Sapel Beech and Walnut vase

[martyn]

Finished this vase today after having to repair it after it bounced off garage floar upon finishing polishing it up last time, its been one of those turning that nearly ended up in the bin a few times. i used some beech that i bought off ebay for the main body and it is the first time I've turned beech. Don't know f its just me but i found the beech a real pain to turn, it just seemed to tear rather than cut, even when planing it up it was tearing out the grain. Also when finishing it i found it hard to get a smooth finish and the laquer just seamed to soak in the timber and raise the grain. It took about five coats sanding in-between to get a nice finish. Think ill use the rest of the beech to make a nice table instead of turning it . This was another project i didn't plan out but i think ill plan out my next project in woodturner pro first , this vase kind of reminds me of one of those milk churns, i feel i need a handle to finish it off some how.

any comments or opinions are welcome

 

[mfisher]

Not bad design. Despite your frustration it came out well.

 

[martyn]

thank you for your kind words

 

[quid_non]

Nice work - I like it. How did you make the top on the white container - - make a segment then turn a solid piece to fit the core?

 

[Lloyd Johnson]

Martyn,

Congratulations on your first segmented bowl! Everyone of us had a first bowl experience and I am sure that almost without exception, it wasn't a great experience. It was, though, a start of a great journey.

What you will find is that each new bowl you make will take half as long, will turn out twice as good and will be a far more positive experience. Make sure you always hold on to this first bowl as through the years it will show you how far you've come in your journey.

I've attached a picture and a WTP project that has been on the Backup CD since 2002. It is a fun project made by my good friend, Kevin Neelley, who was responsible for me getting into segmenting in the first place. It is the first bowl I made. This project has been the first bowl made by hundreds of segmenters. When you open it, look in the right column for 'Supporting Files' and click the 'Round Bowl.pdf' link. This will open an OLD project description that shows the process of making this bowl. Techniques have changed, but it is a great tutorial on segmenting nonetheless.



View attachment Kevin Neelley - Round Bowl.wtp

With regards to turning issues, it is very important that you use the proper turning tools and that they are SHARP. I believe that fingernail or bowl gouge used in the conventional manner be used for all segmented turnings. A bowl gouge, for example can make a scraping, conventional (ride the bevel) or shear cut, depending on the presentation of the gouge to the bowl. In a conventional cut, the gouge 'rides the bevel' and the wood is removed by slicing the wood fibers. By changing the tool presentation, you can make a shear cut that practically eliminates the need for sanding. A scraping cut is where the bevel of the gouge is not in contact with the bowl and it removes wood by scaping the wood fibers from the bowl.

This turning technique is important when turning closed-segment rings (type: Flat in WTP) but mandatory with open-segment bowls. CLICK HERE to watch a youtube video that demonstrates these techniques.

Enjoy your journey, Martyn.

Lloyd

 

[martyn]

Nice work - I like it. How did you make the top on the white container - - make a segment then turn a solid piece to fit the core?

hi im not one hundred percent sure what you mean but at the risk of boring you to death this is how it went down


i turned the whole vase first of as one solid piece i started with a sapele block and turned a chamfer on it to a thickness of my first ring, i then took my first ring and mounted it in my longsworth chuck and turned the inside to an matching angle. Then I glueD the two together to to form my first layer a disk with a large plug AND i just added rings turning as i went .
When i HAD completed the turning it cut it in half with a hand saw, the btm half WAS still mounted on the lathe so i trued up the cut and glue another walnut ring on. when it was dry i cut the walnut ring back to create a rebate (it looked quite nice against the beech) it was at this point i lacquered the btm inside and out. When it was dry i took the btm off the original base plate and reverse mounted it in my cole jaws and proceeded to finish cut my btm i then lacquered it and i was polishing it up putting the finish shine on it when it popped of the cole jaws and bounced off the garage floor.... After having a little cry and a bit of a sulk i remounted the btm in the cole jaws, it had been the walnut ring that had broken off, i glued a new beech ring on and recut the rebate into it. i then proceeded to sand out the dents and refinish and poloist the btm using the tail stock this time.
Next i took the top half and hot glued it to a piece of ply that was mounted on another faceplate and this allowed me to cut the corresponding rebated in the top , once it fit nicely i lacquered and finish the top half inside and out as much as i could i then removed it from the ply and mounted reverse mounted it in my cole jaw and sanded and finished the top of the vase all went smoothly this time. Once i had done that i put the two halves together and and mounted the whole vase between centers using a cone drive live centre in tail stock and a bit of wood i turned on a face plate to fit in top of the vase on head stock using some rubber mat to protect the vase. I sanded the finish down to 2500 grit with some wet and dry and polished up the whole vase with some car wax. when finished i i let out a breath of relief.

Hi lLoyd thankyou for looking at my turning it wasn't my first segmented turning though if you wanted to see that one its another of my posts called segmented sapele and oak urne and that was a beast. Ive now been turning for about 2 years but I've only been segmented turning for the past 10 months or so I've made 4 segmented turning projects so far my first was the urne then i made a walnut bowl, i then made two oak and sapele bowl for my bosses at work (as thankyou for giving me loads of timber offcuts from work) and I made the oil burners for a christmas present and this vase.


View attachment 399 View attachment 400

i am far from perfect things seem to take a long time to complete when you only spend time on the lathe on a night after work weather permitting. i find the finishing difficult i like to acheve a glass like surface on everything. when i look back at some of the first bowls i turned out of solid blanks when i started out i cant believe how ruff the were , I purchased the large open segmented template by easy seg and i am looking forward to making a open segmented turning. thank you for that bowl plan it look very nice i will make that my next project cheers. I have never planned out a turning but i think i need to start i have the trail woodturner pro installed on my mac through parallel desktop but when i try and print a project all i get it a postscript error do you having idea where i am going wrong

is this the longest post on the forum ?

 

[Lloyd Johnson]

Martin,

I'm afraid I don't know what your printing issue is. We take a very simplistic approach to printing as we just render a page of data and give it to the Windows Print System and it completely takes over. We have no idea what printer were printing to nor do we know if it is a postscript, pcl or dot matrix printer. It sounds like a print driver issue, but Parallels does a good job of handling this so its hard to say what it is, but I'm comfortable saying that Woodturner PRO is not the problem.

I would check to make sure that you are on the latest version of Parallels as printing is an area where they have done extensive work recently.

Lloyd

 

[martyn]

ok thanks Lloyd

 

[Aguinaldo]

Very nice job keep up the good work