I finally got a chance to play with the chatter tool I made. My initial experiments were pretty disappointing. The tool was “screeching” as it is supposed to, but I only seemed to be able to put spiral grooves on the test piece. My first thought was that the blade was not thick enough and I was getting too much “deflection” and not enough “chatter”. I had used on old jigsaw blade, so I took an old sawzall blade and cut and shaped that. Even though it was wider, and offer less give, I was still just getting spiral grooves.
So I took the two blades back to the grinder and ground a very slight bevel on the edges. More importantly I rounded over the point of the blade so that instead of coming to a sharp point it came to a blunt, slightly round point. Immediately I started to see improvements! Both the jig saw blade and the sawzall blade worked great, although they did produce different patterns.
There are no shortage of patterns you can get with the chatter tool. Whether any of them are repeatable is open to debate though! A number of variables affect the pattern.
The amount of the blade sticking out the tool.
The distance from the tool rest to the work piece.
The speed of the lathe.
How hard you push the tool into the work piece.
How quickly you move the cutting edge across the work piece.
How many times you move the cutting edge across the work piece.
The angle the cutting edge is presented.
The image below shows some examples. I colored the patterns with a black permanent marker so they would show better in the image.
A chatter tool is used primarily in end grain, so applications include embellishments on box lids, spinning tops etc. The chatter tool will work better on hardwoods than softwoods.
After spending an hour or so playing with the tool, I feel the most important variables are lathe speed and distance of the tool rest from the work piece. For the most part the tool is presented so that the blade is horizontal and the handle is closer to you than the blade. The tool rest is about 4 to 6″ from the workpiece and lathe speed is around 1000 rpm. The blade is pushed into the wood and then pulled from the center to the edge. Rotating the tool slightly counter clockwise will change the pattern achieved, but it will also cause the tool to move towards the edge of the work piece a lot faster!! I found lathe speeds between 750 and 1800 worked with an optimum range between 1000 and 1200.
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Last weekend our woodturning club, North Florida Woodturning Association, had the good fortune of hosting Al Hockenbery and his wife Sherry for a demonstration and hands on session. The demonstration was an all day demo on Saturday and the hands on session, with six of the club members was on Sunday.
Al was a great demonstrator! He both informed and entertained. Edutainment at it’s best. One of the things I really enjoyed was that he shared many hints and tips as he demonstrated that were not necessarily part of the demo, but an opportunity in the demo arose where he was able to segue and share more of his woodturning experience.
He demonstrated a number of pieces to us, including a natural edge bowl, rough turning a large salad bowl, a natural edge hollow form and his “ball in a ball”.
Turning a natural edge bowl
Turning a natural edge bowl
Hollowing the natural edge bowl
The finished bowl
Shaping the outside of a natural edge hollow form
Shaping the outside of a natural edge hollow form
Holding a wooden ball for hollowing using a Strata Chuck
Hollowing the wooden ball so that a golf ball can be inserted
I’ve been wanting to try some different embellishment techniques, one of which was chatter work. However I kept on balking at the price of a new chatter tool. I decided to make my own. It cost me $3.00 and a hour or two on a Sunday afternoon.
I got a 1/2″ x 10″ nipple from the plumbing department at the home improvement store, along with a 3/4″ long 1/4 20 bolt. The rest of the materials I used were in the shop already including a used jigsaw blade.
I mounted the pipe between centers on the lathe and after a bit of sanding it was nice and shiny. I then cut the threads off one end and drilled and tapped a 1/4 20 thread about 3/4″ back from that end.
The next step was to mount a cherry pen blank in a chuck and turn it down to 1/2″ so that if fit inside the pipe. I only turned down the first couple of inches, and then put it in a vise and cut it lengthwise. This off cut was then glued into the pipe with CA glue, the bolt served as a clamp.
After turning the block of wood to be used as a handle round, I drilled it to fit the the OD of the pipe. Unfortunately, the OD of the pipe was around 13/16″ and the only forstner bits I had were 3/4″ and 7/8″. So I drilled with the 3/4″ and then widened the hole using a square edge scraper until the pipe fit inside. The image below show the handle shaped and sanded, just prior to being parted off.
I’m playing with dyes at the moment, so I applied a red dye to the handle and then a couple of coats of shellac. While I was waiting for the shellac to dry, I ground the teeth off the jigsaw blade, shaped the point of the blade and bent it as in the image below.
The completed tool, ready for testing! Did I mention how nice and shiny it is!
I’ll show some pictures in a future post of the results from the tool. I also have a couple more jig saw blades and some sawzall blades. I plan on experimenting a bit with the different blades and profiles and see what sort of results I get.
If you’ve made a chatter tool let me know what type of blade and profile you got the best results with by posting a comment. Thanks.
Update: I got a chance to experiment with the chatter tool and have posted some images and comments. You can view that post here.
Uphill or downhill. Cutting with the grain or against the grain. Understanding how the grain is orientated on the lathe and which direction to cut in order to get the smoothest cuts possible can be confusing.
Brian Clifford has a great article on his site The Woodturners Workshop which illustrates these concepts very clearly. Here is an brief extract from the article. To read the full article please visit Brian’s site here.
7.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter, in thinking about the way the tool cuts, three important factors were temporarily ignored. These are :
the question of grain and its direction
the rotation of the work-piece
the fact that the cutting edge is often held at an angle to the direction in which the wood is moving (the slicing cut)
7.2 The concept of grain
The cells of the wood, which take the form of hollow cylinders, join together to form strands of fibres which lie in a uniform direction which is more or less axial either to the trunk or to its offshoots. The lay of the fibres is commonly referred to as the ‘grain’.
Diagram 7.1 Primary forms of cutDiagram 7.1 shows a block of wood in which the grain is running longitudinally. Three tools are shown as if about to make cuts in the directions indicated by the arrows. These illustrate the three primary forms of cut; as defined in the common expressions of:
cutting along the grain (A);
cutting across the grain (B);
cutting end grain (C).
In practice of course, particularly in woodturning, there is an infinite range of variations on these cuts. Not only can any number of intermediate positions between those shown be taken up but the edge of the tool does not necessarily have to be held at 90 degrees to the direction in which the wood is moving. It should be noted that in Diagram 7.1 the wood is assumed to be stationary and the tool to be moving. Often, in woodturning both the wood and the tool are moving, but with the wood moving faster than the tool. For the purposes of analysis, in this particular context, this does not matter; all that we are concerned with here is the movement of the wood and the cutting edge in relation to each other.
7.3 Cutting along the grain
Anybody who has worked wood with a hand plane will know that it is desirable to plane with the grain. Diagram 7.2 illustrates the common situation in which the fibres of the wood lie at an angle to the edges of the wood block.
Diagram 7.2 Planing with and against the grainWhen the wood is planed with the grain any splitting between the fibres takes place above and in front of the cutting edge, which subsequently severs the fibres neatly, so leaving a clean surface, as shown in Diagram 7.3.
Diagram 7.3 Cutting with the grain Based on: Bruce Hoadley, Understanding Wood, The Taunton Press (1980) – p150
If an attempt is made to plane against the grain the cutting edge picks up the ends of the fibres, lifting them out of the wood, so that they break off in an irregular manner leaving a rough finish. This is illustrated in Diagram 7.4.
Diagram 7.4 Cutting against the grain Based on: Bruce Hoadley, Understanding Wood, The Taunton Press (1980) – p150
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