Another turning (now with comments and questions)

[Dewey Torres]

First off, this is my forth turning. I hoped to have made a few more today but these things and my other projects proved more of a handful than I first thought:o.

I need some help on the class a style photos you guys have:cool: and I would like to hear as many different ways to finish a project as you all are willing to shovel at me.

I took this picture with a paper towel role remembering an earlier post. I tried to get rid of the shadows using a lamp but they didn't turn out the way I have seen others.

I tried the CA friction finish with this and it worked ok but I sanded to 320gt...should I have went higher? I was looking for more of the high gloss shiny magazine style finish but maybe that is not important:confused:.

I struggled a bit with the form as well but in the end it turned out what I would call "ok"...but plenty of room for improvement.

Not sure...
I am willing to learn from you guys what I need to work on.

Poplar with walnut inlay.

[Brodie Brickey]

Dewey,

I think you have a good form there. Especially when you consider that a stopper needs to be comfortable in the hand when in use.

As for finishes, I think poly is a little too shiny. I like oil with a wax buff for stoppers because they'll be handled. If you lacquer them, you have the high gloss showing finger prints.

[neil mackay]

Basically it boils down to ergonomics and asthetics.

Ergonomics, just make em to fit your hand and feel good when you pick em up :)

Asthetics, now thats another kettle of fish altogether. If your going to offer them for sale then go with the current trend whatever it is. If its custom items your making then, each one will be as per the customers requirements.

If its for your self, remember Google is your friend. Just research and blend what ever ideas you find into your own design.

I would say you have got the tech side sorted out well and truly. Its now just a matter of playing with shape and form and that comes with experience.

High sheen, low sheen, no sheen, its all good if you like it that way :)

If you add a little back light to lessen the shadow and maybe play around with the background color to high light each timber type. I tend to go for a neutral type color in the back ground,but then I am no expert.

[Jeff Nicol]

Dewey, In the beginning of every turners career we learn things from trial and error. Even with all we have told you, how it works for you will be different than me, Bernie, Steve and everyone else! The high gloss finishes will come and the steps needed to get there will become second nature to you with each piece you finish! As already said the form is great the glue up is good and if it functions and you are happy with it in the end that is what really counts.

Keep at the turning and we will keep shoveling encouragment and info yours and anyone elses direction that needs/wants it!!

Have a great day,

Jeff

[Bernie Weishapl]

Dewey the bottle stopper looks great. My finish for most of my small work such as stoppers is gloss rattle can lacquer. It is a hard durable finish and easy to put several light coats. I put a coat on every 20 to 30 minutes. Just experiment with several. I took the liberty of redoing one of your pictures with a free software called InfraView. It allows you to enhance colors, brightness, etc. very easily. See what you think.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dewey,

Nice first stopper! Nothing wrong with that form!

I haven't used CA on stoppers though some turners do. I friction Deft brushing lacquer.

If you don't have a Beal buffing system, consider purchasing one. The Beal buffing system or a clone will perform miracles to your turnings. When I first started turning I was in awe of the finishes folks were posting here. I finally bought a Beal system and WOW!

Don't purchase the 3 buffs on one mandrel system. Get the Morse taper adapter and the 3 individual buffs system. Reason...the 3 on 1....it limits the size you can turn by the amount of pain you can withstand when you are buffing on one wheel and your hand holding the project is pushed into the other rotating buffs.

I typically friction Deft brushing lacquer as the final coat on my stoppers.

[Brian Effinger]

That is a good looking stopper, Dewey. I really like the inlay. The form looks fine to me - it seems to have a good grip to it, so it wouldn't be hard to pull from a bottle, and it is a pleasing shape to me.

As for the finish, I believe you can wet sand CA finish up to 600 grit, and then buff it to a high gloss, but I am not an expert on this - I'm still fooling with it too. Ken is right about the Beall system. I have the 3 separate wheel Beall, and like it a lot.

