Hardwood Dish/platter

[martin.pearson]

Looking for some advice on making an Oak dish/platter, it will be 16" in diameter & about 2" in height. I am now wondering if I should be making this using pieces glued together rather than one large piece as there will be a lot of material removed from the one side & not so much from the other.
At what sort of size do you need to start thinking about glueing boards together to help prevent problems from wood movement.
Most of the items I make are small so this isn't something I have really thought about up until now lol
Any advice on the best way to glue up would also be helpful not just to help prevent warping/bowing but also for the appearance of the finished project.

 

[Wood4me]

Are you going to 'turn' or 'carve ' the platter? Either way , I would go for a single piece of well seasoned oak where the quality of the appearance is from its natural grain, not from gluing bits together

 

[Sean Hellman]

I you can buy a wide board that is quarter sawn, this will eliminate any warping.

 

[Owd Jockey]

I was fortunate last year to be given a large Black Pine (Corsican/ Austrian Pine) from a friend. I intended to turn a number of large platters some up to 20" in diameter. First I had to upgrade my lathe to enable a much slower speed and fabricate a new floor mounted tool rest. After rough turning I was able to fit the largest of the platters into my 'Fridge Kiln', equipped with 2 x 40watt incandescent light bulbs for a couple of weeks prior to final turning. I finished with Osmo Top Oil (food Safe). The only platter I gave a high wax gloss finish to was an interesting piece requiring neutralising the mould/spalting. The results were good. All the platters were donated to various charities for re-sale or given to friends and family.

Good luck with your pieces, although I am envious of the Oak. Personally I would always go with the single piece, if available.

 

[martin.pearson]

Thanks for the feedback, I wasn't sure what sort of size could be produced without worrying too much about warping. As this is a paid job & a retirement gift I would rather not have the Customer return later saying that there are problems with it.

This will be produced mainly on a CNC machine, I don't do a lot of hand turning because it causes a lot of problems with my arthritis plus this dish/platter will have a company Logo, some Celtic artwork & some text engraved on it. For health reasons, I do as little actual hand work as possible & make use of machinery & power tools as much as possible. I know some don't like that but for me it's a way of being able to do what I enjoy.
Oak was the customer's choice but I work with Hardwoods most of the time. I buy most of my Timber from a local sawmill Kiln dried & have had good results engraving Scottish Oak so the only concern was the amount of timber removed from just one side. Most of my projects are relatively small so it's not really something I have had to think about to much lol.

 

[Hornbeam]

Love the fridge kiln

 

[martin.pearson]

Love the fridge kiln

+1 on that, will need to learn more about this, looked at building a solar kiln in my garden a few years ago but it was one of those jobs that I never got round to for one reason or another lol

 

[MARK.B.]

Love the fridge kiln

Neat idea,always plenty of fridges/freezers at the local tip, think i would use a small tubular heater with thermostat in place of the light bulbs.

 

[Owd Jockey]

Here are a few extra photos for my set up. I source incandescent light bulbs off Ebay. I can crudely control the temperature by blocking off the exhaust hole with a spongy scourer, but the actual on/off control is by the thermostat controller attached to the outside. After viewing other peoples attempts it seems that 49deg C. is the optimum temp for drying. I have 5Kw of Solar panels on the roof, so I have an abundance of cheap/free electricity.

 

[alex robinson]

I was fortunate last year to be given a large Black Pine (Corsican/ Austrian Pine) from a friend. I intended to turn a number of large platters some up to 20" in diameter. First I had to upgrade my lathe to enable a much slower speed and fabricate a new floor mounted tool rest. After rough turning I was able to fit the largest of the platters into my 'Fridge Kiln', equipped with 2 x 40watt incandescent light bulbs for a couple of weeks prior to final turning. I finished with Osmo Top Oil (food Safe). The only platter I gave a high wax gloss finish to was an interesting piece requiring neutralising the mould/spalting. The results were good. All the platters were donated to various charities for re-sale or given to friends and family.

Good luck with your pieces, although I am envious of the Oak. Personally I would always go with the single piece, if available.

I love your external bowl turning rest. Do you mind posting a couple more pictures of it? What is it made of? I hate how bouncy and flimsy mine feels.