A Stack of Special Donuts For All The Big Ballgames
Phillip from San Antonio sent me a chunk of mesquite. I’ve puzzled over what to make of it.
Then I realized that it is playoff and bowl game season. I need refreshments for all the big games. How about a donut.
This donut is hollow to reduce its calorie content. I don’t want my friends to have to go on a diet to lose weight. Yet, they need to enjoy my delicious donut.
The only thing I can’t figure out is how to add tasty frosting and sprinkles.
A Butternut Squash Recipe With A Special “Turn”
I have a very different recipe for butternut squash.
- Select a favorite wood in dimensional lumber form. (I used cherry)
- Decide the maximum diameter for your squash. (Mine is 4 inches)
- Calculate a segment length as Length = Diameter x pi / segments. (4 x 3.14159 / 8 = 1.57)
- Saw segments to length determined in step 3 with 22.5 degree angles. These will be trapezoids. The long side is the length you calculated.
- Glue pairs of segments together; clamp for 5-10 minutes and let cure for at least 1 hour.
- Glue these pairs into half rings using an band clamp. Insert small dowels between the halves before tightening the clamp. Let cure.
- Sand the side of each half ring until each half fits nicely against each other forming a full ring.
- Glue these half rings into full rings with the band clamp.
- Sand at least one face flat and smooth.
- Take 2 threaded wood faceplates made from your favorite cheap wood. Using hot melt glue center then glue one full ring on each.
- If desired, plug any center hole in the first layer.
- On the lathe, face off the first ring so the two faces are parallel and smooth. Lightly sand as necessary.
- Center and glue with wood glue the next ring.
- Repeat steps 12 and 13 for each ring on each faceplate until as tall as desired for your squash.
- Mount one glued stack on the lathe. This will be your top.
- Roughly shape exterior to taste.
- Cut a mortise with parallel sides from 1/2 to 3/4 inches deep inside the top portion.
- Hollow, sand, and finish the interior.
- Mount the other glued stack. This will be your bottom.
- Roughly shape exterior to taste.
- Cut a tenon that matches the mortise you cut on the top. Use extra care to acheive the taste(fit) you desire.
- Remove the faceplate from the top stack and mount this stack on the bottom stack.
- Bring up the tailstock and shape the exterior to taste, making sure you don’t break into the interior.
- Sand and finish the top exterior. Remove the top from the lathe.
- Hollow, sand, and finish the bottom interior.
- Reverse mount the bottom. I prefer a jam chuck. Strawberry is my favorite flavor of jam.
- Finish shaping, sand, and finish the exterior.
- Decorate the top with a stem of your choosing.
- Fill with chocolate candies and enjoy whenever the craving hits you.
A food safe finish is required.
Sharpening On The Road – Portability Revisited
This is a followup to my previous video concerning sharpening tools while away from home base. With that video, I was not happy with that solution due to significant runout of my home built mandrel. I ask for suggestions and received a lot.
This video covers the two main categories of suggestions and my current “Plan C” solution. Actually, “Plan C” is two different alternatives so I can pick and choose whichever will work best for the tool at hand.
Plus, several suggestions centered on honing my tools. So as a bonus, I made a faceplate for honing also.
- Grinding Wheel – Norton 3X 6″ Ceramic Alumina High Performance – www.woodturnerscatalog.com
- Mandrel – Lathe Arbor, #2MT – www.highlandwoodworking.com/
- Grinding Wheel Dresser – Wood River Diamond Grinding Wheel Dresser – www.woodcraft.com
- Honing Compound – Green Chrome Oxide Compound – www.woodcraft.com
- Spindle Taps – Beall spindle taps – www.woodturnerscatalog.com & others
- Sandpaper – 10″ – www.woodcraft.com
- MDF – Medium Density Fiberboard – Local hardware store
A Cute Little Natural Edge Bowl From Wet Limb Wood
Carpe Diem. Just after watching a woodturning demo turning a small natural edge bowl from a limb, I happened to need to cut a limb from a juniper tree.
Ordinarily, I would have thrown away the wood. But this time, why not turn a bowl similar to what I had just seen demoed? That is exactly what I did.
This is a small bowl turned from a limb from a juniper tree. It is sanded to 400 grit and finished with walnut oil.
A Halloween Witch’s Broom
To complete a Halloween witch’s accessories, a witch needs a high class broom.
