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Spacer Lamination Adjustment?

K7TXA / Jim

PRO Member
I've never built a bowl with vertical spacers and thought I'd give it a try. So, I set up the software to have 1/4" spacers and the segment sizes were automatically adjusted accordingly to account for them. But, what if I want to incorporate thin, dark laminate pieces on either side of the spacers to make them stand out more? I don't see a place to have WTP adjust for that. Have I missed something, or is it that they are usually so thin that they don't add that much to the bowl diameter/circumference?

Thanks, Jim
 
- It is my experience that most spacers are thin 0.125 or less.

WTP only allows for one for one space size. If you want to have 0.25" spacer with a very thin laminate on either side of the spacer, Then just put in the width of the spacer. (example. 0.0625+ 0.25+ 0.0625 = 0.375)\

If you want to see exactly how it will look you can use a graphic program to create a species of the spacer and import it into the species list in WTP.
 
Hi - thanks for the quick reply. I had also thought about doing that but figured doing so might mess up the calculation of wood needed for the 1/4" spacer. Guess there is no "perfect" solution for this one!

Along those same lines, do most folks simply buy thin laminates, or try to produce 1/8" material on the table/band saw?
 
I have done both. I have made my own 1/8: thick spacers. I also have purchased very thin veneer packages from places like Rockler's.

imo, spacers are thin material used to highlight. They generally are 1/8" or thinner.

Depending how precise you are wanting your vessel dimension to be you can add very thin veneer to the 1/4 and not worry about it changing the ring diameter that much. I tend to slightly overbuild. If I want a 6 inch ring I will design it to be 6 1/4 to 6 1/8 and turn it down to 6 inches.

Another thing to consider is in WTP setup. You can set the calculations to metric, imperial inches or nearest 1/16, 1/32, or 1/64th.
The selected settings will impact the calculations because of the rounding.

I use imperial inches because the readout is in decimals versus fractions. Others like metric.
 
OK - thanks! I think I'll give it a try on my Sawstop. - I've got a Rockler Thin Strip attachment that I've used to make banding to cover plywood edges. Hopefully it'll allow preparing stuff as thin as 1/8" or even 1/16". Not too particular about precision of ring diameter at this point, although with 16 segments, adding those 1/8" spacers adds two inches to the circumference.

Anyway, thanks for the info!
 
Wow! Just ran a 36 incl length of black walnut through the table saw with the Rockler Thin Strip Jig in place, set at 1/32" - worked perfectly and got a beautiful strip exactly 1/32" the entire length.
 
Wow! Just ran a 36 incl length of black walnut through the table saw with the Rockler Thin Strip Jig in place, set at 1/32" - worked perfectly and got a beautiful strip exactly 1/32" the entire length.
Concerning the spacers, it appears that Segment Pro does not have the capacity to display the spacers. Is that correct? Thanks for your comments about spacers. I was wondering about this myself.
 
Concerning the spacers, it appears that Segment Pro does not have the capacity to display the spacers. Is that correct? Thanks for your comments about spacers. I was wondering about this myself.
WTP allows spacers to be placed for each ring. The species selected for the spacer is applied to all rings that have spacers.

You can have spacers in Segment Pro
In SP the spacer option works for the Featured Ring Bowl Type only. If you select Painted Segment or Tornado Bowl spacers will not be added.
You have a choice to add spacers to:
- Default rings.
- Featured ring
- All rings (other than accent rings)
Take a look at the story board on options for accent rings.
 
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In Segment PRO, you can only add spacers to Feature Ring Bowls. Adding them to either Painted Segment bowls or Tornado bowls is something I’ve never seen in my segmenting career so there was no reason to add that functionality.

You can add spacers in any width you like and use decimal inches for the width of the spacer. So if your finished spacer is actually .272” (for example), put that in the spacer width field. It will display in Woodturner PRO at the fraction level you specify in File > Options, but the trigonometry will use value you specify so the resulting SEL for the segments will be as accurate as it can be. In Segment PRO, you can double-click the value in the spacer width field and type in whatever decimal inches value you like.

Lloyd
 
One last question about the spacers, and please excuse the "newbie-ness" of this one - do the spacers have to have the same cut angle as the segments, or do they simply get cut at 90 degrees?
 
One last question about the spacers, and please excuse the "newbie-ness" of this one - do the spacers have to have the same cut angle as the segments, or do they simply get cut at 90 degrees?
No. The spacers are glued onto the already mitered sides of the segment.
 
