Rhododendron ROOT BEAUTY! - Wood Turning

good morning good afternoon good evening or as we like to say here at shady acres wood shop howdy today we are in for a treat guess what this is just guess what it is what does it look like come on you can figure it out it's a rhododendron root who does it come from phil well it comes from dave at commonwood creations of course let's take a look at it beast is roughly eight inches long by five inches across and about a little over three inches tall to me this part right here is extremely important because that's probably the most obvious giveaway that this is a root and so i need to keep that part however i wouldn't mind rounding over this corner just a smidgen and in turn round over this corner right here it's absolutely not necessary but i just i just i just i get i just want to so i'm going to set this off center in the mounting i'll show you what i mean here in a minute but i want to set this corner this larger corner closer to the tool rest so it gets cut to cut away sooner than this corner does i could sand this up right now like this back part we'll call that the back might not be the back but we're going to call it the back for now i could set that on my stationary belt sander and sand that nice and flat and smooth but i don't think i will i will sand it on the lathe somewhat you know just to smooth it out and so that it takes a finish nicely but other than that i don't mind leaving the cut marks you know that's just part of the history of the piece down here we're going to have to smooth out the bottom just so that we actually have a bottom and this will be the bottom this will be the top so i don't know if we're going to go with a tenon or a recess just yet we'll see how it it kind of falls once we get it mounted up and and see where we're turning at i think this is gonna be a fun piece and i'm looking forward to it i'm gonna be using a 5 8 inch bowl gouge we're going to be turning that 535 rpm mask and face shield on music [Music] just starting to touch it i'm not sure if you can see that right there just touched it that last pass so i don't mind rounding it up maybe something like that i don't want to sure don't want to cut it off so i have to be really careful not much more than another pass or two i can tell you this wood is kind of pretty if i could see it it'd be helpful just barely starting to cut into this flat area here we still have sufficient thickness there i'm tempted to go a little bit further so let's do that not much phil not much i don't know if i can pick it up anymore a little faster about 680. i guess i didn't say but i thought it was obvious i don't plan on turning the outside of this piece any more than i'm doing right now just this end and a little bit down here but we're doing okay i can even go a little bit more just just have to be well aware of what i'm doing [Music] yep yep that's good so i'm going to leave this for now i'm probably not coming back to it but i want to work on the bottom get it flattened off and decide how we're going to put a cannon or a recess or probably a glue block on there as much as i hate to okay so we can see on that big hole in the middle that we don't have a place for a tenon or a recess i don't i don't think let's see what this looks like well yeah yeah acts like i can it won't be a whole tenon or a whole recess whichever way i go probably tenon's the right way to go because we don't want to be spreading that apart so yeah okay i can put a i can put a tenon on there i'm pretty sure let's mark out for it and see i'm just holding my pencil across the top of this live center that gives me an approximate size yep we're going to put a tendon right on there and it's going to work beautifully i'm not with that thing we want boy all this could be we'll try this half inch not i haven't sharpened it wow i'm not getting anywhere with that either i'm gonna go sharpen these chisels up i'll be right back okay go ahead and use the half inch here what it's just it just cuts hard i don't know maybe i'm a little too low but i don't think so yeah that's gonna work okay unless that's uh unless that's dirt that might be rock maybe that's maybe that's why oh yeah that i think that's a rock that's why it's dull in my chisel so dang quick gotta love it [Music] that is a rock well it's not going to do my diamond point tool any good i can tell you that but i'm going to use this to try and square up the sides of that i'm going to just ruin it [Music] i can live with that that's going to be a nice strong tenon even though it's only partly there i'm pretty excited time for sanding well this is going to require multiple sanding methods i'm going to start with my sandal flex i'm going to sand everything i can reach around the outside i'm not sure about the flat spots maybe a little of this a little bit of a two inch disc i'm not sure but i'm going to sand this part with my two inch disc the turn parts and the bottom all of the bark all of these inclusions around in here all that sort of thing with my sandal flex starting at 120 grit and then i'll do 180 grit and that's as fine as i'll go on that then i'll switch to my two inch discs and the bottom sand these two ends and probably the flat spot like this i'll just sand it like that i'm not i'm not trying to get it smooth i'm trying to get it sanded uh okay i'm trying to get it smooth but not flat how's that i don't care that there's little saw marks and little imperfections that's fine i like that kind of stuff and i guess that's the only flat spot left there were some on the ends here but we turned them away so that's the only flat spot so we'll just sand that up until it feels good but looks unturned as possible and i'll show you what both of those look like what a long speech as soon as i get my mask on and i'll come at that from all directions i'll i'll go this way this way this way every place i can reach every possible direction and then with the two inch disc lay spinning in reverse at 380. and then i'm sure there's going to be some of this as well here and there any place that i feel like i haven't reached with either of the other