Bird Bath Basin Bowl

[Mark J]

My latest turning.  From this very square block of Kosso (a.k.a African Rosewood),

 

 

to this 

 

Sorry that last picture is out of focus, but I think that is the best view.  

[Chestnut]

Dude that is awesome but it's making my head hurt. I can't comprehend how you make something like this.

Also are the legs very fragile? I'm assuming you've broken one of these or at least something similar then maybe not idk.

[wtnhighlander]

OK, I'm going to need progress pics to make my brain understand how that came off a lathe. Awesome work!

[Mark J]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

Dude that is awesome but it's making my head hurt. I can't comprehend how you make something like this.

Also are the legs very fragile? I'm assuming you've broken one of these or at least something similar then maybe not idk.

I'm laughing.  And yeah my head hurt some doing it, too.  

The legs could be broken off easily, but they are strong enough that with reasonable care I was able to complete the project, including a crap load of sanding, without breaking one off.  

37 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

OK, I'm going to need progress pics to make my brain understand how that came off a lathe. Awesome work!

I have lots of pictures.  I'll try to put something together tomorrow.

[wdwerker]

Beautiful ! It looks like it's ready to walk away. Such grace and motion evoked by such a smooth simple shape. But where are you going to sign & date it ?

[RichardA]

Classy as hell.  it sure takes a lot of wood to make something so simple and sexy.   It  makes me think of Lauren Bacall.  Yeah I know.... way before your time.  But she was classy, sexy and beautiful.

[Chestnut]

1 hour ago, RichardA said:

   It  makes me think of Lauren Bacall.  Yeah I know.... way before your time.  But she was classy, sexy and beautiful.

[RichardA]

16 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

That was the way I felt, every time I saw her.

[drzaius]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

Looks like that tongue may have been inspiration for the Mark's piece. But his interpretation is certainly much more beautiful.

[Mark J]

As promised, more detail.  I will try not to make this tedious, but there were a lot of steps in the process.  

 

I came up with the basic design and selected a block of wood for the project.  Experience has taught me that it’s best if the block is flat and square on six sides, so first step was square up the block.  Then I laid the block on a piece of graph paper and took off the actual dimensions.  Using these I made three life size diagrams.

In the photo above there are three drawings, the face view, the corner view and top down.  These are really important to strategize the approach to the turning and to keep you on target  during the turning.  

On the corner view take note of the curved dotted line that starts in the middle of the leg and sweeps inward and to the bottom of the block.  That’s the key.  There is no way to mount the bowl from the base once it’s on the legs.  So I kept the legs connected by a thick ring of wood.  This allowed me to open up the bottom of the block for hollowing out,  but kept the form sturdy enough to turn and gave me a place to mount the chuck.  Later pictures will make that more clear.  

Next step transfer all the information on the diagrams to the six surfaces of the block.

 

Then drill guide holes from the bottom of the block up.  These need to be accurate depth and accurate location.  These will tell me how deep I can turn and are ¼” short of the final surface to give me room for error and some flexibility.

 

I drill oblique holes in each face for guide pins that I will insert after the outside is turned.  These give me targets to keep the chisel aligned during the hollowing out phase so I don’t carve away the basin.  Kind of like the lines on the highway when you hit a section of fog (although when I get stuck in this situation it’s always some worn out roadway with no paint stripes left; oh yeah, right right, I live in Illinois). 

 

Then turn the outside surface.  Once turned I sand up the grits to 220.  There will be more sanding later, but it’s easier to do some now. 

 

With the outside done bore out some of the waste, then glue in the guide pins.

 

Then start hollowing out, being sure to stay between the guide pins and respecting the depth holes.

 

Breaking out and cleaning up the inside to the final surface.  Again sand to 220 grit.

