Archive for the 'Woodturning' Category

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The end of the autumn (leaf, that is)

Published on November 23, 2010 in Finishing and Woodturning. Closed Tags: , .

Some of you’ve wondered if I went to sleep or moved away. It’s been days between posts. But actually I’m working with a little start-up, planning their marketing. And, like all new companies, it takes a lot of time. Plus, the holidays are starting to take their toll in tasks.

this spot of end grain created some finishing challenges.

Anyway… I sprayed several coats of amber shellac on the leaf plate, but the blotch in the photo, where a branch passed through the plane of the plate, absorbed finish unevenly. The result was a dull spot. Fortunately, since I used a shellac finish, the solution was ready at hand—French polish.

French polish was probably the first gloss finish, before the age of sandpaper. It’s achieved by applying lots (and lots) of super-thin coats of shellac to a piece. It’s very labor-intensive, so it’s rarely used anymore, but it’s a quick solution to problems such as this.

I put three cotton balls in the middle of a small, lint-free, cotton rag. I poured a little clear shellac into them, then twisted the rag tightly around them to make up a “rubber”. I took care that the bottom was smooth, without wrinkles. Then, I put a drop of oil on the bottom of the rubber, which was just damp with shellac.

Here’s the leaf plate wearing its final finish.

Now, using a motion like an airplane landing and taking off again, I “touched down” on the spot and glided off again, let it dry for a moment, then did it again and again (and a lot more). Each time, the spot got a little glossier. Finally, the sheen matched that of the surrounding area, and I could let things dry for several days.

Coming back to the piece once it was thoroughly dry, I did my favorite final rubout. I rubbed the piece with 0000 steel wool, using paste wax as a lubricant. I let the wax harden for half an hour or so, then buffed the surfaces to an even, satin sheen. Now the plate’s on the shelf, ready to be a Christmas gift.

Details, details

Published on October 29, 2010 in Finishing and Woodturning. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Burning veins into the leaf.

We recognize a leaf by more than its shape. There’s veining and color as well. Time to add those things.

I could see the veins clearly in the original photo, so I added them with pyrography—burning freehand sweeping curves into the wood with the skew-chisel-shaped handpiece you see in the photo. I kept the heat relatively low, about 4 on a scale of ten, so lines would stay narrow and sharp with minimal charring of the surrounding wood.

Coloring with water-based dye.

Coloring the leaf with water-based dye.

Once I was satisfied with the veining, I laid down an overall color wash using water-based dye. Since the background color of the leaf in the photo seemed to be yellow, I used W.D. Lockwood’s Canary Yellow dye. This is a water-soluble powder that I mix up and keep in concentrated form in squeeze bottles. Then, when I need some for a project such as this, I dilute the concentrate with distilled water. I like to keep the dye a bit weak, since I can always put on more coats to get a stronger color, but it’s a little harder to evenly remove too strong a color. In the photo, I’ve stained half the leaf so you can see the effect relative to bare wood.

Leaf with background color drying.

Water-based dyes raise the grain, so I lightly sanded with my final grit (#220) to cut off the whiskers between coats.

At left you can see the leaf as it looked on the drying mat when this stage was complete. The veins show nicely through the yellow dye. Note that the branch area, at about 2:30 in the picture, took the dye differently from the rest of the plate. This would also be an issue later, when time came to apply a finish.

Next, adding detail colors.

Back to nature—cutting leaves on compound curves

Published on October 27, 2010 in Woodturning. 6 Comments Tags: .

The leaf template on the upside down bowl.

The hard part of cutting turned plates into interesting shapes is getting the outline onto the plate. My autumn leaf was a photo, and Illustrator turned it into a two-dimensional cartoon. But the plate surface was a compound curve.

I started by superimposing on the leaf cartoon a pair of concentric circles. One just enclosed the leaf. the second was just a little larger than the base of the plate I’d turned. I printed out the diagram full size—about 8″ in diameter in this case.

I cut around the central circle with scissors, so I could lay the diagram over the bottom of the bowl, as shown above. If the surface had been flat, I could then have just glued the printout to the wood and cut along the lines. But that wouldn’t work here.

Saral transfer paper

What did work was a modern kind of “carbon paper” (if you’re old enough to remember typewriters) called Saral. This is a wax-free transfer paper, available in several colors (to work with light or dark surfaces). You can order a free sample pack here to try it out.

I held the printout in place on one side of the plate, then slipped the Saral sheet under the other side and traced over the leaf outline in that area, transferring it onto the plate surface. Then I just worked my way around the plate, until I had transferred the entire outline.

Cutting out the marked plate.

With the outline on the plate, I could stretch things here and there to better fit my turning. I wanted to be sure to include that branch knot you see in the foreground of the photo. When I was satisfied, I set the plate upside down on my scroll saw table and cut along the lines. All the way around without breaking a blade! (I don’t use the saw much, so I’m not that good at it, generally).

Next, adding leaf details.

An autumn leaf plate

Published on October 22, 2010 in Finishing and Woodturning. Closed Tags: , .

A turned autumn leaf plate

Recently, a turning class student asked how to make sculptural turned plates, such as the (approx. 9″) plate at the left. The answer involves bowl turning, cutting, woodburning, and coloring—enough stuff to make it interesting. As it happens, I need to make something such as this for my turning club’s “seasonal” project next month. The next few posts will take us through the creation of such a plate.

The features of the plate are its shape and color. This means selecting a wood without distinctive grain so it won’t compete for attention.  I chose birch, a light and relatively soft wood that turns well, though it can fuzz up a bit.

The birch plate, ready for processing

The first step was to turn a plate—an open form with a shallow foot. This would give me the overall shape, and would allow the finished piece to actually hold something—candies or cookies, perhaps. I sanded all surfaces to #220. If you look closely at the picture on the left, you’ll see a tiny crack hear the rim at the 1PM position. I’ll have to plan my cutting around it.

The plate bottom, showing a small foot and the crack.

I need a “seasonal” theme. Around my home, leaves are turning from summer green to autumn flame, so a brightly-colored leaf seems perfect. A quick search through Google Images for a large “autumn leaf” yields lots of choices. I download a picture of a grape leaf with a shape I like, and print it out, above. This gives me a reference for color and vein position.

I open the leaf image in a drawing program (Adobe Illustrator, in this case), and have the software trace the leaf for me, so I can isolate it from its background. Then I can smooth and simplify the illustration to produce an outline I can use to cut out the leaf.

Next: cutting out the leaf shape.

Finish bowl feet with a donut chuck

Published on May 30, 2010 in Uncategorized and Woodturning. Closed Tags: .

Looking for an inexpensive approach to finishing the feet of your turned bowls? See the Q&A section for a new article on making a donut chuck.