Wood Turnings

I have been working with wood since I was Eleven years old. I started using a lathe when I was fourteen and the pictures above are of some of the turnings I have made.  

Spalted Maple Goblet-
The first two pictures are of a Captive Ring Goblet made from Spalted Maple. The Captive ring is around the stem of the goblet and it can not slip off of the goblet. The ring is made from one piece of wood (has not been cut then glue back together). It was turned from the same piece of wood as the goblet.  It is finished with shellawax.

Walnut Bowl-
While on a trip in Oregon, I went to a couple places to buy some wood. I bought a piece of walnut for $10 and made two bowls out of it. The third and fourth picture is one of the bowls made from that piece of wood. It is finished in high gloss polyurethane spray.

Cocobolo Saucer-
This was made from a scrap of cocobolo I had laying around. It has a 2 1/2 inch diameter and is 1/4 inch thick. It does not have a finish.

Cocobolo Bowl-
The Cocobolo Saucer was apart of this piece. It is a bowl with a small opening in the top. It does not have a finish.

Walnut Castle Bottle Stopper-
This bottle stopper is made from Walnut. It has a poplar dowel in the center of the cork stopper and in the Walnut castle. The shape of the castle was turned and then it was cut on the scroll saw in order to create the pattern at the top. The top is finished with High gloss Polyurethane spray and the cork is left natural in order to keep from ruining any wine.

Myrtlewood Bottle Stopper-
Another piece of wood that I bought while on vacation in Oregon. It has a poplar dowel down the center of the cork stopper and Myrtlewood handle. The top is finished with High gloss Polyurethane spray and the cork is left natural in order to keep from ruining any wine.

Walnut candle Stick-
This candle stick is made from three pieces of walnut. The bottom saucer is made from one piece of walnut and it is glued to the top. There is a small piece of poplar dowel in the center of both pieces in order to strengthen the entire piece. The finger ring was cut off the top with a parting tool after it was hollowed a little for the candle. The notch in the saucer for the ring was cut with a jewelers style saw. It was glued and secured to the saucer using tiny brass nails.  It is finished with High Gloss Polyurethane spray.

Comments

[a918bmxr]

how do your get your captive ring to look so amazing?
mine always turn out to be wedge shaped towards the inside

[hackmattr]

That Captive Ring was actually my first try at it. I used the Captive ring tool that you can get from some places like Rockler or Woodcraft in order to create it.

[a918bmxr]

Ok thanks
keep up the good work.

[metallica424]

first off, these are great! I had one question, is the high gloss polyurethane spray used on the second piece food safe? I need to seal a drinking horn but I didn't want to use bees wax.

[hackmattr]

I would not use high gloss polyurethane on something that will need to be food safe. You can get salad bowl finish from Rockler and Woodcraft so that your wooden items are food safe.

[logans]

what type of wood did you use

[hackmattr]

If you read the info under the pictures, it states the types of wood that I used.

[Wi11]

I like the candle stick/holder. It's a very original idea!

[rimar2000]

Yes. I agree totally with you.

[Phil B]

Thank you for your Instructable. It reminds me of a man I met in Germany. He owned three lathes and taught woodworking. (He has since died.) He showed me a set of curved chisels he bought for turning Chinese balls (see the attached photo from the site linked), and he showed me the set of balls he had turned. Here is an Instructable that concerns something a bit unusual, but very practical that I did with my lathe and a Dremel.

[hackmattr]

I love the look of those balls. I love that there are 3 inside each other. I have tried just make one round ball a real ball. Mine always turn out oval to some degree (The part from headstock to tailstock.)

Your instructable is very cool. I don't think I wouldve thought of using a wood lathe to make the hole in a saw blade larger. I would be afraid of screwing the balance.

[Phil B]

I saw a video of someone turning a wooden ball semi-commercially. He had a chisel cutter on a semi-circle steel track. When the ball was near to its proper size, he brought in the track device and moved the cutter along the track while the wood was spinning. So long as the track is an exact semi-circle, the ball will be exactly spherical. It would be possible to make a simplified version of this shown in my graphic of a lathe with a cylinder of wood chucked onto the lathe. The pointed black object is a cutter. the green "C" frame is fixed to the lathe bed. The yellow "C" frame pivots so that is can swing an arc as defined by the red arrow.

My setup for enlarging the hole in the saw blade has some built-in protections to keep the blade from going off center.

[rimar2000]

Beautiful works!

I have a question for you, if you do not mind: do you earn some money with woodturning? or is it only a hobby? I ask it because I am learning, but people does not want pay the work the pieces cost. I understand them, but I would like to earn a bit of money.

[hackmattr]

It is mostly a hobby. I noticed that people love the works, but they don't want to spend the money. My dad and I tried to sell before at a show and the prices were reasonable with low budget items to a very ornate scroll saw cut clock that took easily 200-300 hours for a large chunk of change. We got a ton of looks, but it never developed into a sale. Of course this was right after the economy took a nose dive into the ground.

If you decide to sell, make sure you have items for every type of budget. Like $4 for a toy top and reserve the higher prices to the most ornate items.

Sell at a craft show too. Those are the only places Ive seen people pay the money that seems fair for the amount of work and materials in an item. Avoid swap meets because people expect a deal at them.

These suggestions are based on trying to sell once or twice and my observations of other peoples' experiences.

[zazenergy]

Gorgeous.

[hackmattr]

Thank you. :)