For photographing your work, a tent may come in handy. Take a look at http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57168
and http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=94613&highlight=photo+tent (particularly Brian Brown's post)http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57691
(http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57691&highlight=photo+tent)http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57909
(http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57691&highlight=photo+tent)http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=59194
(http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=57691&highlight=photo+tent)http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=59614 AFAIK Brian is a professional photographer.
and http://www.ignitecast.com/p/BpHT5mWNVq/
Now I need to take my own advice and build a light tent too.

Brian

[Steve Schlumpf]

Great looking stopper Dewey! Really like the combination of woods! Nice form and the finish looks really good also. As mentioned - form and finish comes with time and doing. Photography - that's another vortex unto itself! Wow - don't get to use the word 'unto' very often - thanks for that! Anyway, best place to start is with a photo tent, at least 2 lights, a tri-pod and lots of time to experiment!

Feel free to PM or email anything if you have specific questions!

[Curt Fuller]

Looks good Dewey! You're on your way!

[Jim Kountz]

Hey Dewey looking good!! I like the form myself, very interesting. As far as the picture goes looks like you need to play with the light position. I know you read the Phrugal article and its a great place to start however I found it doesnt always work as advertised. I added a second light and I played around with the shutter speed and aperature settings alot before I found a recipe that worked for me. I chose to rid my pics of all the shadows. Some said they lacked depth and others told me they liked them that way, I do. Its all a matter of preference really. If you're camera lets you set the white balance manually follow the steps to do that exactly and make sure white is white in your pics. White balance can make or break the entire pic imo.

[Jeff Luedloff]

Dewey i like your inlays in your stopper. i had the same problem with photos i do agree with above statements the photo tent is the way to go. here is a link of the one i built..Jeff

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent

[David Walser]

...
I tried the CA friction finish with this and it worked ok but I sanded to 320gt...should I have went higher? I was looking for more of the high gloss shiny magazine style finish but maybe that is not important:confused:....
Dewey,

As the others have said, very nice stopper (even when you ignore that this is only your 4th turning!).

You asked for some help with doing a CA finish. Couple of things to note: First, a CA finish is not compatible with tight corners and grooves. The glue will accumulate in these areas and you'll have a very hard time trying to sand into the corners and into the bottom of the grooves. To get a good finish, you want all parts of the project to have the same thickness of CA glue. Take a look at the sharp corner separating the button at the top of your stopper from the body of the stopper and you'll see there's more CA glue there than elsewhere.

Second, if you want a high gloss finish, you'll need to sand the CA beyond 320 grit. (You don't need to sand the raw wood beyond 320 grit, just the finish.) You can use Micro Mesh and/or buff with Tripoli and white diamond. You can also use higher grades of wet/dry sandpaper.

Good luck and HTH!

[Dewey Torres]

... Even with all we have told you, how it works for you will be different than me, Bernie, Steve and everyone else! ...

Jeff

Jeff,
I can see that in turning more than any other type of woodworking there are a slew of ways to get the same thing and that has been one of the biggest challenges for me as a new turner.


... I took the liberty of redoing one of your pictures with a free software called InfraView. It allows you to enhance colors, brightness, etc. very easily. See what you think.

Bernie,
Of course you pic looks better. Tons better actually. Going to download now! Thanks.:)


I friction Deft brushing lacquer.

If you don't have a Beal buffing system, consider purchasing one.

Get the Morse taper adapter and the 3 individual buffs system.

I typically friction Deft brushing lacquer as the final coat on my stoppers.

Ken,
I did a seacrh...Too many products out there I am not familiar with. Can you post links to the Beall, the Deft, and the adapter so I make sure to order the right things?

Also, what other finished can you buff with the Beall system?

Brian,
Mulling through the photo links now! Thanks

Steve... I think saw a post with your light box setup on ebay or Amazon?

Curt,
Thanks for the encouragement. That really goes for all of you.:D


... White balance can make or break the entire pic imo.

Yes Jim I see in your pics in your album the white is so white I can't see the border...just looks like the pics are floating:cool:

[David Christopher]

good looking stopper...I like the form... for me deft spray can laquer and some polishing works for me

[Roger Wilson]

I took this picture with a paper towel role remembering an earlier post. I tried to get rid of the shadows using a lamp but they didn't turn out the way I have seen others.

