Mother/Daughter Celtic Rings

I thought it would be nice for my wife and daughter to have (almost) matching rings and found an 'ible that made a celtic knot shotglass. If you look in my favorites, it is listed there. This was a new technique for me but as it turns out, not hard just time consuming.

Step 1: I Used

I had a piece of 1x2 pine and a walnut? picture frame that "fell apart" lol. It is possible that my next 'ible will be a picture frame if my wife reads this. You will want 2 woods that contrast enough to be able to see the knot when it is done. I used my drill press with lathe attachment and drum sanders and my band saw to rip the frame square

Step 2: Laminate and Glue in "knots"

I cut the 1x2 in half and laminated it to make a block 6" long and about 1 1/2" square. I also ripped the walnut into as thin veneer as I could, but I think that jason.burr.946 had the right idea when, in his 'ible, he recommends buying veneer in whatever wood you want,. That way it is already thin enough to fit in the kerf of the saw, then you don't need to cut the block all the way through. Pic 3 shows the width of the 2 rings I want to make, and the X's to make the cuts for the walnut veneer. With my band saw table tilted to match a line on the X I cut through, since I'm making 2 rings with this block I repeated everything for the other blank. Make 1 cut, glue the veneer in, clamp, wait, trim extra veneer, make another cut.. you get the idea. There are a total of 4 cuts to make and because the table on my band saw only tilts 1 way, I made 1 cut per ring on each side of the block. Pic 4 shows the blank with all 4 (per ring) veneer strips glued in. In pic 5 I used a metal blade from my recip saw and trimmed the veneer by hand. If you buy veneer it should be thin enough to fit in the kerf of the blade then you don't have to cut all the way through the block which would make glue-up much easier.

Step 3: Turning, Drilling, Cutting

Since I was allowed to buy a new toy- I mean "necessary piece of equipment"- I figured I better use it. So here is a lathe attachment for my drill press. Pic 1 is the block on the drill press, pic 2 the finished blank, and pic 3 I flipped it over to drill the holes. I need to have 1 ring with an ID of 3/4" and the other with ID 5/8" and wanted the thickness of the finished rings to be ~3/16" thick so the bigger one has a rough finish OD of 1 1/8" and the smaller a rough finish OD of ~1 1/16". At this point I did sand the blanks to a 400 grit hoping that I wouldn't have to do too much on the outside edge again. Since I already had the centre marked, I used spade bits and drilled a 1/2" hole down just deeper than the smaller ring and cut it off. Then went back to the drill press to drill a 5/8" hole in the bigger one then cut it off.

Step 4: Sanding

I used a drum sander on my drill press to sand the holes to the proper diameter but since the smallest drum I have didn't fit in the small ring, I took 2 pieces of dowel, wrapped different grades of sandpaper and used duct tape to hold it there. I used 100 and 220 grit to get the holes right and to round off the edges, then used a sanding sponge to smooth out the little spots left and finally 400 grit paper to finish it off

Step 5: Finishing

I don't know if pic 1 shows it well, but I used a piece of 14 gauge wire and bent the ends long enough to snugly fit inside the rings and used an aerosol polyurethane to give them a bit of a shine. I'm happy with how this turned out, but I think this technique may be better suited to something bigger like a shot glass to make a wider X. Either that or thinner veneer to make the knot smaller and better defined.

Comments

[mrsmerwin]

I had been thinking last week about how my drill press should be able to work like a small lathe. Is this lathe attachment a real thing that I can buy or is it a product of your very clever imagination?

[kevincarruthers]

http://www.busybeetools.com/products/lathe-attachment-for-drill-press.html This is one I have. It was on sale when I bought it. It says you can go up to 6" diameter wood but it really only works well for 3" and under

[mrsmerwin]

I will look into it. The drill press was one of the only power tools that my dad thought I was strong enough to use. He definitely never let me use a regular drill cause I kept dropping it. My husband bought me a tabletop jigsaw to go with my drill press. All other tools I have are hand powered. My husband promised to teach me how to use the table saw this summer.

[kevincarruthers]

If you get one you will notice that the pins in the headstock are not very big. As long as you don't try to go too fast it will work but the pins can slip. It is a taste of what a proper lathe can do so that's why I thought I would try it

[mrsmerwin]

we had a lathe in middle school but the teacher was too nervous to let the girls try it. He barely let any of the boys. It always looked fun but it seemed like an extravagance. What if I don't like turning pieces? This might give me a chance to try it without having to find more storage places.

[kevincarruthers]

that was my thought. This is a much cheaper way to see if I liked it

[mrsmerwin]

your work is so good. You are planning to get a full size lathe. Aren't you? I would love to see some more of your work. My parent's former neighbor used to turn Christmas tree trunks. I have a candle stick he made.

[kevincarruthers]

I do want to get a lathe at some point but I need a bigger shop for that. Thank you for the compliments and good luck with your hobby. Many times when I am trying something new I use scrap wood to build a prototype first then I make the good one. Turning Christmas tree trunks is a good idea for reusing them

[elder1]

Nice

[kevincarruthers]

Thank you