My new trick.  Have never tried it, but it can’t be worse than rapid drying and cracks.

 

I turned that honkin’ maple crotch rough,  I’m at bowl depth so I won’t be going deeper but the walls are like 1.5†thicker than they need to be in places.

 

But it’s supper time and I gotta close up.

 

So I grab some water (I have been wetting the surfaces down during the day just to prevent rapid drying) and a rag and some saw shavings and a roll of  plastic wrap.

 

I wet the outside and wrap it in plastic wrap.

I wet the inside and stuff a pie of shavings in there upon which I plop a wet rag.

Then I plastic wrap the opening of the bowl and tap it all in place and then I wrap the whole mess in a black  plastic trash bag.

 

Tomorrow will tell the tale

My new trick.  Have never tried it, but it can’t be worse than rapid drying and cracks.

 

I turned that honkin’ maple crotch rough,  I’m at bowl depth so I won’t be going deeper but the walls are like 1.5” thicker than they need to be in places.

 

But it’s supper time and I gotta close up.

 

So I grab some water (I have been wetting the surfaces down during the day just to prevent rapid drying) and a rag and some saw shavings and a roll of  plastic wrap.

 

I wet the outside and wrap it in plastic wrap.

I wet the inside and stuff a pie of shavings in there upon which I plop a wet rag.

Then I plastic wrap the opening of the bowl and tap it all in place and then I wrap the whole mess in a black  plastic trash bag.

 

Tomorrow will tell the tale

If that don't do it, I don't know what will!

Sounds tricky. In Colorado and dry states, it would be much different than humid states. Could work real well, keep us informed. 

Should work. Hope you wiped down the new lathe.

. Hope you wiped down the new lathe.

 

Yipper skipper

It didn't split.  Here are some images of it after I wetted it.

I may break down and get some wood stabilizer for this one.

 

 

Y'all remember this guy

 

 

Well he's had a little work done. Not Joan Rivers level but work nonetheless level but work nonetheless

 

 

Now all I gotta do is l keep it from cracking as I finish it up.

a short clip

Nice video clip. How soft is the area around the splating?

I gotta turn the tool up and use it like it was a skew at a high angle and take the lightest of cuts to avoid making the surface rough.

 

For some reason I'm having issues with roundness.  I spin it a tad over 500 and it's out of balance and the whole lathe moves and of course my tool is not attached to the lathe so it's moving independently of the lathe's leaping around.

 

Makes me want to invent a lathe tool with a spinning carbide burr on the  end of a rod powered by a router.

I gotta turn the tool up and use it like it was a skew at a high angle and take the lightest of cuts to avoid making the surface rough.

 

For some reason I'm having issues with roundness.  I spin it a tad over 500 and it's out of balance and the whole lathe moves and of course my tool is not attached to the lathe so it's moving independently of the lathe's leaping around.

 

Makes me want to invent a lathe tool with a spinning carbide burr on the  end of a rod powered by a router.

The slowest speed on my lathe is just under 500 RPMs. It can be a real challenge to turn some things while chasing the lathe all over the basement.

 

One piece I turned seemed OK at first, but, as I proceeded it got worse (out of balance). Turned out that I had cut away some solid wood on one side leaving only pithy stuff. That made it heavier on one side than the other and an out of balance condition. 

 

On soft stuff, I saturate the area with several applications of CA. It hardens it up but that area is still lighter in density than the solid wood areas.

Hmmmm How to know what my wall thickness is?

There's gotta be a way:

 

Oh Lookit~!!  there's some of that exterior sheathing left over from my shed build.  It's like OSB but oodles stronger & pressed under enormous pressure and glued together better.  It's really strong in all directions.

 That'll do

 

 

 

All the stuff I have read tells me that this is a little thick.

But I think I like it because of all the fracture points in the wood on this piece.  Thicker will be stronger assuming I don't split the piece.

Or maybe it's an  excuse to try out my new carbide insert negative rake scraper tool.

It's also an excuse to order a 36" length of 1" bar and bend it to make a deep, deep bowl turning rest.

Yah I got a plan on how to bend a 1" bar  into a 4" radius..

 

I ordered some  pentacryl so maybe ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~

Meanwhile in between turning it looks like this after I wet the whole thing down

 

 

I made a similar caliper from Masonite. I Think Craft Supplies USA has a similar version but not as large.