If you buy some white poster board from the supermarket/stationary store (it's very inexpensive) you could use that as the background. If you gently bend it into a rough "L" (without creasing it) you get a seamless background.

You might have to clamp it in place. If you clamp it to a chair you can move it around the house to get the best window light as one of your sources.

[Dewey Torres]

If you buy some white poster board from the supermarket/stationary store (it's very inexpensive) you could use that as the background. If you gently bend it into a rough "L" (without creasing it) you get a seamless background.

You might have to clamp it in place. If you clamp it to a chair you can move it around the house to get the best window light as one of your sources.


Ah, ha! That may have to do until I get the light box:)

[Dewey Torres]

good looking stopper...I like the form... for me deft spray can laquer and some polishing works for me


So how do you deal with the fingerprints talked about above?

[David Christopher]

So how do you deal with the fingerprints talked about above?


Dewey, Ive never had a problem with fingerprints. i just mank sure after waxing that I wipe it down with a microfiber cloth

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dewey,

The Beal buffing systems can be used as a stand alone buffing system on an old grinder or you can use it like I do on my lathe.

The beal buffing system uses 3 buffing wheels made of different cloths. Each wheel is designed for a different buffing compound. The first wheel uses tripoli compound..the 2nd one uses white diamond compound...the 3rd uses carnuba wax. The tripoli wheels will even take out small imperfections in the wood even after you've sanded.....it burnishes.... The white diamond polishes....the 3rd waxes...

They make two versions for use on the lathe. One uses a madrel that allows you to put all 3 wheels on a mandrel that has a Morse taper on one end for the headstock spindle and a dimple at the other end for the cone on your tailstock livecenter. This works but...the wheels are so close together that larger turnings and sometimes your hand end up hitting the other wheels while buffing on another wheel. I bought this originally for use on the Bomb and a while back gave it to another turner who didn't have a buffing system. I had received a gift certificate to Woodcraft so I bought the other type of Beal system. This uses a #2 morse taper and a "4-5" cylinder with a threaded hole in the end. Each of the 3 buffing wheels have a threaded shaft that you screw into the cylinder. You use a drawbar (bolt or all thread) through the headstock to hold the buffing system to the spindle and keep it from spinning out. With the tailstock out of the way, you can move your project more freely to use the buffing wheel.

The wheels are great for the outside of any project...spindles, plates, bowls and HFs...pens....any turning. The wheels can also be used on the inside of larger bowls...platter etc. The diameter of the wheel and the inside diameter of the object being buffed are the limiting factor. For that reason Beal also makes a bowl buff...it is a 3 "cloth" ball system made for doing the inside of bowls boxes etc. Again...3 different cloth makeups and tripoli, white diamond and wax.

The only caveate..don't use the white diamond on dark woods as you could end up picking white diamond compound out of the pores for hours. Yes I've been there!

When I turn acrylics..you can wet sand and go straight to the buffing systems and they turn out looking like glass. Yo-yo spins military bottlestoppers are especially nice done this way. They look like military emblems embedded in glass. Make impressive gifts to your comrades! I turned two before Christmas for a couple of retired Marine officers with whom I hunt and fish.

Here's a link to Woodcraft's videos where the inventor of the Beal buffing system demonstrates it. It work great on bare wood!

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=2036&mode=videos#tabs

Here's a link to Woodcraft's Beal buffing offerings:

http://www.woodcraft.com/depts.aspx?DeptID=2087

Here's a link to CSUSA's offerings:

http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/store/Finishing___Buffing?Args=

Believe me...buffing adds dramatic improvements to your finishing and to the best of my knowledge it can be used on all finishes.

Good luck Dewey!

[David Walser]

Don Pencil makes and sells various turning related tools, including buffing systems. He has a "three wheel" version -- where all three wheels are mounted between centers and a "quick change" version where only one wheel at a time is mounted.

Don was one of the vendors at the DWR and I ended up purchasing his "Complete Bowl System", which is a "quick change" version. The Complete Bowl System includes an 8" lathe adapter (for attaching the wheels and buffs to the lathe), three 8" wheels, three 4" bowl buffs, and three 3" bowl buffs, and bars of Tripoli, white diamond, and caranuba wax. In addition, I also purchased his new "plastic and lacquer" wheel and compound (which is a finer grade polish than white diamond). His stuff is well made and is a little less expensive than the option from Beal.