two methods inside the crack that sort of thing so it's just going to take quite a little bit of time but that's okay we got nothing but time right i'll bring you back here in a bit and we'll put some kind of finish on there i think i know but let's keep it a secret see in a bit this is going to be one of the coolest pieces ever i think and for those of you that are new to my channel and and think i'm a little bit off my rocker here you might be surprised by the time we get to the end of this and what it is is the contrast the contrast that you see between these bark inclusions the bark on the top and this beautiful wood beautiful rhododendron and all the little ins and outs and all of the little saw marks and whatnot that that i've left in here and it is not meant to be functional it's just a piece of art it's all it is mother nature created it i'm polishing it up a bit anyway it took a long time to get here i've been sanding on this for a good three hours but it's gonna be worth all of that effort and more uh this is sanding sealer and now i have some in this little can and i've got my little brush here and it's gonna take a lot of brushing now this right here our tenon i stuck a little screwdriver up in there to see how far it goes and we're quite likely going to have a hole in the bottom of the bowl because it the screwdriver went up in there about an inch or so maybe even a little more than that but you know what that hole is there i didn't put it there it's there if i can if i can reasonably make a bowl in the top that's not a half inch deep it needs to be probably at least a couple inches deep to to look like a bowl if i can do that without coming through the bottom i will but if i have to come through the bottom to make it look like a bowl then that's what i'm gonna do the hole is there and don't go zipping to the end of the video no cheating watch it happen and then be amazed at the end how nice this is going to look so i'm going to put two coats of this sanding sealer on and i'm not going to put the shellac on now i'm going to put the shellac on when i do the top side the inside of the bowl i'll bring it back here in a bit and we'll start working on the inside and i'll tell you what taking that tenon off at the end of this oh my gosh it's not going to be pretty is it because there's no middle part there's nothing there to hold it in place i don't know how that's going to work see in a bit now i don't want to clamp down too hard on this tenon i don't want to compress it and alter the dovetail so that means light cuts that should hold it just fine don't you think we're not going to use tail stock support because the piece is just too small for that it'll just get right in the way immediately but we are going to use a half inch bowl gouge to keep those cuts at a minimum and what kind of speed we're going to get here well faster than i thought probably about 6.75 half inch bowl gouge mask and face shield on of course [Music] well it won't even cut [Music] i generally know what i'm doing at the wood lathe but this will not cut that direction it's just it just won't do it i don't think i've ever experienced that well that's about as thin as i better go so can't go out any further [Music] [Music] [Music] oh that little kind of looks like a crack i remember i told you we had a hollow center on the tenon i'll bet you that's it let's see what i can measure here probably not much well we're at about an inch without getting inside of that hollow tenon and i told you i stuck the screwdriver up in there about an inch or inch and a quarter so i'll bet you that is the center of our tenon and if i go any further we're gonna have a hole i don't mind that cute little crack kind of kind of like it actually but i really think we should stop i can't really go any wider because see we'll run right off the side over here but you know it's a root ball it dictates we don't dictate let's uh have to get up a little higher here let's do a little scraping and see if we can't clean that up as smidges [Music] i think we're done time for sanding well this sanding should be a whole lot easier than the outside was or the bottom side and the outside i've already done all this out here i do need more sanding sealer on here on some of the bark and then we'll put shellac on so it'll be sanding sealer in here two coats two coats of shellac and then i'll put the shellac on the outside as well at the same time but before i do all that of course i'm gonna sand and i'm gonna sand with my two inch discs starting at 80 grit working up through 400 grit and then i'm going to go ahead and put the finish on and i'll bring you back after that finish because i want you to see this all at once because i think it's going to look pretty cool but first let me show you what the sanding looks like soon as i get my mask on the lid is spinning in reverse at about 350. and then i'll do the same thing spinning forward again up through 400 i'll put the finish on i'll bring you back here in a bit and we'll work on taking off that tenon see in a bit i am so excited for this piece i just can't wait for you to see it but we're not quite there yet we got to take that tenon off and there's that tenon right now and as you can see i've got that big split in the middle of it and so that makes it darn near impossible for me to take off all the way on the lathe so i have to make a couple of modifications here that i haven't tried yet and i hope will work so this is my live center and this particular kind has a cone on it that you can remove and then that leaves a little pointy part that you can use as a live center but it's also threaded so what i did is i took a one inch dowel drilled a hole in the end of it and just threaded it on there i didn't even have a tap for it i just i just threaded it on at all and this is called a soft touch and i learned that from captain eddie quite a few years ago as a matter of fact so i'm hoping that the end of this i could make another one but i'm hoping this one will work i'm hoping it's broad enough to cover that that split in my tenon it looks like it might so then i've mounted a block