 

 

I am ready to reverse the bowl, but at this point I generally brand the bottom.  That way if the brand goes on badly and needs to be sanded or carved off I’m still on the chuck and everything is still aligned.   My branding iron is about an inch in diameter and for this project that was just going to look bad.  So I had another tiny branding iron made.  This one is about 3/8” which is about as small as I could go with my brand.  Then I had another idea.  I wanted to keep the mark subtle since it was still going to have to go on a show surface, so instead of burning the mark into the wood I used a C clamp to emboss my brand. 

 

Now reverse the chuck mount and carve out the inside of the basin. 

 

Almost done, just a couple more days work to go.  

Now it’s time to mark up the piece for the legs.  These will be carved out with a hand held Dremel tool, file and some aluminum oxide encouragement.  To make the templates I made the first one on Post It Note paper (the kind with adhesive over the entire paper surface—very useful stuff in the shop).  Then I peeled off a stack of four sheets of Post It and used the first one to cut out four identical templates.  These templates are then positioned on the legs using a meticulous, and highly mathematically precise process of shifting them around till they look right.  When they look right, carefully run a pencil line around the edge of the paper.   

 

 

Now start shaping the upper legs.  Something that I discovered that turned out to be very useful were these ¾” x 1 inch 100 grit sanding sleeves.  I acquired a bunch for 2 bucks at an auction, but they didn’t fit any of my tools—until I slid my finger inside one.  Great way to sand/shape an inside curve. 

 

Some sawing for bulk removal.  I tried a couple of permutations, but the little DeWalt saw was best followed by the short hack saw for tighter places.  Be careful of the end of the saw that it doesn’t strike and mar the inside surfaces, which are already sanded to 220.  

 

 

Once the upper portion of the legs are shaped it’s time to flip the piece and switch to Cole jaws.  Then start revealing the remainder of the legs.  First step was to GENTLY turn off what I could of the mounting ring.  Then revert to saws

.

 

With the legs roughly revealed it’s time for Dremel, filing and sanding to 220. 

 

Then it comes off the Cole jaws and basically into my lap where it gets hand sanded to 220 again all over, inspected with spot touch up for any defects, then sanded to 320, 400 and 600 grits.  Tack rag and bee’s wax finish.  Last step, cold beer.  Hell even a warm beer at this point. 

 

And that's how I spent July.

[Mark J]

Thanks all.  And I do recall  Bacall so I take that as high praise.  @wdwerker  I think you'll approve of the signature (above), but I never date them.  I could put the number on, this one was #15, but I haven't gone that far yet.  

[pkinneb]

Holy crap now my head really hurts!! That is simply amazing I knew it had to be a lot more complicated then the final piece would suggest but wow that's unbelievable. My hats off to you and your turning ability!!

[Chestnut]

This site shatters my reality from time to time. This is a prime example. The original looked awesome but the journey is as bizarre and amazing as the finished piece.

What rpm were you running your lathe at for the last step of the leg removal on the cole chuck? is there a trick to grain direction and leg placement? It looks like there was some blow out in one of the images.

[Mick S]

Absolutely brilliant - concept, planning, execution - all the way through. Really brilliant project! This makes me very happy that I signed up for a turning class for the fall semester! Now I can't wait!

 

[Immortan D]

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

 

[Pondhockey]

I am impressed, awed and intimidated.  That's art, in my book.

[Mark J]

Thank you again everyone for the kind remarks!

 

On 8/2/2018 at 9:55 AM, Chestnut said:

This site shatters my reality from time to time. This is a prime example. The original looked awesome but the journey is as bizarre and amazing as the finished piece.

What rpm were you running your lathe at for the last step of the leg removal on the cole chuck? is there a trick to grain direction and leg placement? It looks like there was some blow out in one of the images.

I like that, "bizarre and amazing".  Pretty much right on summary of my experience with it.  I can't really tell you how the idea got in my head, but once it did this was the only way to get it out.  I suppose the inspiration might have come from Federal style furniture.  

