First try at segmented turning and first post

Evenin' all. Pretty new to woodworking, and brand new here. Just my first post. I thought I'd post a pic of my first try at segmented turning. Still trying to figure out what this cool hobby is all about. I was taking a class in wood working and did a couple of mallets as my "intro to turning". They turned out ok and creating something from a blank of wood in something for the shop that looked ok was fun. So I picked up a Jet Mini and have been doing pens for friends (and strangers).

I wanted a challenge and found some cool pics with google search and liked the look. Tried to do one. Made the stand out of some of the scrap from the torus.

Attachment 366264

By the way, are images still limited to 107k?

Thanks,
Steve

First segmented piece? Seriously? I quit. My first got splattered all over the wall. Very nice looking piece.

That is one heck of a first, it is awesome.

Thanks, Brian.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brian Brown

My first got splattered all over the wall.

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I was scared spit-less that, that exact thing was going to happen. You'd have laughed at how long it took me to spin it up. I turned it on super slow and stood by the side for a bit. Notched up the speed and waited. Rinse and repeat until I could put a tool to it.

It was a fun project. Wife has me doing a mini-remodel of the house. Can't wait until done with that and I can get started on my next turning project.

Thanks,
Steve

Thanks Marvin.

That's a real nice piece Steve. Hard to believe its a" FIRST PIECE". Tell us about the method you used to mount it on the lathe.

Very nice piece Steve there's a lot going on there and really great work for your first Segmented spin; Could you please tell us the species of wood and size and if you have any Photos of this project being turned it would be great to see how you mounted this and assembled it as well.

Bruce

Steve - Welcome to the Creek! VERY impressive work, especially considering it is your first segmented piece! Excellent work on the joinery!

Thanks for asking about image file sizes. Yes - we still ask that members limit image sizes to no more than 107kb.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

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Originally Posted by Steve Moss

Thanks, Brian.
I was scared spit-less that, that exact thing was going to happen. You'd have laughed at how long it took me to spin it up. I turned it on super slow and stood by the side for a bit. Notched up the speed and waited. Rinse and repeat until I could put a tool to it.

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I used to do that. Now I just stand out of the way and crank it up and see if it blows!

Excellent job on the segmented piece. I've turned hundreds of things but have not yet tried a segmenting. That's an entirely different dimension in woodturning.

JKJ

Bruce,

I started to take some pictures at the start but figured no one was going to care. I've got a bunch of left over pieces from each stage of the process. I'll go snap a few pics and try to cobble together how I ended up approaching the project. Might be a bit my PC just died after a "windows update", so it went into the shop today. And of course my mac doesn't have all the photo software installed. I'll try to reply to the main part of the thread this evening after everything's installed.

Steve

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Beautiful piece. As others have said, outstanding first piece.

Ok, so a couple of people asked how I built it, chucked it up, woods etc.

First the woods, Birdseye Maple, Purpleheart, Paduk, White Oak, Mahogany, Zebrawood for the wedges. Dark Walnut for the "mortar". e.g. what ever i had laying around from other projects.

Step 1: Research everything I could find on segmented turning. Must have watched a couple of hundred videos. The style I did was one I found on line, but no video on it. Just a couple of pictures.

Step 2: Built a jig to help with cutting the pieces. I think there's a commercial version called Wedgie.

Attachment 366320

Step 3: Start a cuttin, and cuttin, and cuttin,

Attachment 366321 Attachment 366322

and cuttin. 300+ pieces total

Attachment 366323

Step 4: Rubber bands and glue

While I had the jig set up I cut the walnut that goes in-between the segments.

Attachment 366324

I then glued one walnut and one segment into a doublet. Next was to take the doubles and glue them into groups of 2 and groups of 3. Next was to glue the groups of 2 and 3 into groups of 5.

Attachment 366325 Attachment 366326
When the groups of 5 were done, I sent them all through the drum sander to smooth and get a consistent height.

Then I glued 3 sets of 5 into a half ring of 15 segments/walnut mortar. Again through the sander, and then glued up 5 sets of rings.

While that was all drying, I cut walnut into wedges a 6 segments per ring, Thinned those down using the belt sander.

When I went to size the rings on the lathe I figured out I had made a big mistake. I had planned the size of the wedges around 11" circumference, but forgot about the walnut mortar. Adding those in made my 11" rings into 13" rings. Soooooo off to the band saw to cut them down to size to fit. My other option was to spend $3k for a bigger lathe.

This is what i cut off to make it fit the lathe.

Attachment 366327

Final glue up was to sandwich the 4 walnut rings between the 5 wedge rings.

Step 5: Up chuck, oops, Chuck it up.

By this time I had a 11 1/2 wide turning blank like I see a Rockler, with a big ole hole in it.

I cut a piece of 3/4 scrap ply, rounded it off and screwed it on to a face plate and the mounted it on the lathe. Turned it round and sized it down so it was 'bout 1" wider than the hole in the blank.

Glued the blank to the scrap ply and used another piece add the tail stock to hold it on to the scrap ply. Slowing turning the blank i kept tapping with one of my new mallets, until i had it as centered as I could.



I let the glue set over night, and turned it the next day. With it chucked like that i was able to reach 1/2 of the inside, and most of the out side.

Next I parted it off the ply. Then I turned what was left of the ply and formed a cone. I flipped the torus around and glued back to the cone. Again using a board and the tail stock I tapped it into position so it was centered. I let the glue set just enough that I couldn't pull the piece off and then carefully turned the rest.

Finished up the turning, sanding.

Because I had not let the glue set up totally, I was able to chisel the piece off the cone without damaging anything. Just needed to clean off some glue and a little bit of hand sanding.

I finished with minwax wipe on satin poly.



For tools all i have is the Rockler 3 piece carbide pen turning set and a parting tool. Oh and of course the Jet 1221.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,
Steve

Very impressive work. Fantastic 1 st.

Steve,

I made a hash of the images on the post where I tried to explain the process. The post took a long time to write and the log in timed out. Before I lost the big post, I copied and then logged back and pasted it back. When I did existing images broke the link. When I try to remove and edit the post and fix, none of the images show up in the post edit.

Suggestions on how to fix it now? Should I manage images and just dump them and then add back?

Steve - my advice would be to delete it and start fresh but keep in mind that you can only have 8 images per post. Best advice I can offer is to become an Author, then compose your how-to thread at your convenience. Once finished, I can move it to the Turning Forum. Any questions - PM me.