I spent some time this weekend organizing my workshop. It often feels like I spend more time organizing my workshop than I do working on stuff. A big part of the problem is I keep on buying stuff and then I have to find a home for it in an already crowded space. A smart person might realize this and quit buying stuff, I prefer to spend my weekends trying to find a place to put it all
Something that has been bugging me for a while is where and how to store my donut chuck. I use it often so it needs to be close to the lathe, but at just under 16″ diameter and consisting of a couple pieces 3/4″ plywood along with a heavy dedicated face plate, it is fairly bulky and heavy. Inspiration struck me and I decided to hang it on the wall behind my lathe using a threaded wooden dowel. The following post shows how I threaded the dowel with 1 1/4″ x 8 threads to match those on the face plate. Thanks to Al Hockenbery for the advice he gave me on the AAW forum.
The first step was to measure the large diameter of the threads on my lathe. Strangely enough that came to 1 1/4″. Who would have guessed that! Now I know why it is called a 1 1/4″ x 8 thread!
I then rounded a piece of scrap wood between centersto the same diameter, tapering one end slightly.
Then, using the faceplate that I had dedicated to my donut chuck, I cut threads in the dowel. Tapering the end of the dowel helped a lot in getting the threads started. I also found that reducing the overall diameter of the dowel from 1 1/4″ helped as well. Once I had done this, screwing the dowel into the face plate and cutting the threads, was a lot easier. Making the dowel about 8 to 10″ long also helped as it gave me a decent place to grip with both hands. The threads did not look as good as those on a metal bolt, nor were they as deep, but they worked just fine.
Once that was done I mounted the dowel in a chuck and predrilled a hole for the screw that was going to be used to attach the dowel to the plywood.
Measured to length and parted the dowel off.
Not trusting the holding power of a screw into plywood, I put some wood glue on the back of the dowel before screwing it to the plywood partition. I was concerned that when I unscrewed the donut chuck from it’s new resting place, that the screw holding the dowel on would unscrew from the plywood. Here is a shot of the threaded dowel mounted.
A shot of the donut chuck screwed onto the dowel. I made the dowel about 2 1/2″ long, giving me room to hang the front section of the donut chuck on the dowel as well.
Excited with my new threading abilities, I made some more threaded dowels, and decorated the wall with my sanding disc and my vacuum chucks as well. I was surprised how well the wooden face plates on the vacuum chucks threaded onto the wooden threaded dowel. They actually threaded on easier than the metal faceplate on the back of the donut chuck. I did find that a dab of paste wax on the threads helped lubricate them.
As I mentioned in the previous post, my trip to the 2010 Florida Woodturning Symposium started with a workshop with Dixie Biggs. I have admired Dixie’s work for a long time, so I was really excited about meeting her and the opportunity to take the workshop with her. I was not disappointed!
Dixie Biggs offering some advice during the workshop
Prior to the workshop Dixie sent out an e-mail with a list of supplies she wanted everyone to bring to the workshop. The list included a variety of carving burrs. This was her basic recmmendation, all available from MDI Woodcarvers Supply:
Stump cutter #20-B5
Mini Stump cutter # 21-SET36
Mini Stump cutter # 21-SET39
Diamond cutter set #17-20SET
Kutzalls bur #12-3F1
Not a long list, it came to around $50 with shipping, and I was pleased to find out at the workshop that this set of carving burrs would enable me to get a good start with carving. As an aside I found the service from MDI Woodcarvers Supply to be excellent. The burrs arrived within a couple of days and they had substituted the 12-3F1 burr, which was out of stock, with a more expensive 37-3F1Y burr for no extra charge. There was even a hand written note explaining what they had done and telling me that if I was in Dixie’s class she was aware of the change.
The image below shows my efforts from the workshop. As it was one of my first attempt at carving I was quite pleased with it.
Work in progress
Dixie work primarily consists of carved leaves. To that end she has a Tupperware case of dried leaves that she uses as patterns. She also has a case of patterns that she has transferred onto a material called Borco. Also called Vyco board cover, it is the plastic board cover used on drafting tables and drawing boards. It is easily cut with a pair of scissors or utility knife and is pliable so that it can be bent around the surface of a bowl while you trace the pattern onto your workpiece. While the the Vyco has the advantage of being more durable than a dried leaf, it has the disadvantage that you are not able to observe the finer details and contours of the leaf. A quick online search for “Vyco board cover” revealed this result.
