Project Information
So, here I am in a turning swap with a bunch of people who know their way around that spinny tool and feeling pretty iinadequate. What to do? I had received a set of salt/pepper grinders in an earlier BBQ swap and made a joke about carving a salt grinder that looked like Lot's wilfe (Gen. 19 - she looks back on Sodom/Gomorrah and is turned into a pillar of salt). Sounded easier than it was… For one thing, you have to allow for a 1" diameter hole to be drilled all the way through the body of the object which makes for a fairly plump little woman. I was hoping to make it look like something from early times, old, weathered, discolored, etc. so I grabbed up a piece of maple that had some pretty obvious color running through it. I also refrained from too much sanding to keep the texture looking like I thought a pillar of salt might look after many years.
OK, so I had a salt grinder design… Now what was I going to do for the pepper grinder? A number of ideas from Dr. Pepper to Sgt. Pepper ran through my mind with Sgt. Pepper sounding like the best option as it was represented by a body to compliment Lot's wife. Here's where that 1" diameter hole made it difficult as all the Beatles were fairly thin fellows. I decided that if I needed a squat body that the Lego Man wearing a Sgt. Pepper costume might be a good way to go, hoping me recipient was old enough to even remember who the Beatles were (how ironic that his young daughter turned out to be a Beatles fan!) I needed a darker piece of wood for pepper but I haven't seen much spalted wood in deeper shades… Found this piece of figured cherry in my firewood pile. It turned out to be very solid despite the appearance and it screamed for the pink color of Ringo's costume. No good way to build this without doing a fair amount of hand carving…
I was still feeling a bit out of place in this 'turning' swap and really didn't want to make another box so I tried to replicate a technique that I hear a lot of lathe guys talk about - eccentric turning and moving centers. One of the things a CNC lathe/mill excels at is turning eccentric parts without remounting the piece to move the centers. In fact, the whole dipper is eccentric from one end to the other. I modelled the Bee's Butt Honey Dipper in Sketch-Up, trying to make use of the faceted nature of the solids (I believe that the main body cylinder has 32 flats and if you look close you can see them - not something that is easily accomplished on a lathe).
Thanks for letting me play and I promise that one day I will get my lathes set up again and get back to turning wood like the rest of you!
OK, so I had a salt grinder design… Now what was I going to do for the pepper grinder? A number of ideas from Dr. Pepper to Sgt. Pepper ran through my mind with Sgt. Pepper sounding like the best option as it was represented by a body to compliment Lot's wife. Here's where that 1" diameter hole made it difficult as all the Beatles were fairly thin fellows. I decided that if I needed a squat body that the Lego Man wearing a Sgt. Pepper costume might be a good way to go, hoping me recipient was old enough to even remember who the Beatles were (how ironic that his young daughter turned out to be a Beatles fan!) I needed a darker piece of wood for pepper but I haven't seen much spalted wood in deeper shades… Found this piece of figured cherry in my firewood pile. It turned out to be very solid despite the appearance and it screamed for the pink color of Ringo's costume. No good way to build this without doing a fair amount of hand carving…
I was still feeling a bit out of place in this 'turning' swap and really didn't want to make another box so I tried to replicate a technique that I hear a lot of lathe guys talk about - eccentric turning and moving centers. One of the things a CNC lathe/mill excels at is turning eccentric parts without remounting the piece to move the centers. In fact, the whole dipper is eccentric from one end to the other. I modelled the Bee's Butt Honey Dipper in Sketch-Up, trying to make use of the faceted nature of the solids (I believe that the main body cylinder has 32 flats and if you look close you can see them - not something that is easily accomplished on a lathe).
Thanks for letting me play and I promise that one day I will get my lathes set up again and get back to turning wood like the rest of you!