For the discriminating witch, we have a brand new broom turned by hand from locally harvested maple, finished with fine grit sandpaper (80 grit is a witch’s favorite) and a touch of fine beeswax and eye of newt.
An Eccentric Scary Halloween Spider
I had a big problem coming up with a Halloween project. My wife came to my rescue suggesting a spider.
This spider is an eccentric turning. Offsetting the tail end by nearly a half an inch flattened my pet spider’s bottom side so he will not sit high off the ground.
I left him unsanded and unfinished wet juniper, appropriate for a rough, scary creature.
Sharpening On The Road – Portable Tool Sharpening Station
When I use my portable mini lathe “On Location” I sharpen my lathe tools before I leave. The problem is that all these tools get dull as I use them. My grinder is nice but not portable.
So what can I do? Keep using dull tools? Use my diamond hone more? Try some way to use a flat wetstone.
While at a workshop, I brainstormed this problem with Kirk DeHeer.
Plan A was to mount a 6 inch grinding wheel (80 grit) on a 5/8″ bolt that is mounted to a four jaw chuck. This worked except that there was a lot of runout.
Plan B was to mount the grinding wheel with the bolt to a wooden faceplate. A hole was bored to the size of the bolt. The bolt then is epoxied into the hole. There is still a little runout but usable at slow speed.
So I’m searching for a Plan C to eliminate the run out.
What is your idea?
Woodturning A “Double Bowl” Bowl
Sometimes you have to break rules to discover new territory – Other times breaking rules to know the consequences and to appreciate rules.
It’s the same with woodturning. There’s a lot of opinions(rules) to size the base of a bowl. But why not a double bowl – one where the base is also a bowl?
In this video, I’ll turn a small bowl that can be inverted to be a smaller bowl on a large base. When necessary, it is a large bowl with a tall base.
Let’s have some fun.
Woodturning A Handy Playing Card Holder
When my grandchildren come to visit, we often play games involving cards. But their hands are not big enough to hold their “Hands”. In the past, I have cut slots in flat pieces of wood to hold cards. But still, they would like to hold the cards in their own hands.
After seeing a plastic card holder in a store, I decided to make my own card holder from wood and turn it on my lathe.
The card holder has 6 pieces:
- 2 – large walnut discs about 4 inches in diameter with a 1″ hole. Each is tapered on the inner surface to allow cards to be easily inserted. I profiled the outer surface with an ogee.
- 2 – small maple discs about 1.5 inches in diameter with 2 1/8″ holes about 3/4″ apart.
- 1 – hollow walnut cylinder 1″ in diameter with an inner 3/4″ hole. This cylinder does not show – its job is to keep the large discs aligned.
- 1 – elastic hair band. The hair band is threaded thru one maple disc and pass thru the inner cylinder, then thru the opposite maple disc. Then the hair band is tied with appropriate tension. I applied a little CA glue to the hair band in the area that I wanted to trim the band to keep it from fraying.
This is a simple project with a lot of benefits.
Giant Sanding Disc Offers Options For Woodturning
After seeing a large sanding disc at Dale Larson’s shop here in the Portland area, I decided to get one for myself. They’re not available commercially except as a very expensive stationary tool. So, I decided to make my own.
I ordered a piece of 1/4″ thick aluminum 20.25″ square allowing a little bit for truing the shape. This is the maximum that can fit on my Powermatic 3520 lathe. This aluminum came from http://www.discountsteel.com/ for about $62. The aluminum plate is bolted to an 8″ steel faceplate. Howard Borer, a member of Cascade Woodturners, made the faceplate for me; they are available from woodturning mail order companies. Make sure you fit your spindle.
I ordered my sandpaper discs from Amazon – Woodstock D1342 20-Inch Diameter PSA 60 Grit Aluminum Oxide Sanding Disc, 2-Pack by Woodstock.
Fortunately, Howard also helped me saw the aluminum into a circle. After sawing, we mounted it to a lathe and trimmed the outer edge with a heavy woodturning scraper at very slow speed.
After returning home to my lathe, I checked for run out and added a small shim cut from a can of 7 Up soda between the faceplate and the aluminum.
Another plus over a commercial disc sander (other than the high cost) is that I can use the entire disc surface on my lathe – no part of the disc is covered by a table. Plus, I don’t have precious shop floor space taken up by a monstrous 20″ stationary sander; I do have a 12″ stationary sander.
I use the sand disc to flatten rims and bottoms of green turned bowls and to flatten segment rings for segmented projects.