Wednesday's Wisdom For Woodturners

Sometimes lathe work isn't about lathe work.

I needed to replenish my supply of rolling pins. As usual, Christmas presents wiped out my reserve. So, in between substituting and family duties, I have been milling stock getting ready to create more. It is hard to believe that it takes so much material to make a batch of these!

The pins start out as Maple or Walnut. These pieces are glued together to create the blank. Walnut has such color variations that it is difficult to get all one color without wasting wood. Some of these will be “interestingâ€.

The inserts start out as 3/16†thick, 2†wide strips and then sanded to 1/8†thick. I used to try to make these with the planer but any “wild†grain can cause the wood to tear out or shatter. This is where the greatest amount of waste occurs. Often times, defects are not visible until the strips are resawn. I make plenty of extras. They’ll get used eventually.

While I had the bandsaw setup, I cut some walnut for wall hanging pin holders as well as the small counter holders. The wide pieces will yield 2 or 3 holders per piece.

I still need to cut/glue/mill some Maple for the wall holder rings. That will come from the Maple trimmings.

My poor little old bandsaw really got a workout. All of the inserts and the holders are resawn from thicker boards. My saw doesn’t have a riser kit so I’m limited to 6†maximum height. Here’s a picture of the setup.

The resaw post allows me to constantly compensate for drift. I prefer this to a “fenceâ€. I use a marking gauge to make a line along the edge of the piece. The cut line, along with a low angle LED spotlight (upper left corner of the picture) creates a highly visible path to follow while resawing.

If you haven't had an opportunity to read them, Cliff and Greg Sayers had a very informative discussion about turning a hollow vessel. You can check it out here.

 

Safe Turning.

Lew Kauffman-
Wood Turners Forum Host

Time Traveler and Purveyor of the Universe's Finest Custom Rolling Pins!