Ginkgo Biloba Salt Cellar! - Wood Turning

we're having a spring-like day here in the pacific northwest good morning good afternoon good evening as we like to say here at shady acres wood shop howdy today we have ginkgo biloba this comes to us from viewer and long time friend dave at calm wood creations i've had this piece for quite a while trying to determine what to do with it i fix my own meals here i'm my own cook and i'm not real imaginative when it comes to food i like food quite a little bit you can probably tell but i don't know a lot about cooking it i can get by as you can probably tell but anyway so i watch a lot of uh cooking videos to figure out what what to cook next and this one guy i watch uses a a salt dispenser a salt holder for his coarse salt kosher salt i want one so i'm gonna make one some people call them salt containers salt box salt cellar salt cellar c-e-l-l-a-r that seems odd an odd name to me but it also seems to be the most commonly used name so that's what i'm gonna make out of this piece we're gonna lose all the bark this is about five inches across and i need about four inches across this is about four inches in length and i need about two and a half to three inches in length i'm gonna trim it down and make myself a salt cellar first i'm to find the center on each end of this [Music] i did a little research on this wood before i came out here it's a very ancient wood it has survived a lot of earth's history it's a tight-grained wood even though it's kind of soft apparently the piece doesn't weigh a lot but i can see it's making some nice threads so tight grained it is i have an idea of how i want to do this but i don't know i haven't planned out the steps exactly so we'll kind of figure it out as we go along and we'll use tail stock support just while we round it up shouldn't need it for much longer than that my center hole is off slightly that's okay see what kind of speed we can get here should be able to do pretty good about 1300 rpm i'm gonna grab a well you know i could probably use a roughing gouge on this either a roughing gouge or bowl guys we'll we'll see uh mask and face shield on i guess we'll go with the two inch roughing gouge okay now i just want to square up the two ends and for that we'll just use a parting tool [Music] [Music] well i guess there's no point in doing both ends because i'm going to only be using like i said about two and a half inches of it so we'll put a recess on this bottom end so i'll just mark out for the recess parting tool doesn't give you the cleanest cut in the world but that's okay well we'll take care of that as we go along well wouldn't you know there was a little squirrel on that big tree out there and now i don't see him anymore but like i said it's a beautiful spring day here in the pacific northwest i'm going to use a 3 8 inch bowl gouge to clean out the recess and i'm going to use this recess tool to create the dovetail over here on the side of the recess and that's good and that's good i guess i'll uh while we're here i guess i'll cut it off to the right length and for that i will return to the parting tool and i need to mark that length i'm gonna go with three inches for now i might change it later that's a little bit deeper than i thought of [Music] i'll finish the cut once i flip it around well as always whenever i do a spindle turning i get confused i'm not used to doing things in in steps in a progression i'm used to just winging it you know so i need to sand this sand it first and before i turn it around and maybe even put some finish on it duh i'm starting at 150 grit i'll work up through at least 400 maybe 600 on this and i'll bring you back and we'll put some finish on there the lathe is spinning in reverse at 300 rpm see in a bit i thought i'd try this thing i can't even remember how to use it that's the main problem so i'm going to turn the speed up around 500 rpm i think i'm in the right spot here we'll just see what happens [Music] do so and i'm just going to take my point tool and outline this cool okay time to flip it around oh no gotta put on some finish what are you doing geez hold on i'm just gonna use this uh beeswax salad ball finish i've had it forever hardly ever use it i used to use it on some little whistles that i i used to make i used to make a lot of little things that i don't really make anymore like tops and pins and bottle stoppers and whatever and this is a food safe finish so my salt should be safe i did stop at 400 grit seemed plenty smooth to me this is a pretty nondescript grain in this so this might have been the perfect piece of wood for what i'm using it for i've got one one little knot right there you know a little bit of a little bit of color in the grain not much so i'm going to let this set up for just uh i can't remember what it says 10 minutes or something and then i'll buff it with a clean cloth and then it'll be time to turn it around start working on the rest of the piece see in a little bit turn the speed up to about a thousand rpm and just buff it up [Music] i don't think this stuff comes to a high shine or anything it just protects it oh feels nice yeah well you know what like i said it's a spring day and i got spring fever and i'm gonna go jump in my side by side i hear lawn mowers i hear chainsaws i hear people doing things where i live i can't see anybody so i'm going to go right around the neighborhood on my side by side and see what's going on so we'll take this up tomorrow i think i've got some lint there in the middle yep that's better see you tomorrow well i'm glad i got my spring fling out of the way yesterday when it was 61 degrees today it's 41 degrees and raining and i had a lot of fun it was it was worth stopping now i could cut this piece off this waste piece as we are as it is right now but uh i want access to the top of this so i'm gonna just turn it around sounds like i could put a little wax on those threads huh i'm just going to turn it around and cut cut it off this way so that i can clean up this top edge this is all waste and then i'm going to d-mount it again and do a little short operation and then remount it again and to cut it off i'm going to use a thin parting tool so now i just want to clean the face of this up a little bit make sure it's flat i'm gonna have the lathe spinning at 1300 rpm half inch bowl gouge mask and face shield on [Music] probably about as good as it can get let's see if it's flat it is now i want to take it off and drill a hole in the in the edge here i want i could drill it on the lathe but i need it to be straight and perpendicular to the top for this brass rod to go in here i'm just going to drill straight through the this will be the top probably i don't know 3 8 of an inch thick or so and then i want to drill it down into the body some and that's going to serve as a pivot point for the top to swivel open get your salt out