Roots and Rocks, OH MY! - Wood Turning

chris brown from new york sent us this piece of glossy buckthorn root and we're going to turn it good morning good afternoon good evening as we like to say here at shady acres wood shop howdy but it's going to take a little trimming up i think to get it to where we can mount it on the lathe i'll show you what i mean the piece is about eight to ten inches depending on how you measure it and no matter which way you measure it it's just an odd shape typical of a root and i'm often asked well how would you even go about mounting that up what what do you what are you thinking how do you determine how to mount it up well i wish i had a good answer there i don't think there is a good answer in a lot of cases sometimes there is sometimes there's a clear top and bottom and and sides and you know make it a spindle turning or make it a bowl turning sometimes there's a clear answer in this case not really you could mount a face plate on there right there make this the bottom and start turning it's going to turn into something that's all i can tell you it's going to turn into something i don't know what you don't know what we don't know what nobody knows what it will turn into something i guess if this was going to be the top and if that was going to be the bottom i'd probably shoot for a vase but you wouldn't have to you could round it up this way and make a ball out of it what i'm going to do because i'm more of a bowl turner than anything i'm gonna take it over set it on the bandsaw table right on that flat spot i'm gonna trim this off a little bit so that i've got a flat spot for my wood worm screw and check jaws to set against i'm also going to trim this side get rid of all these little hairy roots and whatnot and get a flat spot for my live center so this will be this will be the top of a bowl that'll be the bottom of a bowl other than that i don't have a clue how it's going to turn out i just don't know but it will turn out to be something i can guarantee you that even if it's firewood so that's what i'm going to do i'll meet you over here at the lathe we'll get it mounted up i was going to go with a wood worm screw but decided on this face plate ring instead this has a dovetail recess on it right here which matches up with the dovetail on the outside of my chuck jaws so i can just place this over that open the chuck jaws into that recess and that'll give us a nice firm grip and the only advantage here over a face plate is i don't have to take the chuck off which to me is a huge advantage then we'll bring up the tail stock bring up the tool rest spin the piece up and see what kind of speed we can get i'm sure it's out of balance looks like the best we can do is about 500 rpm i'm going to use a 5 8 inch bowl gouge i'm gonna wear a glove mask and face shield on well i decided to start working on this corner first so i moved my tool rest also i did a lot of digging with a screwdriver getting a lot of dirt and mud and crud out of here there are rocks in here i pulled out a couple there's definitely two up here on the top side that are buried too deep to dig out and we'll probably run across others and uh you know i did a route not too long ago that had some rocks in it and there was a lot of questions about well how did you handle those well i didn't do anything i didn't do anything i didn't i didn't as i was turning i didn't take it take them into account except for one in that instance i i actually saw one while i was working on the inside of the bowl so i stopped and popped it out of there but others i'm sure went flying no doubt about it they didn't hurt me because i don't stand in line i don't stand over here i stand back here so anything that's going flying is flying parallel with this i'm not scared i don't want you to be scared nobody's gonna get hurt here it's all fine and dandy just something for you to be aware of i'm hoping that one rock will stick with us like i said it's right here it'll probably no it'll probably come out when we cut the top side of the bowl here i am rattling on again i do have to say something you know i am so fortunate to have viewers like you guys such generous viewers that send along wood that i've never seen before i've never even heard of who ever heard of glossy buckthorn lots of other kinds of wood that i've just never seen in my life and my generous generous viewers send me these samples for my audience to watch be turned i mean we're all getting an education here and how wonderful is that speaking of viewers i have the best and i appreciate you guys so much you have no idea you are so important to me you are why i get out of bed every day and i just want you to know that and uh i'm gonna turn the camera off now and clear my eyes up and we'll get to turning [Music] don't forget to stop often when you're doing something like this see if there's any design opportunities you might want to save this you know i haven't gone quite far enough here yet to know but what i am going to do is move over here to the bottom because i can see by the time i put a tenon on here i'm not going to have any place for a base for this bowl to set on so i think i'm going to have to take off about a half an inch here to where i get to this so that i'll have something to set on there's there's nothing here so i need to go towards the top about a half an inch maybe 5 8 of an inch [Applause] and we'll mark out for a tenon i know i can't see it either now we can [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] look at those shavings look at all that orange in there cool one and now we have a base everywhere except right here that's okay we can live with that now i'm going to use this diamond point tool to square up the sides of the tenon and that is good now we'll move over to the side here for the profile don't forget to stop off and buddy okay boy it's gonna be nice huh i measured the moisture content it seemed to be between 12 and 20 percent chris said it's been down for a couple of years so i would have expected it to be more or less dry well it's just so interesting i could just about stop now but i want to go a little further i want to get this up a little bit higher if i can so and that's full of sand right there i think i think that's sand yep i just