Merry Christmas! OK, a couple of days early but I think that's OK.

 

I've been preparing some rolling pin blanks and have found a better way of clamping the glued up inserts. The previous method used C-clamps and F-clamps-

 

 

With the new Bessy clamps, the clamping processes is faster and applies better pressure on the square blank-

 

 

Several blanks in various stages of completion-

Yesterday, a friend asked if I could help him prepare a blank for a Stainless Steel Travel Mug. We turned a piece of "firewood walnut" and hollowed the inside for the insert.

We accomplished the job with scrapers but if you try to make one of these, a hollower like one of the Easy Wood hollowers would make the job a lot easier!! Sorry, we were so busy trying to get it done, I forgot to take pictures.

 

When I turned the batch of walnut bowls, a while back, I realized that the particular shape didn't hold very well in my Longworth Chuck. Using the tail stock to apply pressure to the bowl, when finishing the bottom, kept the bowl in place. I used a small scrap of plywood to protect the bowl from the center's point. The shape and size of the center prevented some of the tools from getting as close to the bowl's center as I would have liked. I made this little adapter to fit over the tail stock center point and still allow the tools to get close enough to finish out almost all of the bowl's bottom.

 

 

 

Popular Woodworking has another Tim Yoder video up, This one's a little different in that Tim uses specialty jigs to turn a sphere ( different than last week's jig using a shadow).

 

Safe Turning

Thanks Lew for posting!!!!! I always enjoy the Wed topics! I am having a really hard time getting my lath fired up, I need a kick in the you know what!

Well, John, the sooner you start the sooner you'll be sliding down that slippery slope of no return into the world of woodturning!

9 minutes ago, lew said:

Well, John, the sooner you start the sooner you'll be sliding down that slippery slope of no return into the world of woodturning!

And I would absolutely love that! I just sold my Performax, perhaps it's time to purchase some turning blanks now.

Purchase turning blanks, what's that??? 

Before they closed the "dump", here, I would take the saw and scavenge the area for stuff the tree guys dumped there. "Green" wood is the easiest to turn and if you goof-up you haven't wasted $$$$ on an exotic blank. I'll bet, in your job, you see lots of "tree specialist" removing trees. Just stop and ask, they might even cut pieces to size, for you.

 

Useful first project-