swivel it closed i could use a smaller one but i i kind of want it to show i might even make it proud of the surface i might let it stick up a little bit i haven't quite decided about that not much just a an eighth of an inch or maybe even less so i'm going to take this over the drill press so that i get a nice straight hole i forgot to set my depth stop before i got this all positioned and i don't want to reposition it so i put a piece of tape on here for how deep i want to go [Applause] [Music] it's not a critical measurement anyway it's just whatever i decide and that's what i decided now i just want to sand this up and get a finish on it so i'm just going to use my two inch disc starting at 150 grit and i'll sand up through 400 as i did the outside put my wax on there and then we're going to separate the lid from the body so that's what it looks like it won't take long i'll be right back we'll get some finish on there and separate it now i just want to measure how deep my hole is so what did i say about 3 8 of an inch yeah that looks about right i'm gonna use my thin parting tool again about 1100 rpm so of course it's not flat it's high in the center you see that so my thought was put this on here backwards with a double face tape flatten this off clean it up i can use the brass rod to help me line this up then i'm just going to apply pressure with my tail stock ram and let that set for five minutes or so and i'll be back and we'll smooth this off [Music] all right now it's uh sand it up get some finish on it just as before and i'll do that up to 400 and put some finish on there then we can actually start working on the bali what do you know and again i'm using this beeswax salad ball finish and this is the underside of the lid i'm telling you that just so that i'll remember getting confusing i think this is a perfect piece of wood for this good job dave okay i'll let that set for five minutes i'll buff it up i'm going to just turn my heater on to soften this tape and then just pull it off of there so i'll bring you back here in a little bit cool it came off of here clean too all right so we can finally get started on the inside but that's going to be tomorrow because it's six o'clock and i gotta go cook my dinner see you tomorrow this is a piece that should take about an hour and a half i'm working on three days mostly because of the weather i told you a couple of days ago it was so nice out it was the hottest day of the year 61 degrees i jumped in my side by side and drove around the neighborhood and whatnot yesterday i woke up to rain and 41. this morning i woke up to snow and it's currently 39 so here we are now i see i've probably made a mistake it's it's gonna be okay it'll work i wish i would have used a smaller dowel or or brass rod than i did because now i'm gonna have like a half inch thick wall i got to leave a little bit of distance for strength and i got to leave a little bit of distance here for strength so that's about a half an inch wall it doesn't hurt anything like i said it'll still work but jeez [Music] so that'll be the size of our bowl if i would have used an eighth inch which would have been plenty strong enough i mean there's no reason for strength on this i'd have half that i'd have a quarter inch instead of a half inch but that's this is what we have so that's what we have i actually finished up the lid i put the the wax on here and i glued in the the brass rod and it's just a little bit proud you can feel it it looks okay oh that's just about deep enough got that recess in there to consider i looked these up on amazon and by the way you can buy one for about 15 bucks so i'm i'm not even making minimum wage here all the ones i looked at i looked at wooden ones they have ceramic ones as well i think they all had square it's like they drilled a hole with a forstner bit and they had square sides rather than a nice curve like this and you'd nev you'd never be able to reach in there into those corners down the bottom and get your salt out of there anyway i want mine to be curved like it is here i'll go a little bit further but not much [Music] i think that's uh i think that's good enough that's a lot of salt that's probably a cup got a cup of salt in there probably that's a lot of salt i think i'll see if i can scrape it any cleaner than it is okay we're good time for sanding i'm starting at 240 grit i'm just going to work up to 400 and i'll bring you back we'll put some wax on there this is kind of strange grain isn't it normally i would say that was my turning but it just isn't it's uh i guess maybe it's because the pith is way off center so what i i don't know i don't know maybe it's just strange green you got almost white and you got almost orange but it'll do the trick i believe it's not supposed to be a showpiece it's supposed to be a utility piece okay i'll let that dry a bit buff it up and we'll take a look at it with the lid on yay well there we have it one ginkgo biloba salt cellar in the book it's just not the most attractive grain you know but it's quite practical we certainly wouldn't want anything with bug holes or cracks or whatever there's just not a lot to see here though not my typical turning i think that'll hold a cup of salt quite nicely it's easy to get your fingers in there maybe these side walls now that i have the lid on and have a chance to try it maybe the side walls don't bother me that much cute little detail on the bottom not much to it but it's cool these would probably make some pretty great gifts i guess or if you sell your stuff probably great at a craft fair but you probably could learn from some of my mistakes like the like the thick side walls if you don't like that use an eighth inch dowel don't use a quarter inch but like i said it doesn't really affect it at all i also was going to use my little decorating tool and put a put a little decoration along here i actually forgot to do that it doesn't need it it doesn't bother me but it might have been it might have been cutesy well it'll be fun for me to use and it is for me so i'm happy about it thank you today from calm wood creations for sending this along for all to enjoy if you like this video thumbs up please i'd sure appreciate it if you're a subscriber that is totally cool thank you so much for that i really appreciate it if you're not a subscriber you might consider becoming one i put out regular videos about one a week and i'd like to keep in touch an easy way to subscribe is just click my picture you see there near the end of the video your comments are always welcome and i read all of them so for now this is phil shady acres woodshop signing off you

Channel: Phil Anderson - Shady Acres Woodshop

Views: 36,461

Rating: 4.9549785 out of 5

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Id: hA9W5Plwcao

Length: 26min 31sec (1591 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021