In The Shop

Saturday I had to take my boy to his b-ball game. Momma was gone to make breakfast for a camp our youth group was at. So we got up later and started a boys morning together. We started by watching a movie. He loves it when he picks one out and I watch it with him. As soon as it was over we went to one of the local places and got some breakfast ourselves. About 20 minutes before the game was to start we arrived at the gym and had some time to relax before the game began.

Once the game was over we went home since it really wasn't time for lunch yet and neither of us was hungry yet either. Momma was home by then so the two of them began to have some fun together and I retreated to the shop for a bit of cleaning up. Sorry for the use of the "C" word but from time to time you just have to do it. I swept up several loads of curlys, shavings, and saw dust and decided that I had made enough trips to the compost pile. So I picked up a piece of cherry scrap that was laying on the wood pile and decided I would see what I could do with it.

Originally I planned to turn a platter. However, as I go the blank round, I realized the diameter and depth would allow for a shallow bowl rather than a platter. So that is what I did. I used my Ci1 Easy Rougher for the biggest part of the turning. Man that thing can remove a lot of wood quickly. Finished up with the Thompson bowl gouge that I got with my last order from Doug and it did a wonderful job.

Anyway, I thought it came out pretty good. LOML thought it was pretty nice too. That's the opinion that means the most to me other than someone who wants to buy a piece. I look forward to getting some finish on it and getting a picture of it so that you can see it too. Hopfully that pic will be coming soon.

Swept up that mess and decided to reward myself with some more turning time. I had a piece of Masur birch that I bought at the Louisville AAW symposium. I started it a couple of weeks ago with an idea of turning a box with it. I turned the bottom and had it looking pretty good. I turned the top and had the tenon turned and fitting the body pretty good. Might have been a little loose, but had a plan for that. As I hollowed the lid was where I really messed up. I was going to town and got it pretty thin. The problem is that I nearly cut my tenon off the lid. Really glad that I stopped when I did. I reversed the lid and was cleaning off the tenon when the lid launched. Hmm, wonder what that's about. Picked it us only to discover that my tenon was a bit too thin and had broken into 4 pieces. So I was left with a top and bottom of a box with nothing to join the two together.

Solution? I turned a piece of walnut down small enough that it would just fit into the bottom of the box. I used my parting tool and cut through that 1/8" in from the edge. Bottom is solved. Now the top. Took me a while, but I finally came up with a way to reverse the top so that I could clean up the broken tenon and fit it for the new replacement tenon. About the thrid attempt, perfection.

The fit was so good that I was able to chuck the box by the tenon that was on the bottom of the box and reverse turn the top of the lid. I removed the lid and reversed the bottom and chucked it in expansion mode. With the bottom finished up I hand sanded the inside edge of the lid a bit. Made a mistake in sanding the fit surface. Still a good fit with no slop at all. The pop is gone now though. No matter. Lid is a lot easier to take off now. Like the cherry bowl, pictures will come as soon as I get some finish on it. I hope it won't be long.

Until then, spin 'em round.