I have turned a fair amount of spindles over the past 30 years.
I have not turned a single bowl.
The work I’m attempting now is a marquetry piece. It’s the Carlyle Lynch “Brandy Stand.”
There’s a 3/4″ thick 5″ disk of yellow poplar mounted on the headstock of my lathe via a 3″ diameter face plate.
I will be inlaying a disk of hard maple, 3/32″ thick, into the central approximately 2 1/2″ surface of the yellow poplar disk.
That is, I need to clean out a disk about 2 1/2″ in diameter and 3/32″ deep centered on the center of the yellow poplar disk.
Left to my own imagination and without any experience for such a cut, I’d begin with a parting tool and cut the first groove at the perimeter of the 2 1/2″ area needing to be removed and to a depth of 3/32″.
But what tool would you use next? and how do I keep the depth at 3/32″ and somehow keep from accidentally going deeper than 3/32″, etc.?
Advice sought and will be appreciated.
Thank you.
William
Florida
I
Replies
William,
Since you don't do bowl turning, I'm going to assume you don't have any bowl gouges. Since the cut is going to be so shallow, perhaps a larger spindle gouge (1/2 inch or so) would work - try it on a test piece. Present the gouge vertically, pointed at the center, with the tool rest set so the center of the gouge is a bit above the center of the disk. Rest the bevel on the disk then move the handle out to enter the wood. As soon as you get a purchase, drop the handle a bit and rotate it a little counter clockwise so the flutes are pointing up a bit - look for the angle where it is happy - taking a clean cut.
You get a flat bottom by running the gouge along the toolrest (it helps if you get the toolrest set at 90 degrees to the axis of the lathe) with the flat bevel also at 90 degrees to the lathes axis. As long as you maintain the position of the handle (just let your body rock forward) you should get a very flat cut. You can use the flute of the gouge facing the wood with a scraping cut to bring it back to the perimiter you've defined with the parting tool.
This is how you'd do it with a bowl gouge. With such a shallow cut you should be able to do it with a spindle gouge.
JW
I would prepare the inlay disc first.With a pair of dividers I would lay out the diameter of the disc on the poplar blank.Just a hair undersize. With the point of a skew define the outside line of the recess. This makes for a smooth inside edge. For such a shallow recess, I think that you will find a flat scraper to be the tool of choice. Now you can tweak the inside edge of the recess until the inlay slips right in.I would make the depth a little less than the inlay thickness to allow it to be made flush with the surface.The scraped finish will make a good surface for gluing.¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬PAT¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Edited 7/8/2002 8:15:34 PM ET by Pat
I wouldn't know if you had a chuck to insert in the tailstock, and with a flatbottom bit cut the recess.
no turn left unstoned
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