Even more spinny stuff

Hi folks.  I've been turning Something nearly every day lately.

Maple bowl 4" across

My wife Lori and I visited the annual Remsen NY Barnfest craft show and market this weekend. There were easily a dozen woodworking related booths there.  We both came away thinking... that was nice, but there wasn't anything we could afford that we couldn't make ourselves.  To that end, several turners at the show had French Rolling pins. Lori liked them, but asked if I could make her a smaller one for our kitchen. 

I had a nice length of ambrosia maple on the wood rack, roughly 10/4 thick. I cut off a blank, chucked it up between centers and roughed it out using my spindle roughing gouges. I followed that up with the dreaded Skew.  

I've mostly kept my lathe speed in the 'low' range on my little midi, which is 500 rpm. As I progress, I'm slowly getting more comfortable with it, and tonight I bumped it up to 1800 rpm since I was spindle turning. That was 'interesting'... I was very much aware of that relative speed as I turned. By the end of the session however I was much more at ease. 

The end product is 11" long, about 1.25" in diameter. Lori asked for a shorter pin, vs the 15-18" long ones we saw at the show. That wound up being a very good thing. My little midi can only fit about 15" between centers at the moment. I do have the bed extension for it, but until tonight i haven't needed the extra length.  I may consider putting it on though.  That would definitely require an update on my lathe stand, which is something I've been considering of late. 

birth of a bowl

This is far from complete, as I did not stop for photos of the blank in the raw. This is how I left it last night. It is a cherry bowl blank about 4" across, and about 3" tall. At this point, I have

• Selected a chunk of 'wet' wood from my pile outside of the shop 
• rounded out the bowl blank (first on the bandsaw, next on the lathe so that it would spin without wobbling on the lathe. 
• following that, I cut a spigot on one end, sized to fit my 4 jaw chuck

Here you can see that I've started the hollowing process, carving out the bowl in the center. That is after perhaps 3 or 4 sweeps with the bowl gouge.

• I've then smoothed out the curve a bit more, and evened off the end of the blank. 

Here's where things speed up quite a bit. I didn't intend to record every step  (well, nearly every step...) of the process (though I will on my next bowl, which is already on the lathe). 

At this point, I've hollowed out the rest of the bowl, leaving it a bit thicker at the bottom than the sides, which are just a shade over 1/4" thick. I stopped thinning out the walls when the tone of the bowl changed when turning it.

 As it thinned out, I could hear the pitch of the gouge on the wood go up, which told me that the walls were a) thin enough that they would move, and b) probably going to move even more as the bowl dries out completely.  I took the safer path and left it at about that thickness. 

In this case, the spigot was NOT something I wanted to keep, so I put a jam chuck (aka failed bowl attempt) in my 4 jaw chuck, and brought up the tail stock to lock it safely in place. 

I've already removed most of the spigot from the foot of the bowl in this shot,  and in fact, the next cut almost spun the bowl off of the lathe. At that point, I simply put some 80 grit on the ROS and sanded the remainder off of the bottom. 

 The 'semi' finished product... letting it air out before putting finish on it.

it has a few tool marks on it, and the curve could be better, but I feel good for getting it to this point. 

 'nuff said.

Thoughts on Turning, Solar and Kickstarter

I've come to the realization that for the next few weeks, I've got three big projects going on in and about the shop. One feeds my woodworking muse, the second will allow me to woodwork beyond November this year and the third will hopefully allow me to raise funds and get some new tools.

1) Turning

I've finally fallen off the deep end of the spinny slope and am turning as often as I can. I"m still making 'practice' pieces, as evidenced by my last post: First. I've owned my lathe for quite awhile now, it isn't fancy, and it is my First lathe. If I have my 'druthers' it will be handed down to whichever of my sons wants to learn how to turn.  (Boys if you're reading this, don't all speak at once...)

I have a largish pile of wet maple and cherry wood sitting out in the back yard at the moment. I'm going to 'lose' some of it, as I know i can't turn it all in time before it dries out and starts to check. So mote it be, I'm having a ball turning as much of it as I can.  Up until now I've turned perhaps half a dozen pens and precisely One bowl thanks to my friend Don Orr. I Really can't count that one bowl, as he drove, I just held the tools. 

 Here is a photo of the results when I borrowed an electric chainsaw and went to town on several maple logs from our side yard. Our neighbor decided to clearcut his land, and we have lost three lovely maple shade trees. The only Good thing  to come of it is that I have several logs to work on. His clean-up crew were nice enough to cut the logs to rough length for me, and after borrowing Scott & Helen's chainsaw for an afternoon, I wound up with a bunch of shavings and a pile of turning stock

while I 'knew' that turning wet wood was fun from a visit to my friend Bill's shop when he first got his Robust Americna Beauty Lathe. I was fortunate enough to be invited to his robust warming party, and took a few cuts on a truly massive hunk of cherry. 

It was enough to 'hook me'. It took awhile, but I've been turning on my own little midi lathe this week. In addition to my first funnel, I have 4 bowls in various stages of drying out. Eventually I'll re chuck them on the lathe, get them back to round and get them turned to finished thickness.

Cherry

 Same bowl... different view

My first maple bowl roughed out.

Not a bad curve. My buddy Vaughn over on Family Woodworking commented on my funnel that the form was wonky. He pointed out here that most newbie turners make wide flat bowls, as we are thinking more about the tool, less about the form.  I wholeheartedly agreed.