So, the spacers are NOT mitered. That makes it a bit easier to construct the ring!
correct. There is no need to miter the spacers. The spacers are just glued onto the segments that have already been mitered.
In general, spacers are very thin being 0.125 or less.
 
Keep in mind that if you specify a spacer width of 1/8” where the sides are parallel and then glue it to an edge of a segment with 15-degree angles (for example), the spacer doesn’t point to the center of the bowl but is angled at 15 degrees. When you turn this feature ring, the spacer will appear to have a width closer to 3/16”. If you want to have vertical spacers that are the same width as horizontal accent rings, you should specify a spacer width of 1/8” and a thickness of 3/16” for the horizontal row.

When you specify 1/8” for the spacer, the software uses trigonometry to determine the visible width (~3/16) and makes its adjustment to the SEL using that calculation. So whenever you specify a spacer, simply use the new SEL regardless of the number of segments or the thickness of the spacer and your finished feature ring will be the cakculated outside diameter. The inside diameter is calculated from the board width.

Lloyd
 
I hope I've not mis-lead you - the vertical "spacers" I'm referring to are not the tiny, thin, dark colored pieces used to set off lighter segments. I was talking about 1/4" spacer pieces of perhaps maple in between each segment of a darker (Padauk) segment. It is those 1/4" spacers that I was wondering if mitering is needed.

Jim
 
I hope I've not mis-lead you - the vertical "spacers" I'm referring to are not the tiny, thin, dark colored pieces used to set off lighter segments. I was talking about 1/4" spacer pieces of perhaps maple in between each segment of a darker (Padauk) segment. It is those 1/4" spacers that I was wondering if mitering is needed.

Jim
Your "spacers" are wider than typically used in segment bowl constructions. You are wanting to make a multispecies segment.
Instead of using the spacer option in WTP, I would do the following. I would plan your vessel without spacers. Info from the summary sheet I would then make up a laminate for each ring consisting of:
- 0.25" wide maple and (SEL-0.25") wide padauk
The laminate would be cut to SEL
Then each side mitered to the angle needed.


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There are two ways to skin this cat. The cat being a segment made of two solid pieces of wood glued together to make a single segment. Let’s say there are 12 of these segments or 24 pieces of wood in total to make a ring. Each of these 12 segments MUST have edges whose angles are a perfect 15 degrees. Before we begin, though, it is important to make sure that the grain orientation is always the same - flat grain with the grain going around the bowl. If you made these spaces the really easy way, you would have vertical grain segments next to flat grain segments and the glue strength is now gone.

The hard way (type 1) to do this is to make two angled segments. The angles of the two segments will be very non-standard. You won’t be able to cut them on a wedgie sled unless you have a CNC to make a wedge for that angle. The same is true for the other angled segments, When you glue these two segments together, they MUST equal 15”. the result is that you will have to make the rings in halves and the greatest invention for segmenters has been the wedgie sled that makes that unnecessary.

The easy way (type 2) is to make a single segment of whatever SEL you like at 15 degrees. To that you add a solid piece of wood of whatever width you want. That piece MUST have parallel sides. When you glue that piece of wood to the segment, It will have a combined SEL of whatever you like and the pair will make a single segment with perfectly angled 15 degrees edges.

If you were to make a bowl that had some rings of type 1 and type 2, you wouldn’t be able to tell which rings were which as they will both have horizontal grain going around the bowl.

However, there is a difference and this could be a big difference. With type 1, the edges of every segment point at the center of the bowl. With type 2, None of the edges will point to the center. If your bowl is a column, it simply won’t matter. With type 2 and a wall profile of any shape, at the elevations where the profile is changing, you can notice a curvature of the visible joint. This could be a distraction or a design element. I would certainly do this on purpose - purely for the interest value. People will wonder how you made segments from curved wood.

To see exactly what this ring will look like, use Woodturner PRO where you can look at the top of individual rings with the Ring View. You can also do this using two different Ring Types. The Flat type simply shows the spacers glued to the segment. If you make the ring using the Wheel Type, you can still specify the segment and the spacer (the spacer is the wheel spoke). The Ring View of this will show you that the spoke is the predominant piece and the segment is simply the pices of wood that allow the spokes to be oriented to the center. Even though the spokes are oriented to the center, the parallel sides of the spoke fall on either side of the center. This is what will cause the curvature of the lines when turned but in a typical profile, the curvature would be very small.

Lloyd


 
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