Green Oak Balls - WIP

[Richard Findley]

Hi all,

I had a commission this week from a lady that was after some large Oak Balls to top off some Gateposts. They needed to be somewhere in the region of 5 1/2" to 6" diamiter and so I went through all of the possible options for her, either laminate several pieces of say 2" Oak to make up the required size, try to find some large Oak posts we could chop up and use or get some logs and use Green Oak for them. Straight away she went for the Green Oak option so I contacted our friend George (Cornucopia) as I knew he's the man for logs of Green Oak.

George said he didn't have any but was planning to get some soon so he called into his friendly log supplier and stocked himself up and ear-marked a log for me too!! (see his pictures in his thread: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/from-woodland-to-lathe-an-oaks-journey-t40768.html)

After a visit to George's I went home with a large block of Oak:

As you can see it's about 8" square and 18" long!! I wasn't sure what my Bandsaw would think of this chunck of wood as it's the biggest bit I'd put through it but it cut it with ease!!:

Probably couldn't get a much bigger bit through the throat though!!

I dodn't usually bother taking the corners off of spindle blanks but as this was so big I did:

Out of interest I checked the moisture with my meter, 40.7 so I knew I was going to get wet !!

I hate turning Green Wood!!! I know that there are a number of guys that love it and hate turning kiln dried stuff but I really can't see the appeal. Everything cast Iron in the workshop got a liberal covering of WD40 before I began because I've fell for that one before, even so, all of my tools turned black, as did my hands and the tool rest dispite the WD40. There was water running down the flute of the gouge for goodness sake :roll: :roll: :shock: :shock: !!!

I held the blanks between centres and turned most of the ball. I'd cut an MDF template to give me a reference.

Once I was happy with the shape I drilled a 12mm hole in the end and rotated the ball and held it between wooden blocks:

Using a shearing cut with the wing of the gouge I smoothed it out. A couple more mountings just to be certain:

And there you have it!! The advantage of the Green Oak was that it cuts quite nicely, sometimes the cuts on the ball when it is rotated can tear the grain but on this the finish off the tool was pretty good. Sanded with 80grit.

I then Epoxied some 12mm Stainless Steel Threaded rod into the holes:

Hey Presto:

Finished with some finishing oil to help preserve them out doors!!

Hope you enjoyed the WIP. Any comments welcome as always.

Cheers

Richard

 

[cornucopia]

Glad to see you finally got around to them Richard- Black everything and water running down the gouge is all part of the fun you should try to embrace it!!!

 

[Daven]

Nice balls :lol: (well someone had to say it!)

Sure they will be pleased with them and will make a nice feature to the gate posts.

Dave

 

[Bodrighy]

I presume they want them to weather in and look old? Getting sphere's that look like sphere's is an art in itself but you seem to have it off to a tee.

Pete

 

[johnny.t.]

Great pair of balls Richard :lol:

Cutting a sphere is really difficult and to my eye they look spot on,good stuff :wink:

JT

 

[Paul.J]

Great job Richard
Bet they look good in situ.

 

[stevebuk]

i expect nothing less than perfection from you Richard :lol: and you have never let me down yet, well done.

 

[The Shark]

Hi Richard,
Looking good as always!
Thanks for going to the trouble of putting up the WIP photos.

Malc

PS: I am in trouble with the Love of my Life for getting wood all over the inside of her car :roll:

 

[Richard Findley]

Thanks all for your comments!!!

George, fun :roll: :roll: :shock: :shock: :wink: :wink: I don't think so!!!!!!

Malc, She'll get over it, they always do.... eventually :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll: !!!!

Cheers

Richard

 

[Apache_sim]

I know this post was originally back in 2010, have the oak balls survived since 2010 despite oaks tendency to split.
The reason I ask is; I have had a request to turn oak finials for fence posts. about 180 mm diameter and 250-300 mm tall.
Is may best option to turn green (wet) wood or to source dry oak and treat the finished finial with oil?

Kind regards
Apache_sim

 

[chipmunk]

I'd be amazed if those balls didn't split although green oak's a lot less likely to split outdoors than indoors.

I think it depends what you want the finials to look like. I like the silvered weathered look of untreated oak and in that case the cheapest way to get there is to turn them green. If you want to treat them (and keep treating them too) then turn them dry but they'll cost much more in timber and it's questionable TBH whether new 6" diameter oak is ever really dry.

HTH
Jon

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

I'm curious on the splitting too. Personally (based on my experience) I would also be pleasantly surprised if they have remained split free.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I suspect the effort to make them perfectly round was wasted.

 

[chipmunk]

I suspect the effort to make them perfectly round was wasted.

...but it's hard to know how round they need to be and the customer pays you when they're delivered not in a year or two when dry.

The really clever thing to do would have been to make them slightly squatter and let the tangential and radial shrinkage make them rounder when dry but they'd still end up being oval in horizontal cross-section whatever you did.

Jon

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Certainly . I think I might have advised rugby ball shaped ones or something different in the first place (and explained why). Still, they may have stayed in shape within reason. (Richard may well have done this, of course - he certainly isn't daft )

 

[Apache_sim]

I've been asked to produce acorns, I was thinking of using fence posts and cut to about 300 mm to produce a 225mm acorn (with some artist licence).