Collaborative Bowl Project - Closed Segment

[Glenn McCarron]

Bob Beaupre (fellow form member) and I had been conversing in another thread in regards to making a flower type pattern in a open segmented bowl as well as trying one in a closed segment as well. I am looking at doing the closed segment bowl. The bowl that I would like to try is from one of Lloyds sample files. It has a 48 segment ring. I also want to modify the shape to have more of an ogee curve.

The benefit of working together as Bob pointed out would be the ability to bounce ideas off each other, to share our successes and our failures and to hopefully gain some words of wisdom from our fellow Forum members.

I will let Bob explain the details of his project.

I'm thinking a 48 piece ring is going to be a challenge to start with. I did cut the first set of pieces today. I am using the Segeasy sled but I do not have the wedges. I set my sled with a combined angle of 7.5 degrees as each side of the segment will have 3.75 degree angles. I tried many cuts and adjustments of the segment width to come up with a measurement of 0.218 inches.





From there it was to clean up the fuzzies and form the circle.



The next question was how to glue it and clamp it and maintain a circle. I tried hose clamps and strings to no avail. I rounded it up as best I could and took a measurement across. I then mounted a piece of MDF on the lathe and cut out a circle that size. I split the block in half for easier positioning. I thought I could put some light clamping pressure on the blocks as well as adding some pressure from above to keep the ring flat.






And that is where my project sits at the moment.

Oh yah, I did say we would share failures as well. It was more a frustration than a failure but with my 10 thumbs and all those tiny pieces applying glue and positioning them when they are all sticky is an exercise not for the faint of heart.

I'm not sure how far I will get with this project but fortunately the pieces get bigger as the bowl gets taller. Working 48 pieces is definitely a challenge but I like the detail that it brings.

 

[stuart johnson]

Glenn, I have found it easy to use zip ties instead of hose clamps. They can be pulled up snug enough to hold the ring and then using a tool tightened. It looks like you are using 1/4 inch thick stock so using the round disc to be certain they are flat is a good idea.

It's going to be interesting following this project.

Stuart

 

[Glenn McCarron]

Thanks Stuart that's a great idea. I will certainly try that on my next ring.

Unfortunately I will only get a couple of days to work on the new project and then I will be not able to get back at it for about 6 weeks. I wanted to get it underway anyway.

Hopefully Bob will get started soon as well.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

Glenn nice job on the first post. Yah, we might be getting in over our heads but it should be fun.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

I have checked on the pats for my thickness planner and they are scheduled to be here by the end of day Friday, and with my wife having a show in Door County, WI on Saturday looks like the earliest I'll be able to start is Sunday. I'm cheaping out a little and making the body of mine all cherry, looks like Glenn is going with the whole flower thing. We are both using the same file, I'll attach both here. Other than what I did to make the body all the same , the files should be the same. As Glenn has mentioned above the small size of the pieces and the only 1/4" thickness we feel is going to be the challenge. Hope others follow along and interject suggestions along the way.

 

[stuart johnson]

Why not take out some of the challenge? Several rings are close to the same size so rather than cutting each ring from 1/4" stock make up 1 ring 3/4" thick, sized for the largest ring and split it. This would work for the solid vase. The colored one would be a different issue. I would be tempted to make up the thicker ring, split it and make up a pair if gluing up 1/4" inch stock to too difficult or time consuming.

Of course much of the fun in segmented or chunk turning it the challenge.

Stuart

 

[Lloyd Johnson]

Here are three views from the new software of nearly the same bowl. The first two are the bowl with two different 3D settings. The third is the print summary that has been optimized and then sorted first by the board width and second by the segment edge length. Optimizing has made small changes to the diameters to allow multiple rows to be cut with identical geometry. I have always done this by exporting the rows to a .csv file and then making manual adjustments to the diameters. The new software does this automatically.
The beauty of this technique is that you can cut the segments in close to half the time. The downside is that there is a small amount of wood wasted and there is a little bit more wood that has to be removed on the lathe. I believe that the downside is a small tradeoff compared to the time savings, but it will be interesting to see if others feel the same way. The printout is a bit more confusing but this is completely optional. You can have a non-optimized printout that will be identical to what has been available in Woodturner PRO.

Lloyd

 

[stuart johnson]

Lloyd, The print out is going to be a time saver. I currently export to a .csv file and print out a couple sheets hiding columns I'm not using when cutting my segments. More than once I've screwed up and cut segments edges using the board width amount. I've tried color coding the columns to avoid my confusion. With the print layout you show this probably won't be such an issue but will there be the ability to print what you want rather than the complete cut list?