Gene and Nancy O'Donnell carving up a storm
To get us started, Dixie provided us with some leaf templates which we traced onto our workpiece. She then outlined the steps needed to carve the leaves. They were as follows:
Carve out the outline of the two leaves. This thin outline needs to be carved to the final depth of the leaves. While carving the burr needs to be held so that it is cutting at 90 degrees to the surface of the piece.
Then carve away the area around the leaves to establish the background.
With the background of the two leaves established, you then carve the outline of where the two leaves overlap.
Then an area of the lower leaf is carved away so that part of the lower leaf is below the level of the upper leaf. You don’t need to carve the whole lower leaf to achieve this, just the section that is close to the upper leaf. Note also that this carving does not go as deep as your background carving.
If you want to show the veins of the leaves, these are now carved. I chose not to do this.
The two leaves are then shaped by carving their surface contours and undulations. This is best achieved by observing an actual leaf and seeing how the contours of the leaf flow from the edges and the various veins.
Then the surface of the leaf is smoothed and sanded using finer burrs and sandpaper. (I did not have time to get started on this during the workshop)
Lastly the leaves are undercut to allow them to stand out from the background. When undercutting the stems, Dixie emphasized the importance of being careful as the stems are pretty delicate.
Yours truly engrossed in my carving
Listening to Dixie talk it became obvious that observation and procedures where important in carving. You need to observe the leaf closely in order to replicate it while carving and the steps you follow while carving are important to the final outcome.
During the workshop Dixie provided us with a list of carving supply sources:
This last weekend I attended the Florida Woodturning Symposium in Lake Yale, FL. To say that I had a great weekend is an understatement! It was such a pleasure to be able to immerse myself in wood turning for three days.
My trip started out early Friday morning. I had to leave the house before 6am to get to the venue as I was scheduled to do a workshop with Dixie Biggs at 8:30am on Friday. The workshop was great. Dixie, is obviously a great teacher as well as an amazing artist. I have just started to get into carving, my rotary carver is barely broken in yet, and was concerned that I might be “that guy” holding the rest of the class back. Fortunately most of the class was in the same situation, although I think Dixie is more than capable of handling a class with a variety of experience levels. There were only seven of us in the class, so we were really able to get some one on one time with Dixie.
I was also pleased that I was able to get some valuable information about what burrs to buy. I had been doing some research and with the huge assortment available I was getting pretty confused. I was starting to feel that if you ever think you have run out of tools to throw your money at, then you should get into power carving. Dixie gave us a list of a dozen or so burrs to bring to the class, and it seems that this will be a good selection to get started with.
After the workshop, the demonstration rotations started. Well, truth be told, we had lunch after the workshop and then the rotations started. It quickly became obvious that wood turners like to eat and they like to eat often!!
The list of demonstrators that I managed to see over the weekend were as follows:
Watching a total of eight demonstrations over a 48 hour period can be a bit of information overload! I plan on posting about some of the demonstrations over the next couple of weeks, as I process the information. I learnt a lot and there were a number of things that I saw which left me thinking, “I have to try that!”
In between the demonstrations and all the meals, I spent plenty of time in the main auditorium area where the vendors and the instant gallery were set up. While the vendors provided plenty of irresistible temptation, the instant gallery was a constant source of inspiration and motivation! I’m always amazed at the talent and creativity I see from other turners.
I took plenty of pictures of the pieces that I really liked and have created an album for those not lucky enough to be there. You can view it at this link. I hope you enjoy the images!
It’s that time of the year again. At the beginning of each year we start getting a ton of paper left at our front door in the form of phone books. It drives me nuts. I can’t remember the last time I used a phone book to look up a number or a business. In this internet age if I need to find information I turn to my computer and a search engine. To my mind the yellow and white pages, at least the print form, are obsolete.
The image below shows the pile of phone books which I carried to our recycle bin this morning. Not one of these were ever opened, nor were any of them ever requested. They were just dumped on my doorstep.
