Fluted box with carved flower top

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Villa Park, CA
I'm not much of a turner, but I saw a piece with flutes in it like I did here and decided to try one myself. I carved a very simple flower on the top. I may try another one like this with a different top in a few days.

I'll use this one to show carving students how they can use their carving skills.

Mike
 

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Not much of a turner? I know I sure can't cut nice clean beads like those. (Or at least haven't been able to so far.) I like the carving, too. Nicely done on all counts, Mike. :clap:
 
Good mix of techniques! Here we a prove that the sum of the parts is better than the parts themselves alone.

I love it!:thumb::thumb: Is the wood walnut?? at least it looks walnut to me.
 
Mike, very nicely done. I like the way the beads hide the way the lid fits. The carving is really nice to. My Dad did some carving too but I haven't tried any as yet.
 
Mike - that's a nice piece! Good job on turning the box! I like the way the carving is subtle and blends into the form. It doesn't jump out at you but once you see it - it holds your attention. Very nice work!
 
I mostly do furniture but I do these small things to use up the offcuts from the furniture making.

The box above is about 4 1/2" in diameter. The carving is VERY simple - and shows how a turner actually has an advantage in adding carving to turning projects. Most of the hard work is done on the lathe. See the pictures attached. I use a bowl gouge to rough out the shape of the flower but you could use a scraper if that felt better.

Once you have the shape, part off the top and glue it to a board with cardboard between the board and the top. The reason for doing that is you want to hold your work down while you're carving on it. [Aside comment: You can remove it by putting a chisel between the work and the board and tapping the chisel - the cardboard will split. Rub the work on a piece of sandpaper to remove the cardboard and glue or use a ROS - hold the work against the sander.] [Another aside comment: The rough flower shape is perfect for mounting in a chuck if you want to shape the underside of the top in some fashion - for example if you wanted to make the top thicker for some added decoration on the side and wanted to hollow the center of the top.]

Take a set of dividers and step off the petals. Five is a good number but you can do more. Avoid even numbers - an odd number of petals looks better. Draw a line from each divider step to the center. The best tool to use to carve along each line is a "V" tool but you can use a regular chisel by cutting in towards the line to make a V shaped line. Now, round off the corners of the petals. I use a gouge to establish the line but you can use chisel - it's just a bit harder to get a nice round line. Sandpaper will help smooth the line. I then hollow out each petal a bit to give some more shape but you can skip that step. Finally, I cross hatch the center and put three lines on each petal for additional interest. Sand the petals smooth to get rid of the tool marks.

While carving tools make the job easier, you can use regular woodworking tools and do a good job.

Give some "turned flowers" a try!!

Mike

[PS: an added thing you can do is drill out the center of the flower and insert a different color wood for contrast, or to make a longer "handle" for removing the top. Of course, do this drilling before you part off the top.]
[To answer the question Toni asked, the wood is walnut - offcuts from a table I made.]
 

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Thanks for the tutorial, Mike. You do make it sound easy. :rofl:
Incidentally, you advise making an odd number of petals because you say it looks better but the 16 petals on your last photo look pretty darn good to me. :thumb:
 
Thanks for the tutorial, Mike. You do make it sound easy. :rofl:
Incidentally, you advise making an odd number of petals because you say it looks better but the 16 petals on your last photo look pretty darn good to me. :thumb:
Once you get a lot of petals, it doesn't matter whether you use odd or even - the person viewing can't tell. But when there's just a few, like maybe four, it's real obvious that the petals are opposite each other and it affects the look - it just looks too symmetrical to me. Five is a good trade-off. Seven is also good but just more work.

Thanks for your comments, and for counting those petals:)

Mike
 
Beautiful piece Mike. Thanks for posting it. I really enjoy seeing the combination of skills. (which I don't have!)

Wes
 
WOW, Mike, that's what I call a perfect combination of woodturning and woodcarving. Have to try that once by myself.
Really great work!!

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