To much wood comming in and question on flat turning

I had a friend I met awhile back that lives up in the mountains that is a pro turner (makes a living at it-------unlike me....LOL)....that I stay in touch with mainly thru emails. Anyway, he contacted me yesterday while I was at work and said he was comming into town that night and wanted to know if I wanted some of the wood from his storage - said he would make it more than worh it and deliver it to my house for $100.00. He told me he has sold off 2 of his lathes and tools and was cutting way down and back on his accumulation of stuff and would never be able to turn all the wood he had in his storage that he had collected. Its to bad because he does beautiful work - gave me his card and flyers where his work is put on display. He seems to do alot of large natural edge winged bowls from the photos but had a few vessels to.

So I took him up on the offer and he dropped off a "truck load" of mixed kinds of wood (Ca buckeye, redwood burl, elm, oak, walnut, boxelder,cedar, birch etc.....lots of misc types...I lost track of what was what). Alot of the wood is dry and has been in his storage area for along time - showing little to no cracking. About 2 wheel barrows of buckeye....which I love to turn because of the character and voids. We off loaded the wood quick and then we talked about the rig I was building and he showed me a few ways to improve the tips etc....discussed seveal ways to sharpen gouges and techniques to using them. I told him I am not that good with a gouge but do ok at best - He offered a full day of turning lessons and sharpening if I was willing to make the drive up to his shop.....
He then looked over my vessels and bowls and commented that I seem to like vessels. Yeah.....guess I just got burned out on making bowls and that just has not happened with vessels - something about the hollowing that I just like...I showed him a couple of Buckeye vessels I made in the past that are about as thin as a paper plate.....then the others which are thicker walled........explaining that I now make them how I want and do not follow any set of rules on dimensions - thickness etc............Like he said - nobody cares about how thin the work is unless they are another turner.....they all sell just as well.....He also told me that he sells more small and medium size turnings then he has ever sold large.......they just do not seem to sell as quick...............................all in all a great visit .............

Question - there is alot of 2-3 thick flat stock he left me for turning platters etc............That does not seem to be enough to make a tennon for compression holding. So is the best way to mount the thinner stock - a recess with a dovetail and then use expansion to hold it ???
Im not used to playing around with platter type stock......but some of the wood has fantastic grain in it............Thoughts ?????

Thanks Dan

Sounds like a great haul. Personally, I don't like using the chuck in expansion mode, but 2" stock is plenty thick to make a good tenon.

Dan that is way too nice, wood, Tips from a pro and offer of instruction for free. Lucky you.

I like the recess with the dovetail and have started using it more as of late and I like it. I have however had a couple of works come whipping off the lathe at me at high speed when I have caught an edge. Definate wake up call.

Dan Mosley said:

--there is alot of 2-3 thick flat stock he left me for turning platters etc............That does not seem to be enough to make a tennon for compression holding. So is the best way to mount the thinner stock - a recess with a dovetail and then use expansion to hold it ???
Im not used to playing around with platter type stock......but some of the wood has fantastic grain in it............Thoughts ?????

Thanks Dan

Click to expand...

2" is more than enough thickness for socket mounting I have done it with 1" stock, Mount blank on Hot Melt Scrap Block to form socket.

I've recently seen a demonstration of Signature pieces, platters an bowls, using a large diameter shallow spigot (5" dia. X 3/32"-1/8" depth) which is left in place and incorporated into the base decoration such that it did not stand out as a fixing.

Of course you need good quality dovetail jaws and match the spigot precisely to the nominal dimensions of the jaws so that no jaw bruising takes place.

The platters below were done in my early days and I left the sockets in place, you can see it in the base shot, I now blend them in as a final finishing by reversing.

Dan that is a nice haul. I use either a tenon on 2 to 2 1/2" stock but also use a recess dovetail with excellent success so when making platters that it what I use.

Dan don't have any advise for ya, but just sitting here wishing i had someone that i could spend a day with close to home. Great deal and i think if it was me i'd be on my way to his shop the first chanch i could get.
Steve

Dan i am still churning over the wood haul. What a good catch. And like Stephen said to spend a day with a guy like that, well its time to call in sick or rather take a days leave. Last time i played hookey a whole treehouse fell on my head.

yeah you guys are right - im going to have to figure out how to take the time off down the road and go up to where he lives - about 2hrs plus but it is worth the effort to spend a day learning more about using gouges and sharpening..............looks like a sick day down stream......

I'm sorry Dan, but I just don't see how you can get all that turned in a reasonable amount of time. I'll be in L.A. on Saturday and would be happy to make your like easier by taking some of that off your hands!