I wish I'd gotten a buffing system sooner. It's a lot faster than working through the Micro Mesh grits. It's also more fun.

Here's a link to his website: http://donpencil.com/

[Dean Thomas]

I disagree with Brodie in most of his comments about lacquer finishes.

First, if you don't want gloss, don't use gloss lacquer! And if you want the sheen but are concerned about having the blemishes that high gloss can sometimes spotlight, use 0000 steel wool and knock down the gloss but keep the depth of sheen. Easy!

Fingerprints on lacquer finishes? Usually that's caused by the lacquer not being allowed to cure properly. Just cuz it's dry doesn't mean it's cured. It takes approximately 30 days for most lacquer finishes to come to complete hardness or cure. And you just cannot hurry it. You can get finishes that handle better faster, but lacquer has to cure. Period! And a very light final coat of a good wax will go a long way toward preventing the oils from your fingers etching into the not-cured lacquer. I like Crystal Coat, available from Woodcraft, Craft Supply, and others. The white, not the brown. Have a friend who swears that Renaissance is the best and is way better at dealing with moisture and finger oils. Have not tested the two yet, but plan to.

CA finish on the bottle stopper. Hmmm. CA is a fast and dirty way to get a true acrylic finish on things. David Walser said that you need to sand the CA beyond 320. I totally agree with that. If I were using a CA finish, I'd put at least 5 coats of thick on there and my final sanding with be with MicroMesh to a sheen that would blind the new owner. But that's me. 8^)

David also suggested that CA and sharp details are not the best of friends. I would probably agree with that and would probably adjust my design to allow me to use the finish, if that was what was important to me.

I disagree with David, however, when it comes to the sanding level beneath the finish. I like to go to 400 or even 500 on my last grit if I'm going to finish with CA. That's for pens or other small projects. Even if I sand with the grain at 320, I feel that I can see the circles, and my eyes are not all that great. If I go to 500 and then sand with the grain, I can no longer see the circular pattern from lathe sanding. I figure that if I can't see it, most others won't either. I also figure that if my fluffy eyes can detect the pattern, younger, sharper eyes will see it faster!

Under lacquer, you have to read the instructions. Some lacquers do not want you to sand beyond 220! Lacquer needs to have tooth on the wood to get a good grip. If you sand finer, you can thin the lacquer sanding sealer for a first couple of coats. Thinning it seems to help it get the solids into the grooves. Using Deft out of the can allows you to paint it on the lathe and then wipe it off and buff it out right on the lathe. Once you get a good first coat on bare wood, the other coats weld into the last one making for a nice tight, durable finish. I was a piano technician in a former life and did several rebuilds in lacquer. Had a BUNCH of great classes with the lacquer techno people who explained this stuff to me.

[Gerold Griffin]

Dewey; I have to second what Ken said about the Beal bufing system. I got one about 3 weeks ago and gave it a shot. The results were astonishing, at least to me. I have never had anything I've made come out so smooth and shiny!!
Also Penn had a free instructional dvd out awhile back where the guy made a pen including finishing. He used EEE ultra shine and Shellwax. If you want a copy and they are out let me know and I'll send you a copy.
By the way, I like the stopper as is. Like alot of folks your harshest critic is yourself. Thats why we try to improve, and do I have alot to improve on!!!

[Ken Glass]

Dewey,
You've come far Pilgrim. ( As Will Geer would say) You are off to a great start. The fever just gets higher and higher. You couldn't get better helpful comments than you get from this forum. Well Done!

[Dave Halter]

Dewey,
I like the form of your stopper. Great stuff for your 4th turning. I'll also throw in another vote for a buffing system. I have both the Beall 3 wheel mandrel and the quick change single wheel mandrel. I thought it would makes things easier to not have to swap out the buffing wheels, but the 3 wheel mandrel has all of the drawbacks that others have pointed out. I only use it for small projects and even then the wheels are too close together.

Dave