The Cole jaws and the Longworth I tried before them both have a speed limit of 600 rpm.  So turning speed was between 250 and 500.  The Longworth is great, but it mounts to your chuck jaws and it is just not a good fit with my Super Nova 2.  It doesn't fit tight.  So I went back to the Cole jaws.  For some reason I accidentally included a photo of the Coles with some Blue Tape protection at the end of the post.  Didn't mean to, but I'll leave it in.

When you are turning in the corners of the block it is pretty much impossible not to have end grain tear out that takes out chunks along the trailing edge.  This will happen on the two opposing corners where the scrapping/cutting action is perpendicular to the grain direction.  Having learned this the hard way I periodically relieve (or camfer back) those two trailing edges with a file or Dremel as I turn the piece.  You can take it off yourself or wait to see what the blow out leaves you--and yes I have become very adept at finding said pieces in the sawdust and the use of crazy glue.  

But in this application the legs are slender so all the leading and trailing edges are removed.  There was however a certain misadventure with the DeWalt saw that ordinarily would have been a redesign opportunity, but I couldn't really do anything with it that would look nice.  

 

On 8/2/2018 at 10:06 AM, Mick S said:

Absolutely brilliant - concept, planning, execution - all the way through. Really brilliant project! This makes me very happy that I signed up for a turning class for the fall semester! Now I can't wait!

 

I am absolutely delighted to hear that you are taking the turning class.  After all the only thing a turning addict likes better than another fix is introducing another to the addiction.  Where is the class being held, Hotel California?

[Mick S]

9 minutes ago, Mark J said:

I am absolutely delighted to hear that you are taking the turning class.  After all the only thing a turning addict likes better than another fix is introducing another to the addiction.  Where is the class being held, Hotel California?

It's that addiction part that I've been avoiding. I did a good bit of turning back in the '80s, but have intentionally avoided getting a lathe since I retired. I know how addictive it is and I had too many other furniture projects I wanted to get done before dipping my toes back in. 

I'm taking the class at Santa Fe Community College. They have a really nice turning lab, equipped with several lathes - OneWay, General and others and very good instructors. Just short of Hotel California.

[drzaius]

That takes way more brain than I have. Quite remarkable. I don't turn at all, but this thread makes me want to try it out.

[wdwerker]

Very classy !    It reminds me of the makers mark that lots of fine pottery has imbossed, you know the ones where the antiques roadshow expert sees it and instantly knows who made it. 

[Coop]

Mark, I’m awed at the finished product and even more so at the design, layout and process. In pic # 11, there are two tools shown. Is the round curved one a support for the other, a knife I assume, while you were turning. Surely not as that would take an incredible amount of hand, eye, hand coordination ? I’m not a turner so forgive the lack of knowing the correct names. Also, did you have any conception as to what the grain on the legs would look like from looking at the square block, when you were laying it out? 

[Coop]

5 hours ago, wdwerker said:

Very classy !    It reminds me of the makers mark that lots of fine pottery has imbossed, you know the ones where the antiques roadshow expert sees it and instantly knows who made it. 

And Maker’s Mark reminds of something totally different than woodworking. Well, maybe not. 

[Mark J]

2 hours ago, K Cooper said:

Mark, I’m awed at the finished product and even more so at the design, layout and process. In pic # 11, there are two tools shown. Is the round curved one a support for the other, a knife I assume, while you were turning. Surely not as that would take an incredible amount of hand, eye, hand coordination ? I’m not a turner so forgive the lack of knowing the correct names. Also, did you have any conception as to what the grain on the legs would look like from looking at the square block, when you were laying it out? 

Thank you (and everyone) very much.  Coop, picture #11 shows the carbide scraper tool sitting on top of the tool rest.  The tool rest is a heavy round bar with a hockey stick shape.  The tool rest has been carefully slipped into the hollowed out segment to bring the tool support as close to the work surface as possible.

As to the legs and the grain pattern, no my powers of 3 dimensional thinking don't go that far, so it's sort of luck of the draw.  I do give some consideration to which side should be the top, but that is more about how I think the basin will look, and whether there are any imperfections that have to be managed.