 

When I was still working at the school, I had the welding kids make me two "S" tool rests similar to

 

http://www.kmstools.com/maxwood-9-s-shaped-mini-lathe-tool-rest-9239 . My Delta lathe uses a 1" post. I had the "S"s made as mirror images. One for the inside of the bowl, one for the outside. Mine are only 6" or 7" end to end and made from 1/2" diameter stock.

 

I really like the Saran Wrap idea. My only concern for what you have setup is that the moisture from the wood might rust your faceplate/chuck mounting. I left a piece of split walnut in my chuck while I completed another project. When I returned to the walnut, the chuck had rusted so badly that it would barely operate. Had to completely disassemble it, wire brush and emory cloth it. The surface is still pitted but it functions OK.

Rust - - Yah I considered this AFTER I mounted the piece. I figure if it rusts I'll just clean it up  and ion the future I'll mount a piece of mylar  or polycarbonate in between the work and the plate.

 

Bending the 1" steel bar Well I have a couple of ideas. 

1) I can put it in the chop saw and  kerf it, bend it, and weld it where I kerfed it

2) I can build a poor man's forge by digging a hole packing it with hardwood charcoal and use a blower to super heat it then  after the bar is hot  & jam it in a trailer hitch and heave on it

3) I can build a Twin Carbon Arc heating device for my welder and heat it up that way,

4) Maybe I could use a bottle of expensive argon and use my tig torch to heat the bar till it was hot enough to jam in the trailer hitch.

Nice looking bowl there Cliff.

Rust - - Yah I considered this AFTER I mounted the piece. I figure if it rusts I'll just clean it up  and ion the future I'll mount a piece of mylar  or polycarbonate in between the work and the plate.

 

Bending the 1" steel bar Well I have a couple of ideas. 

1) I can put it in the chop saw and  kerf it, bend it, and weld it where I kerfed it

2) I can build a poor man's forge by digging a hole packing it with hardwood charcoal and use a blower to super heat it then  after the bar is hot  & jam it in a trailer hitch and heave on it

3) I can build a Twin Carbon Arc heating device for my welder and heat it up that way,

4) Maybe I could use a bottle of expensive argon and use my tig torch to heat the bar till it was hot enough to jam in the trailer hitch.

I wonder if it really needs to be 1" on the horizontal. My 1/2" pieces have worked well albeit not as large as you might need. 

I already ordered the 36" of bar.

 I may try the hillbilly forge first.   Get me a couple bags of hardwood coal and let my leaf blower  push air through the pile

I think I have some firebrick laying around.  Maybe enough to build a little furnace.

 

Uh Oh I can smell a slippery slope

 

 

Thanks Charles.  I really like the character in the wood.

 Haven't figured out how I stop the spalting.  I could boil it  toss it in a 150 oven for a few hours after it is bone dry but that'll be a while.

Or just hope that getting the MC down to 10% or so will stop it.

True as any moisture at all will only allow spalting to advance. I may be wrong but drying it out then coating it with say a varathane, could possibly stop the advance of spalting.

500 RPS  is a tad fast for big stuff.

I am building a slow speed gizmo for my lathe.  I used to attach a 12" pulley to my old lathe but the motor placement on the OM puts nix to that so I'm making a little thing from steel that will slip over my Dayton Gear motor thingy's  shaft with a couple of $2.00  1/4" fat O rings from a Sewing machine driver  package that I will mount so it impinged against the hand wheel and drives it slow slow slow.

I have a speed control that I got for my angle grinder that I may use to slow it yet still more.

 

Chucky Niel uses regular water based finish to harden up his punky stuff.   I think he prefers a GF  water based urethane.  I haven't nary a clue if he waits for the roughed out piece to dry first.

 drying it out then coating it with say a varathane, could possibly stop the advance of spalting.

 

It should slow it.   So long as there is any humidity and O2 at all that the molds can get at, there will always be activity, so it's all a question of degree.

 

Killing it or stopping it completely would require something more than merely sealing it behind a finish.

 

Chucky Niel uses regular water based finish to harden up his punky stuff.   I think he prefers a GF  water based urethane.  I haven't nary a clue if he waits for the roughed out piece to dry first.

My guess is that it would have to dry to strengthen the soft stuff. That idea is certainly less expensive than CA- especially for large pieces. Plus the "odor factor" would be practically eliminated.