• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

Turning (Lathe) Projects

When I built my combined drill press and drum sander (these both being tools that I knew I needed), I also made the additional parts to turn the contraption into a wood lathe. I had only the vaguest idea what I might do with a lathe. At first, I messed around turning a simple cylinder using my quarter-inch chisel. Later, I picked up a multi-purpose lathe tool which I hoped would be an improvement on a chisel. I accumulated some turning blanks, often with the initial intent of cutting them up for coasters, and spent a little money on the mechanisms for ratcheting screwdrivers. But otherwise I left the lathe alone.

A breakthrough came after several weeks of intensive box-making, preparing gifts for family and friends, around the time of Christmas 2020. I felt like doing something completely different from boxes and so put the lathe together. Well, it "turns" out that I can make acceptable tool handles. And things sort of snowballed from there.

Ratcheting Screwdriver Handle

Woodcraft (Item # 163336).

1. 1 or #2 Phillips screwdriver, medium or large flat-head screwdriver and 1/4", 5/16" or 7/16" hex nut driver.

TO DO.

RatchetingScrewdriverHandleRecipe

Curly Maple

The first handle that I made was from maple. I have some pieces of a turning blank that I bought from Rockler hoping for some good figure. I was disappointed in it and have used it up to try various things out, such as this. I found it easy enough to turn and established what I considered to be a good shape for the handle, at least for my own (right) hand. The rounded end feels comfortable against my hypothenar eminence, where the forward pressure will come from, and the neck is in the right position for my first finger and thumb, which will exert the turning force. The appearance is better than I expected, except for the muddy color. As with all first tries, I learned something. In this case it was not to be stingy with the excess length of the blank. I did not allow enough for the nub in which the tailstock locates so that when I cut the nub off the hole drilled for the dead center was still visible. I plugged it up with a brass screw, filed off the head and polished what was left so that it could be mistaken for a decorative feature (see photograph).

Cherry

Cherry is supposed to be "one of the best all-around woods for workability" (The Wood Database). I had a couple of turning blanks from Woodcraft that only cost $3.09, so this would be a good place to start after my practice runs with maple. I am very pleased with the results and this is the first handle I assembled to a mechanism. Photographs at right show the handle before finishing, after finishing with Danish oil and fully assembled. A small problem is that cherry is a fairly light wood (560 kg/m³) so the completed screwdriver feels a little front-heavy.

Canarywood

This is a wood that I've collected almost by accident but am starting to like. The grain pattern is very distinct and sometimes includes bright red veins. It is denser than cherry (830 kg/m³) and quite hard but works fairly cleanly. I made two handles, one from a purchased turning blank and the other from a blank that I glued up from pieces cut from a board, adding a couple of accent woods which didn't really come out as I'd hoped, so they are hidden at the back in the photograph.

Redheart

This wood is reputed to have good working characteristics, which is why I tried it early. It wasn't as "friendly" as cherry, but I met with no problems. After a light planing cut with the skew chisel I only needed to sand from 240 grit. The wood absorbed very little of the Danish oil but the color brightened considerably.

Zebrawood

Pau Rosa

This is a dense wood that presents considerable cutting resistance. Nevertheless, with patience it turned beautifully. It finished well, absorbing very little of the Danish oil.

Curupay (Patagonia Rosewood)

This was the most difficult wood that I tried. It was hard, so I had to work slowly, taking off a little at a time. Whatever I did, I got considerable surface tear-out and therefore had to do a lot of sanding at the end, starting with 120 grit sandpaper. Once I was done with this, however, the wood took the Danish oil finish well, absorbing very little.

Marblewood

This is a very hard wood and so I had to work slowly. By being careful I achieved a smooth finish and didn't have much sanding to do. The wood took the Danish oil finish well, absorbing very little, without much change in color.

African Padauk

I'm familiar with this wood from other work.

Small Ratcheting Screwdriver Handle

Woodcraft (Item # 163335).

Cabriole Table Leg

Having come across a YouTube video of someone turning a cabriole leg, I decided to try it for myself. It looked challenging, I had some wood that I didn't mind ruining, so I gave it a shot. I'm not going to show you my first attempt. But, having learned many lessons, my second attempt was much better. The leg itself came out well but when I was adding the decorative bead between the leg and the pommel, I got a spiral catch. I've carefully positioned the piece in the photograph so that this is hidden at the back.

"Fake" Pepper Grinders

I like the shape of pepper mills, but I don't want to buy the additional equipment I need to actually make them. To use the mechanisms available from Woodcraft (Item # 161463), I'd need to buy a 1 1/16" Forstner Bit ($12.29 to $27.99), a 1 5/8" Forstner Bit ($16.59 to $39.99) and a Forstner Bit Extension ($11.79), none of which I have any other use for. In any case, axial drilling does not work very well on my home-made lathe, at least with the cheaper bits. I could buy pre-drilled turning blanks, but these are expensive, only available in a few wood species and require some sort of gadget to mount on a lathe, which may not work on mine. So, the solution is to turn a pepper mill shape just for the heck of it (and for practice) and admit that it is decorative but not in any way functional.

My first fake pepper grinder was ridiculously small and came about when I failed to make a screwdriver handle from olivewood due to a split in the turning blank. The shape was roughly modeled on something I'd seen on the Web which I then lost but have recently found again. I then tried to make a more sensibly-sized one from figured maple burl (photograph at right) but messed up by having the bottom part wider than the top. I tried to correct this with my third attempt, using cherry at the top and bottom and the maple only in the middle section. It came out better, but still not quite right. I may come back to this, with different woods, or maybe not.

Bud Vase

This is what I'm working on at the moment. I'm stuck, however, because I bought a redheart turning blank for the top part of the vase, to match the darker wood in the vertical accent strips, and it arrived unseasoned and wet in the middle. The piece I cut off split and was ruined just sitting out overnight.

Cutting and gluing up the pieces that comprise the blank for this project is quite complicated. I am in the process of writing a detailed "recipe".