first time turning something bigger than a plane knob

[Zach England]

not impressive, but fun...

[Steve Schlumpf]

Looks like you did a pretty good job on the bat Zach! Folks were just making comments the other day how we don't see that much spindle turning!

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing some more of your turnings!

[Alan Zenreich]

Make sure you drill a hole through it so you can attach it to the plane <vbg>

[Zach England]

Make sure you drill a hole through it so you can attach it to the plane <vbg>

yeah, I was thinking of attaching it to my jack plane for smoothing the bottoms of ceiling joists.

but a serious question:

When roughing out the narrow end i was getting a lot of vibration. I assume this is partly because my gouge sharpening is not up to par, but would this have been reduced by mounting the barrel end on the tail stock? I actually had it mounted like that to begin with, but took too aggressive a cut when roughing out the barrel, so the barrel became the grip end.

[John Keeton]

Zach, I suspect you were getting flex in the length of the bat, causing chatter/vibration on your tool. If really light cuts won't take care of it (with really sharp tools!!), then you may need a spindle steady.

[Michelle Rich]

for something that long you need a spindle steady..and yes you could have turned it around and helped yourself a little bit. I've always wondered why some enterprising turner has not designed a tailstock item that grabs the end and pulls ( puts tension on it) ..seems to me that would greatly solve the whip problem..

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking bat. Use a spindle steady, sharp tools and light cuts will cut the chatter.

[David E Keller]

Nice looking bat. You can use your hand as a steady to cut down on some of the vibration by applying a little counter pressure when you are cutting... Light cuts and SHARP tools.

[Zach England]

Thanks for the encouragement. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, but took a lot longer than I anticipated. Next time I will be more aggressive with the handsaw and spokeshave before it goes on the lathe.

I have put a few coats of BLO on it now and it is impressively smooth and has a nice amber tone. Now what? I am thinking gloss waterlox. I also have some behlens, but that seems overkill.


Aside from that, what am I going to do with a baseball bat?