My son's Cross Country team asked if I would take an attempt at making a new spirit stick for the team.  What I have learned about spirit sticks at cross country meets is that the teams carry these to receive their awards post-run.  I do not know much else about the history of this and believe it just something that the teams do for fun.  I agreed to give it a shot as the old one was in a bad state of repair.  I have a Powermatic PM90 with VFD but have not had many excuses to run it.  I am really a "nooby" in the turning world. I also took a first attempt at inlay on this project.  While I do not consider this my best work, I am pleased with how it turned out and what I learned as well.  This will be attached to pool cue that is candy striped in two tone blue school colors.  I did not have it ready at the time I took the pictures.  For many of the folks here, I know that this is pretty rudimentary turning so I apologize for the fledgling work. Hopefully it meets the team expectations!.  Go Storm!

Edited September 1, 20169 yr by Bundoman

I'd say you did a super job. I like the inlays and how they turned out.

That came out real nice! They'll like it!

 

Nice!  I would expect them to be thrilled with it.  Quite unique, well done dad.

1 hour ago, HandyDan said:

Nice!  I would expect them to be thrilled with it.  Quite unique, well done dad.

you said it...

Looks pretty cool to me

That's a very ambitious project for "rookie". I think they will really like it. Two things to remember, there are more but I can't remember them just now.  We all started the same place. Secondly a wood turner relies heavily on "artistic interpretation" what that means is, however it turns out, that's what I was trying to do!

 

Steve

Thank you all for the kind words!  

Brent, that's pretty neat. The boys will love it. The inlays are very nice.

On my project list is to build a better router lathe for making canes. I've always wanted to do inlays in them. Could you explain the process to this old dummy?

On September 1, 2016 at 6:43 AM, Gene Howe said:

Brent, that's pretty neat. The boys will love it. The inlays are very nice.

On my project list is to build a better router lathe for making canes. I've always wanted to do inlays in them. Could you explain the process to this old dummy?

I will start with the disclaimer that there may be a far simpler or easier way to do these than what I tried.  I also apologize that I didnt photograph the process so I have no visuals to help.  

 

I turned the cylinder in my lathe and left it chucked in but powered down.  I had no set plan and this was a first of its kind project for me so I got out a marking knife and my chisels and I started free handing.  The end result was just what came out of my head.  I relief carved the (BV) which is initials for the name of the school district and back burned it with my small butane torch for a little depth and color.  In total, I inlayed three images.  They are a lightning bolt signifying "The Storm" )name of the team), the letters "XC" (cross country), and an arrow symbol which I have seen many times associated with the cross country events that we attend.  I do not know its significance.  

 

I sketched the rough layouts for each symbol  and then used an xacto knife and a couple of bench chisels to recess the designs into the cylinder to a depth of 1/4 inch and as cleanly pared as possible.  The struggle that I realized as I was doing the relief is that recessing 1/4 inch slots across a round cylinder means that any wood inlay parts used for inlay have to be shaped at least somethat to follow the contour of the cylinder if you want to get a good depth of wood into the recesses.  Otherwise, the inlay pieces will start to get smaller quickly at the sanding step.  The other challenge I ran into was that the Mahogany used for the project chips very easily and did cause me some issues.

 

I didnt have a really wide selection of different woods for contrast but came up with 4 species to do the inlay work.  Osage Orange was used for the lightning bolt.  It looked great the day it was done because of its bright yellow color.  It has since dulled a little with oxydation as I expected.  The "XC" was done with hard maple as was the shaft of the arrow, the arrow point was done in Walnut, and the flights were done with some small pieces of wood from a shrub branch that I have not identified.  It had a nice orange-red color when fresh cut and the grain was agreeable.  I shaped each piece carefully to fit its respective spot, using my band saw, scroll saw, belt sander, disc sander, and chisels to adjust the fit.  I also very slightly tapered each piece like a bottle stopper so that the fit would tighten just a bit into the slots.  The wedging effect has to be slight to avoid chipping.  

 

Once I had the shapes pretty right, I used my belt sander to add a bit of contour to match the cylinder and adjust the depth of each piece to get the resistance or wedge fit right.  I used five minute epoxy to glue the parts and clamped them lightly.  The epoxy seemed to fill the remaining voids and the quick setting allowed me to keep working.  I rubbed a little mahogany sanding dust into the tacky epoxy to blend the color a much as possible.  When set, I trimmed the proud portions off with a very sharp chisel.  I found that it is very easy to chip these too deep.  Keep the chisel sharp.  To finish, I powered the lathe and sanded the whole thing using a sanding block to keep from indenting the BV or the changing species.

 

Overall, I am pleased with the results and will likely try it again. 

Edited September 2, 20169 yr by Bundoman

Thanks, Brent. Appreciate you taking the time.

Now, I know. 

No problem Gene!  This project was a lot of trial and error for me and a great deal of fun.  Glad to share.