Stuart

 

[Glenn McCarron]

Why not take out some of the challenge? Several rings are close to the same size so rather than cutting each ring from 1/4" stock make up 1 ring 3/4" thick, sized for the largest ring and split it. This would work for the solid vase. The colored one would be a different issue. I would be tempted to make up the thicker ring, split it and make up a pair if gluing up 1/4" inch stock to too difficult or time consuming.

Of course much of the fun in segmented or chunk turning it the challenge.

Stuart

Stuart the procedure you mention would be an absolute time saver. I will give it a lot of consideration for the future rings. I only prepped a small amount of stock at 1/4 so it's not too late.

 

[Lloyd Johnson]

will there be the ability to print what you want rather than the complete cut list?

Stuart,
I don't think there will be enough time to get this added for the initial release, but I certainly intend on adding it as soon as possible. However, I have made some column position changes which should make it unlikely to misread the printout. To be specific, I've moved those columns that are the most important to the left of the report. The Economy Board Length is hugely important (as the Donald would say) and the Grain Match is the least important and so it is the last column.

The Board Width is where all projects begin and since you need to know how long to cut the boards, the Board Length comes next. Once you have your board(s) cut, you need the segment edge length to cut the segments so that comes next. That's really all of the columns that are really necessary other than the columns at the end that show how many segments of each species are needed for each row and even that is only needed for the Painted Segment bowls. In the past, outside and inside diameters were very important. In my new model, they are simply calculations and are really quite meaningless. However, I hope to have the ability to allow you to change an inside or outside diameter from a calculated to a fixed number. This way, if you look at the Cutaway View and determine that you'd like a particular row to have more or less width due to the curvature of the bowl at that elevation, you'll be able to change it yourself and it will stay that number. If you change the profile, though, it will change back to a calculated number.

I should be able to implement the ability to drag the column headings to reposition the columns to your own liking, though, although there won't be a permanent change until I have the time to change the software to be more of a report writer which will be a big effort.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

Now see the new guy learns something new about Woodturner PRO, I did not know there was a export to .csv file. And thank you Stuart for the suggestion on spiting rings.

 

[mfisher]

Now see the new guy learns something new about Woodturner PRO, I did not know there was a export to .csv file. And thank you Stuart for the suggestion on spiting rings.

You most likely found out. It is pretty simple
Have the Cutting Summary view selected.
Then go to File / Export to Excel (CSV).

It is a handy feature.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

Yes it is Thanks

 

[Glenn McCarron]

I'm still scratching my head in dismay after I took my first ring out of the clamps this morning. I thought I was paying attention to details, taking my time ( but faster than glue drying), checking twice and all that good stuff. My pattern has basically 4 sections that are repeated. I managed to get 3 of the 4 right and the 4th I somehow inverted thus messing up the pattern. So back to the drawing board. I now have it redone and drying and I also have the second ring together and drying. Hopefully they are right this time.

So what's everyone's feeling on a solid bottom. It will be 3 inches in diameter. From what I understand and have read most folks don't worry if it is less than 6 inches. I read in Malcom's PDf "The Basics" that using quarter sawn wood you can get away with a larger base.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

Glenn, from what I have read, a solid base is better than a segmented. But Malcom mostly uses a floating base. I have used segmented but with a solid dowel in the center or a solid base. I'll try the floating base in the near future.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

Ok I understand you messed up the pattern order, but how did your clamping glue up procedure work out?

 

[Glenn McCarron]

Hi Bob, I just finished up making a waste block and gluing my solid walnut base to it.



The circles I cut from MDF seem to work fine. They need to be very close to the outside ring size. I did cut the circles in the MDF on the lathe. Having them cut in half seems to allow a bit of pressure to be applied without distorting the circle. This is row 2 and row 3 (Row 1 being the solid base).



I also made a board to stretch the elastic bands around the nails to facilitate getting them around easily. It seemed to work OK but being so thin you couldn't get to many bands on to get a bit more pressure. With the 48 segments the glue is starting to get tacky by the time you have them positioned. I also tried some zip ties. I think they would work best on a larger, fewer segment piece. The part where they come together seemed to hold the circle out of round.

 

[Art Bodwell]

Glenn,

I've made many dozens of pieces, bowls, vases, boxes, sculptures, both solid and open segmented with solid bases 2" to 5" and never had a problem. Never have used a floating base. Art

 

[Glenn McCarron]

Thank you Art. I have looked at your gallery and you do some amazing pieces.

 

[Bob Beaupre]

They look good Glenn