This year I resolved to do something about it. My first instinct was to go to the source of the problem at yellowpages.com Well, that proved a bit fruitless. Ten to fifteen minutes of searching on their site proved that if they had an opt out option available, they didn’t want anyone to find it.
After some more searching on the internet I came across a movement called Yellow Pages Goes Green. Yellowpagesgoesgreen.org is an organization working to educate consumers and promote a movement to eliminate unsolicited delivery of Yellow and White Pages books. You fill out a simple form on their site and they will contact the publishers on your behalf and inform them that you have chosen to “opt out” of delivery of the phone books. After filling out the form you will receive an e-mail and there is a link in the e-mail which you must click on to confirm your sign up. The service is free to you.
Looking at the pile of books that I had heading out to the recycle bin, I realized that not all of them were the Yellow Pages. A bit more research and I found another website, Yellow Pages Opt Out. By entering my zip code at this site I was able to get a list of publishers that distributed in my local area. This included my local Chamber of Commerce, Yellow Book, AT & T and The Complete Phone Book. The list also included phone numbers and e-mail addresses to contact in order to opt out.
Another large publisher of phone books is Dex. They do not distribute in my area, but you can get opr out information by entering your zip code at Select Your Dex.
Over 500 million of these directories are printed every year. That is nearly two books for every person in the country! These directories produce a staggering amount of waste, not only in terms of misused natural resources but also in filling of valuable landfill space.
To produce 500 million books:
19 million trees need to be harvested
1.6 billion pounds of paper are wasted
7.2 million barrels of oil are misspent in their processing (not including the wasted gas used for their delivery to your doorstep)
268,000 cubic yards of landfill are taken up
3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity are squandered
The cost associated with the delivery and disposal of these books is exorbitant. Unfortunately, these unsolicited costs fall heavily on consumers. Why are we paying for something that was delivered to our homes and offices that we did not ask for?
Every now and then I buy a tool/gadget that takes a time consuming process and just simplifies it. Yesterday I picked up a chuck reversing adapter from my local Woodcraft, and is it going to make life easy!
A chuck reversing adapter is used to take a turning that is mounted in a chuck on the headstock and rotate it and mount it on the tail stock so that you can align or center it correctly while mounting on a vacuum chuck or donut chuck prior to finishing the bottom of the piece. Or to put it more simply, it is a piece of metal with a morse taper on one side and a thread on the other that matches your chuck.
I normally don’t have any problems reversing a vessel with a wide rim, especially when using my donut chuck. However, for pieces with a narrow rim, like hollow forms, I have been struggling with alignment when reversing. The chuck reversing adapter has solved that. The following pictures illustrate how it is used.
Here is a hollow form that I’ve finished hollowing and am now ready to reverse and finish off the bottom. Without removing the piece from the chuck, I unscrew the chuck from the headstock and set it aside.
I then mount the back piece of my donut chuck to the headstock. You can see in the above image that I have attached a piece of scrap wood to the center and have turned it to a cone shape. Then I attached a couple of pieces of self adhesive fun foam. This cone will go into the mouth of the hollow form.
I then mounted the chuck reversing adapter into the tail stock and threaded the chuck onto it. Note, the chuck reversing adapter is not a live center! It does not rotate in the tail stock as it has no bearings. It is a temporary method to hold the chuck in the tail stock in alignment with the headstock. Don’t start the lathe with it in place, you’ll ruin your whole day!
The tail stock was then slid forward till the workpiece was almost touching the donut chuck. Then I locked the tail stock in place and advanced the spindle using the hand wheel until the workpiece was snug against the donut chuck, taking care not to crush it. The front piece of the donut chuck was then secured in place with the bolts.
I then loosened the chuck on the tenon of the hollow form, and withdrew the tail stock. The donut chuck held the piece securely and correctly aligned.
I then put a live center in the tail stock and brought it up to the work piece in order to turn the bulk of the tenon off, leaving just a small nub. It’s a good practice to support the work piece whenever you can using the tail stock.
The last little nub was removed with the tail stock out of the way and then the bottom of the piece was sanded.
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