A Frustrating Project

[Nate Davey]

I turned an urn for my wife to put her Orchid in. Being from the Philippines, Orchids remind her of home. Since the take very little water I thought a wooden urn would good bribery material. The wood I used was maple and had some beautiful heart wood. I used what was left of the log from the urn to make a small hollow form. On this project I did the entire outside shaping with my skew. Hence the frustration. Once I kind of figured it out, the finished surface was probably at 300 grit. I started hollowing the inside leaving it between 1/8" ish. Some how, even with an 1/8" of wood, I still broke through the side some how. The heart wood is beautiful. I also picked up some Antique Oil from the local Ace and put some on to see how it looks. Thanks for looking.

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[Hayes Rutherford]

Nate, I was cutting up a large piece of maple today and some of the heart looked in many ways, like yours. The defects were more apparent in what I was working with, so I would guess it wasn't as intact as you thought and having some of the side disappear was unavoidable.

[Dennis Ford]

The form looks great. I am guessing that the wood moved a little after you turned the outside which did not help things at all with the thin walls that you were going for.

[Jim Burr]

Dude...if that thing is over 2" in diameter...lose the skew!! Bowl or spindle gouge are fine for this. Skew is all I use on a pen or brush, but much over 2" and I get outa Dodge! I have an 1.5" skew and it's happy at about 2". When it comes to a skew, the bigger the wood, the bigger the failure!

[Dan Forman]

I had a similar thing happen a couple of weeks ago with a really nicely figured piece of walnut, which turned a sw style hollow form into more of a bowl. I have problems visualizing where the cutter is, and where to set the laser when hollowing the top portion of a form. Mine wasn't a wood failure though - definitely an operator failure. The cutter makes some interesting sounds just as it is about to materialize from inside the piece, at which point of course it's too late.

Dan