There is the maple bowl on the lathe, as you can see I tried to have a pleasant curve, and the foot/tenon for the chuck is fairly well integrated into the shape. 

2) Solar wall

I hope to get the last couple of boards installed on the north end of the shop this weekend. I'm going to enlist my son Adam's help on this. He's fearless on the ladder and allowed as how he could get that done for me in short order. 

Once that is done, I'm going to be putting tyvek on the entire  south end of the shop as I mentioned a couple of posts back as preparation. Once I have the tyvek up,   I have several sheets of the t-111 handy.  I'll be putting that up on the wall as the 'back' section of the solar wall. I'm going to focus on the lower 10' or so of the face, as that is where I'll be putting up the solar collection.  I've got to see how much the glazing will run me, if I can swing it, I'll order enough for the project this week, and pick it up next paycheck a week from now. 

3) Kickstarter Campaign

I'm in the process of starting a small Kickstarter campaign. I hope to raise enough funds to get a few new tools for my shop. Depending on the success of the campaign I would like to pick up at least a Grizzly 12" Belt Sander,  this will allow me to safely and quickly surface my cutting boards, increasing production in my hobby shop. 

I have a couple of other 'gee that would be nice' tools in mind as well, but at the very least I'm aiming at that sander, possibly adding a Ridgid Oscillating Belt sander and a set of Gripper push blocks. 

If things go truly nuts, I'll be replacing my jointer next, but I'll of course be very happy if I get just the one Belt Sander. I'm fortunate enough to live within an easy drive of one of Grizzly's showrooms, I'd just have to steal Lori's SUV for the day.  More on this as things finalize in the coming weeks. My plan is to do a thirty day window, and then ship the rewards to my backers just in time for the holiday season. 

At the same time, I also expect to be opening up an Etsy shop and stocking that for the holidays as well. Going to be a busy fall.

First...

After my remote mentors got the lesson through on how to sharpen my bowl gouges, of course I had to try and turn a bowl. I chucked a small piece of maple on, and managed to get things into round...

So far so good...


I continued on, however this morning... and it was looking pretty good. I had it fairly smooth inside, I sanded it to 220 and everything.

Then I turned it around on the chuck, padded the chuck with some paper towel and expanded the jaws into the bowl. Had I simply removed the foot, and left it at that, all would have been well.

So I sighed, pulled it off of the chuck & signed it. 

South wall solar project musings

Warts and all, here is the south face of my shop. 

 I've let it weather 'naturally' for far too long, and since my ladder phobia kicked in, I've never put the siding on it that it deserves.

My neighbors to the south of me have recently taken down 4 maple trees, so I'm now going to get a ton more sun on the shop year round. I don't mind it in the fall and winter, but summers are going to be annoying.

I'm ultimately going to make the  best of things, and I'm finally going to make the solar wall on this face.

First off, Dyami, I have lots of Tyvek left, and I'll be adding that across the entire face.
Next, I'm going to face my fears, and put up more of the tan T-111 on the top 4' of the building. I"d like to do the pallet siding, but the T-111 is already on hand. I have a window opening framed out on the upper section.

Looking at that photo, the doorway is 6' wide and 8' tall. I'm planning on making a solar wall that will be from the 10' line all the way across and framing the doorway opening.

I'm not sure about the doorway yet. I've been sketching some ideas, currently I want to make a Dutch Door and a side light. I'm thinking a full 4' wide with the side light on the right side. (pardon the crude photoshop doodle).

My newfangled bench is currently on that wall, but I'm thinking of re-arranging the shop a bit, and moving the lathe up to the front of the shop instead. To paraphrase Alton Brown, "but that's another post" #GoodEats

That will give me 60 sf of solar collection. I could go all the way up to the eaves, however I'd lose the heat from the upper section, as it would be above the drop ceiling.






Another option altogether is to simply make the entire south wall into a solar collector, and move the entrance over to the West wall. I have a doorway framed in already roughly where the red frame is here:

I wouldn't eliminate the door on that wall, simply turn each half of the door into a smaller collector, adding to the overall gain. I would still make a larger collector where the green squiggles are, and just build new doors which would in effect be solar panels in and of themselves. 

What say ye faithful readers? 

edit:

Dyami asked about my solar plans, well I'm going simple with a design based on info found on http://www.builditsolar.com

I've been planning on a wall similar to what this link shows. I'm considering adding an additional seasonal lean-to similar to this.  I have a Bunch of 4" black flex hose, I'm thinking of punching several 4" holes through in the 'doorway' space for this year, with a solar powered duct fan pulling the heated air into the shop. I figure I can put a 4x8 sheet of OSB and/or foil backed insulation on the bottom, (raised off of the ground) build a simple lean to from roughly the right edge of the window over to the right edge of the building. I'll tack some roofing felt on the side of the building for the winter, that, plus the black hose, and some plastic sheeting and I should get some additional 'free' heat. You can see the box items just below the window, that was a small scale attempt from last fall, which brought a Little heat in, but not enough to warrant putting it back together again.

The solar wall on the south face, Plus the tent/lean to heater will hopefully allow me to woodwork deeper into the winter months if not all the way through the winter, unless we have another bout with arctic conditions for weeks on end like we had this past year.