of wood up in my chuck it's got a non-slip surface on it but because uh i'm afraid these edges are going to touch the inside of my bowl and i don't want them to mar it i'm going to put a second non-slip over that and then bring up the bowl i know you don't get to see it yet you just have to wait that's all just be patient to me it's incredible it's one of my very best pieces and i'm so excited for it and then i'm just going to drive my soft touch copyright captain eddie up like that this material is probably going to flop around but that's okay we'll get over it i'm just applying a little bit of pressure and then i'm going to bring up my tool rest and i'm looking to see if it's running true and i can see that it's not this side here is much closer to the tool rest than this side is so i'm going to back it off a little bit and shift over that way just oh just like that nice job phil good job all right let's see how that works so now we got all that done we got some pressure let's spin it up a little bit and see what's going to happen to us i'm just holding my finger here to see how true it's running but i think it's probably closer than i thought it was so we're going to go with that i'm going to use a 3 8 inch bowl gouge and commence to removing that tenon i'll just take it as far as i think i can take it without losing the piece i don't want to lose it it's beautiful it's incredible it's unique it's special i love it so we're going to go about 550 rpm you can see it bouncing around there that's not so good but we're just going to be careful [Music] let's have a look at where we are here it actually doesn't look too bad my chisel's dull that's because that's a rock or something something very hard right there i just need to make this middle part a little smaller [Music] i'm going to switch to a swept back bowl guys so that i can get in there a little bit closer oh you know i'm just not going to take it any further i have a little catch right there i'm just not going to do it it's just silly isn't it i got too much time and effort into this and it's gorgeous why screw it up now so i'm going to take this over here to the workbench i'm going to use a chisel to chisel off these two halves sand up the center here get a finish on it sign it and i'll be right back sometimes the piece just calls out to me and that's what this one did and if you'd share this around for me i'd really appreciate that people need to see what can come from a piece of wood in the ground i just i just want people to see it if you wouldn't mind well here it is one rhododendron root ball bowl in the books what do you think those two those two cracks that you see there they go right on through this one is is here in the bottom and this one is here in the back i'm going to call that the back now this has so many features i i probably can't remember to tell you all of them this this is not flat this is not one single plane i don't know if you can see it it undulates it goes up and down up and down i'm not sure how this was cut a chainsaw but it seems like a chainsaw would have been too wide to do that but there's a dip in here and there's a dip over here it's just really cool and it has some nice grain in it all by itself and i'll tell you something else about this part right here in just a few seconds then over here of course we have the the actual root so that we know this was a root ball and how cool is that how cool is that and it's a built-in handle too carried around smarties smarties if your gourd rock he's eating smarties he's just scooping him right on out of there doesn't even have to get his fingers in the bowl he can just hang on right out here he can just dump it into his hand if he wants to if it was his it isn't gord forget it buddy and then over here i think i think i did the right thing i really feel proud of this one i don't always feel like i did the right thing but rounding this up i think was so important and rounding that up i think was so important while still leaving the root intact plenty of thickness it's not going to break off and those cracks to me those are like accent points something that really catch your eye i just i just love it i just love everything about it the bark inclusions on the bottom now down here uh this looks like i did a bad job of turning that's because i didn't do any turning right here right here in the middle i turned out here where it's nice and smooth and flat and over here where it's smooth and flat but i didn't take it down in the middle i left those the natural part over here it's pretty flat i guess everywhere else is flat but but not there it's just it's just wonderful and then that bark root bark it's a little bit different than tree bark is a little finer usually and that's the way this is and then i said i'd tell you something that's special about that flat part well it may not be perfectly flat but it's flat enough that it'll you can set it down on the table i'll show you that on the turntable in a little while it'll just sit right there just like that and you can look at it and just turn it up when you need a bowl how cool how cool this this just has everything i feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to turn this and for that we have dave at commonwood creations to thing thank you so much dave you just made my couple of days here thank you and be sure you stick around at the end of the video so you can see the before and after shots of this piece i'll bet that's pretty spectacular i have not seen it myself but the comparison must be pretty good i would think i hope so we'll take a look if you like this video thumbs up please i'd sure appreciate it if you're a subscriber i totally appreciate that thank you so much if you're not a subscriber you might consider becoming one i try to 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 love reading them so for now this is phil shady acres wood shop signing off you

Channel: Phil Anderson - Shady Acres Woodshop

Views: 59,404

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Id: k9dKrJNN5DU

Length: 27min 9sec (1629 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022