserved a boatload of pics so he can share in the fun of making something on the lathe. So, you turners will have to forgive me for posting so many shots of the process...they're for Larry.
To start out, I needed the square blanks to resemble something round. With the help of a couple reject bowls I had laying around the shop, I used a lumber crayon to mark perfect circles on the face of each blank. You can see the blue lines showing the exacting degree of absolute accuracy I hold myself to...
Along with perfectly exact lines, it's necessary to follow them with absolutely no mistakes. This pic shows the kind of tight tolerances necessary for this type of work...
After several painstaking minutes, two round(ish) blanks emerge. There's some promising figure peeking out from the side...
In looking at the blanks, I see that the smaller one has some cracks developing, so it's the one I decided to handle immediately. The other blank had some finer cracks, so I stuck it in a garbage bag and poured about half a gallon of water on it to keep it moist until I could get to it Tuesday.
The outside face of the blank was pretty rough, and I needed a flat(ish) spot in the center of it, so I took care of things with a few strokes of a Forstner bit on the drill press. I could have used a bigger bit, but I already had one in the drill press and was too lazy to change it. It did the trick just fine...
The flat spot gave me a place to put the spur center. (That's the pointy thing on the left side of the blank, Larry)...
The other face was already relatively flat, and that's where the live center went. (The pointy thing on the right side of the blank, Larry)...
A few minutes later, it's stating to resemble a bowl...
And a few minutes after that, it's even more bowl-like...
Continued in the next post. I told you I had a lot of pics...