sharpened up before i moved over here to the side and it needs sharpening again i want a little rock maybe i'll do this for a few minutes uh i'll bring you back here in a couple minutes now i just want to do a little sheer scraping [Applause] okay i think we're done let me show you how deep that hole goes that i had to do cleaning the dirt and sand out of there about an inch and a half so that's going to get to the inside of the bowl so we're going to have a hole that's the least of our concerns time for sanding it's the next day i spent a little time last night uh cleaning out more crud i found another dirt pocket and then i came out today and found even more so i've been digging dirt digging the dirt so i'm going to finally get the sanding i'm going to start with my sandal flex this is 180 grit i'm going to sand all of the bark inclusions and the bark along the top and whatever isn't turned that i can reach from here i'll probably have to do more from the top side and then i will switch to my two inch disc at 80 grit and work up through 400 and i'll show you what both of those look like as soon as i get my mask on and i'll be doing more of that and then with the lathe spinning at about 350 in reverse that's pretty easy i think this is going to be a pretty spectacular piece i i like it so far it's got some nice green in it certainly some nice color and when we get some finish on on the bark and on here the contrast is going to be spectacular as well so i'm pretty happy but it is gonna take some time sanding i'll bring you back here in a bit and we'll put some i think sanding sealer on there and then we'll go with shellac for a final finish see in a bit sanding was a bit of a problem all right but look at that look at that color and grain it's all going to be worth it isn't it and will i get some on the bark to make that contrast this looks like burl kind of grain in here there's more of it also i've turned a few yellow pieces but i don't know that i've ever turned an orange one and i'll have to brush a lot of this of course so this is going to take some time and i won't ask you to watch it all this is what i'll be doing i'll see you back here in a bit and we'll work on the inside i'm constantly reminded that not everyone watches every video i wish you would not for me but because most of your questions are answered in some video or another i've shown this many many times but i don't show it in every video just like i don't show all of the sanding because you know it's boring but i'll show it again people ask me do you sand between coats i don't sand between coats i have sanded between coats and what i found is uh the sandpaper gets clogged up with with sanding sealer and shellac other people do successfully sand it i don't know what i'm doing wrong but it doesn't work for me then i use steel wool i use steel wool for quite a while a year or better but i just didn't like the mess it makes it just spread steel wool dust it all through the air and i didn't care for that so finally i went to 3m sanding pads scotch brite sanding pad and i use a gray one between all coats of sanding sealer and shellac and i use a white one after the final coat of shellac and what you can do is you can just i like to fold it up because of the kinds of pieces i turn i need a little bit of padding often so you can just fold it up like that and you can just go like this and see over here that's where it would hurt if you didn't have it folded so you want to fold it up and just go back and forth like that and the same with the white one well what i found is on the inside of a bowl you'll get swirl marks in the bottom so i wondered how i could fix that so then what i did was i took one of the gray ones and i cut some a circle out of it and i did the same with a white one and now i have a two inch disc that i can put on my drill and it sticks on just like a disc just like velcro just sticks right on there and now and i found with that that does it better it does it faster and it doesn't leave swirl marks in the bottom of the inside of the bowl and i did the same thing with a white one so you might try that if you're having any issues with clogging up sandpaper or using steel wool or whatever this just works slicker than you know what on a doorknob okay so this is just the first coat of sanding sealer i'll be putting on another coat after i finish abrading it like i just was and i'll just go through the steps two coats of sanding sealer two coats of shellac i'll bring you back we'll work on the inside see ya i've turned the piece around and have the tenon mounted up in the chuck uh you can see the rock that i was talking about right here that's the only one i can see i'd like to leave it as i said but if i leave it we're gonna have some pretty thick walls not that that's unusual with my stuff a lot of times we have thick walls but i always aim to make them as thin as possible but sometimes it just is not possible if i can make them thinner and lose the rock that's okay if i have to leave it thick and keep the rock that's okay i don't see any other big issues i told you that this part right here is crucial and you know that's a that's a root i think or a branch probably a branch coming up and sometimes they're not connected everywhere sometimes like it like it goes all the way around here and maybe only bark is connecting it here and if that's the case it won't stay with us if it's just bark i don't i don't know if it is or not and over here kind of looks like the same situation so i don't know i got to keep it i know that much even if i have to glue it back on after cut it off i don't know but i need it so we're going to be turning at 670 rpm my very sharp freshly sharpened 5 8 inch bowl gouge mask and face shield on [Laughter] my nice freshly sharpened bowl gouge as dull as could be sharpening up well i did go sharpen up but i think it's just going to be an ongoing issue there's this is a i think that's dirt yeah so i'm going to switch to carbide for a little bit i can i can go further with carbide with the tail stock in place because i can go straight in it's not as fun to watch but we'll get there and i'll get back to high speed steel in a minute well see i could hear that at the rock in that dirt right there i think there's another