Brownie points my bottom you'll be in with diamond awards with that. Ho ho ho.
Post a photo of the last thing you turned
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That is really stunning. She must be well chuffed 
Owd Jockey
Established Member
Fantastic concept well turned and built, well done Stig
Stig that’s outstanding work your a true master of our noble art .
Happy new year to you both
Happy new year to you both
Stigmorgan
Established Member
Thanks @pat from Marck @Fergie 307 @Owd Jockey , she does love it and now feels guilty she didn't get me anything (we're broke and anything I'd want is expensive), originally I was aiming for something with light as often happens a design change was required 
im pretty happy with it but not 100% sure about how well the rings will hold as they move with the humidity, hopefully being attached permanently by only the 1.5mm thick wire and supported by double sided tape will allow everything to move without blowing apart 
@Mick p thanks Mick, not sure about being a master, maybe an experienced novice
. A happy new year to you and the wife 
im pretty happy with it but not 100% sure about how well the rings will hold as they move with the humidity, hopefully being attached permanently by only the 1.5mm thick wire and supported by double sided tape will allow everything to move without blowing apart @Mick p thanks Mick, not sure about being a master, maybe an experienced novice
. A happy new year to you and the wife
Don’t undersell yourself mate excellent ideaThanks @pat from Marck @Fergie 307 @Owd Jockey , she does love it and now feels guilty she didn't get me anything (we're broke and anything I'd want is expensive), originally I was aiming for something with light as often happens a design change was required
@Mick p thanks Mick, not sure about being a master, maybe an experienced novice
Owd Jockey
Established Member
In continuation of my earlier post re: how I process a recently felled section of Alder trunk into a bowl, for those who have never done this before...
Ok, so for the next stage, we have two main objectives; the first is getting the piece ‘into round’ and second turning a tenon or a mortice onto the base of the piece. Personally I prefer to start at the base, as the concentric force of the piece is much lower. However, the first 45 minutes of turning is very very uncomfortable. The majority of the time you are simply turning air and the tool/rest and your hands are subject to almost continuous jarring. So this is the time for great patience, progress will be slow but the consequences of being impatient and greedy in your cuts could spell disaster for your work-piece, tools and You!
From the start keep your RPM down and roughing gouge addressed to the work piece at a very steep angle. For my Alder piece I kicked things off at approx 180 RPM and slowly increased the revs as the piece became more round working from bottom to top
The big difference between turning a ‘blank’ and a rough piece of wood is knowing what the final piece will look like. With a ‘blank’ you know exactly what you will get (assuming of course you make the correct cuts!). Turning a rough piece of ‘green’ wood means you are at the mercy of nature and the “Tree Gods” ; and so it turned out for me with the piece of Alder. A depression in just one side of the piece had me having to adjust the height of the piece. As I moved closer to the top bowl the turning become more comfortable, although I did have a steady stream of bark and water fling past the visor.After finishing the ‘rough’ outside I opted to turn a tenon which I attached my lathe chuck to.
I remounted the piece and brought up the tail stock to provide additional support while I gouged out the mass of the bowl itself. Once I was happy with the rough shape of the bowl I measured its moisture content, which was all over the place, the sapwood was almost bone dry (about 11%), but parts of the heartwood ranged from 18 to 24%.
So another difference between between a ‘blank’ and green wood is having to dry the piece to enable it to be remounted and finished off. Personally I have tried 3 ways of drying my green wood; the first involved covering the piece in it’s own wood shavings, wrapped in newspaper, then stored in the garage and letting the piece dry out naturally, which could be up to a couple of years. It certainly did not stop the pieces from developing ‘cracks’. I gave up on this method, but hats off to those that have patience to make this method succesful. My second method appears draconian, but was very effective. This involved using a microwave, setting the power to 80% then running for 60 seconds (depending on size of piece) then checking for incipient cracks and subsequently applying a dab of CA glue to the crack which cured the problem. The piece was left to cool and the process repeated. So obviously, two big disadvantages with this method a) the size of the piece may be too large for the microwave and b) This drying had to be repeated up 20 to 40 times! The method of drying wood I now use is my wood kiln, which I built from a Beko Freezer, with two light sconces at the base housing 60 watt incandescent light bulbs, a cold air entry hole at the base and a hot air exhaust at the top. Also an air temperature control switch , which turned the power once the optimum drying temperature of 49 deg C was reached. The wood kiln is also used for heating the wood used for our wood burner.
So the Alder bowl is now in the Wood kiln, where I will frequently check for any incipient cracks. The bowl could be in the kiln for about 4 days, but we’ll see how it goes...............................
Ok, so for the next stage, we have two main objectives; the first is getting the piece ‘into round’ and second turning a tenon or a mortice onto the base of the piece. Personally I prefer to start at the base, as the concentric force of the piece is much lower. However, the first 45 minutes of turning is very very uncomfortable. The majority of the time you are simply turning air and the tool/rest and your hands are subject to almost continuous jarring. So this is the time for great patience, progress will be slow but the consequences of being impatient and greedy in your cuts could spell disaster for your work-piece, tools and You!
From the start keep your RPM down and roughing gouge addressed to the work piece at a very steep angle. For my Alder piece I kicked things off at approx 180 RPM and slowly increased the revs as the piece became more round working from bottom to top
The big difference between turning a ‘blank’ and a rough piece of wood is knowing what the final piece will look like. With a ‘blank’ you know exactly what you will get (assuming of course you make the correct cuts!). Turning a rough piece of ‘green’ wood means you are at the mercy of nature and the “Tree Gods” ; and so it turned out for me with the piece of Alder. A depression in just one side of the piece had me having to adjust the height of the piece. As I moved closer to the top bowl the turning become more comfortable, although I did have a steady stream of bark and water fling past the visor.After finishing the ‘rough’ outside I opted to turn a tenon which I attached my lathe chuck to.
I remounted the piece and brought up the tail stock to provide additional support while I gouged out the mass of the bowl itself. Once I was happy with the rough shape of the bowl I measured its moisture content, which was all over the place, the sapwood was almost bone dry (about 11%), but parts of the heartwood ranged from 18 to 24%.
So another difference between between a ‘blank’ and green wood is having to dry the piece to enable it to be remounted and finished off. Personally I have tried 3 ways of drying my green wood; the first involved covering the piece in it’s own wood shavings, wrapped in newspaper, then stored in the garage and letting the piece dry out naturally, which could be up to a couple of years. It certainly did not stop the pieces from developing ‘cracks’. I gave up on this method, but hats off to those that have patience to make this method succesful. My second method appears draconian, but was very effective. This involved using a microwave, setting the power to 80% then running for 60 seconds (depending on size of piece) then checking for incipient cracks and subsequently applying a dab of CA glue to the crack which cured the problem. The piece was left to cool and the process repeated. So obviously, two big disadvantages with this method a) the size of the piece may be too large for the microwave and b) This drying had to be repeated up 20 to 40 times! The method of drying wood I now use is my wood kiln, which I built from a Beko Freezer, with two light sconces at the base housing 60 watt incandescent light bulbs, a cold air entry hole at the base and a hot air exhaust at the top. Also an air temperature control switch , which turned the power once the optimum drying temperature of 49 deg C was reached. The wood kiln is also used for heating the wood used for our wood burner.
So the Alder bowl is now in the Wood kiln, where I will frequently check for any incipient cracks. The bowl could be in the kiln for about 4 days, but we’ll see how it goes...............................
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