one in there too okay well this isn't any fun to watch i'll uh i'll work on this for a minute and i'll be right back okay well i got two rocks out of there i'm sure it didn't do my carbide any good but we will continue yeah i guess not as dull as could be all right i gotta rotate it i'll be right back all right where's that rock it's right there oh i've been rubbing it it's right here see it i see it right there so either i got to pull it out or we're going to have walls that thick what's it gonna be vote time i don't know if i can even knock it out of there yeah i can there it is wasn't in there as securely as i thought well that's because i cut most of it away i gotta find that rock hold on i went ahead and cut away that center section just so that i could get going again these are the rocks that i found so far i don't think there's any more in there but we have a problem and it just makes me sick this is the part that i didn't want to lose and it wiggles now the only place it's connected is right here and and right here but the problem is there's a big hole under this so as i cut away here it's only going to be connected here and i really wanted to thin this down it's just it's just too thick oh gosh this just makes me sick i don't want to lose that i i don't know what to do i guess i'm i guess i'll have to leave it this thick and hope that this is enough to hold it in place because it's not making contact over here on this other side there's a little tiny crack that runs all along here it's not a crack it's a it's it's a bark inclusion there's bark between this big piece and this little piece so i don't know i'm just going to continue on right here and we're probably going to lose it still turning at 670 5 8 inch bowl guides mask and face shield back on [Applause] yeah i think we're about there well i feel pretty good about it if i don't get it any thinner right here i should just about stop i'm gonna see if i can i'm gonna try some shear scraping i don't know how that'll work i'm calling that good time for sanding i still had a few tool marks in here so i did a little bit of spot sanding just just like this with the piece not spinning and i think i got most of it out the rest of it should come out uh well there's hardly anything left i guess but anyway if there's any left i will get them standing with the piece spinning oh and i was able to i don't know if it's going to hold but i was able to get a little bit of medium ca in this crack right here which made this a little sturdier because here the only place it's connected is right here and it's about a quarter inch thick does seem to be holding so that's a good thing so i'm going to have the piece spinning at 350 rpm 2 inch sanding disc starting at 80 grit and i'll show you what that looks like as soon as i get my mask on easy peasy i'll bring it back here in a bit and we'll put some sanding sealer on there see in a bit well already then let's see what we got we got some beautiful green that's what we got sanding was very straightforward no issues at all i alternated between forward and reverse it worked slick we do have one little punky spot right here uh but usually the sanding sealer and then the shellac will harden that up well that's just pretty just pretty look at that that's pretty and i've covered most of the bark but there's a little bit that i didn't quite get just kind of right along this edge glossy buckthorn never heard of it this is going to be one of my better ones i think so i'll be doing this for a while a couple of coats sanding sealer couple coats of shellac just like the outside which looks spectacular by the way so i will bring you back when it's time to take the tenon off see in a bit i've mounted a block of wood up in my chuck i'm going to place the bowl over that and bring up the tailstock i still have my center hole there for reference so i can just drive the live center into that and that will help center it on that block of wood apply a little pressure bring up the tool rest we'll spin the piece up and see if it running true i'll just hold my thumbnail against the edge of the tenon and sure enough it's nice and true the speed up to about 550 and use a 3 8 inch bowl gouge and commence to removing that tenon i just want to check for clearance we have good clearance i like to leave this area raised up a little bit if i can so that it's kind of a nice little visual interest that's pretty small so i'm going to switch to a swept back bowl guys so i can get in there closer just keep working it away now that's quite small so i want to adjust my tool rest a little bit closer and a little bit higher the worst thing you can do is get under that little nub because that will cause it to pop right out of there i'm also going to slow the speed down to about 300 i just want to get that as small as i can now i'm going to turn the speed down to about 200 rpm and i'm going to apply the bevel of the gouge against the bottom of the bowl right hand on the gouge left hand on the switch and when the little nub stops turning we'll know we're through like that now i'll just take it over here to the workbench sand it up sign it get it finished and i'll be right back be sure you stick around at the end of the video so you can see the before and after shots of this piece i'm sure they're quite dramatic if you'd share the video that would be terrific i'd really appreciate that thank you very much everyone needs to know what can happen with a root ball in this case a glossy buckthorn root ball isn't that beautiful and that just beautiful beautiful colors beautiful grain there's the bottom all finished up nice bark inclusion down there the inside is gorgeous love the bark this looks like burl doesn't it and it appears a few places in there it's just so nice i just love the piece i hope you do thank you chris brown 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 thank you very kindly i truly appreciate that 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 love reading them so for now this is phil shady acres woodshop signing off you

Channel: Phil Anderson - Shady Acres Woodshop

Views: 45,798

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Id: AeiXkt32htA

Length: 31min 25sec (1885 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021