Segmented Bowl

[Lee Alkureishi]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum, hi!I've attached some pics of my attempt at a segmented bowl. I saw this technique online, I think by D.W. Montville, and I wanted to try out a similar style. The piece has a lot of problems, as do most of my turnings, but hey - that's what learning is all about :)It's red cedar and plain old pine, finished with a mixture of BLO, shellac and DNA (Captain Eddie called it "OB Shine Juice"). Problems I had:1) the joinery is all over the place - I need to calibrate my power tools, and figure out a better way to clamp the glue-ups!2) the form was originally going to be a tad more elegant, with a big flared rim. I broke it. Oh well.3) Is pine known to be awful to turn? I had a terrible time with tear out, and sanding it was a nightmare (the cedar dust kept embedding in the pine, and the growth ridges became more prominent with sanding). Thanks for looking - I look forward to posting more "perfect" turnings in future!Lee

[Michelle Rich]

1st, welcome to SMC...your first segmented bowl /vase is not as bad as you make it sound. A little off center, but one must start somewhere & learn from one's mistakes. Make another & I bet it will improve by leaps & bounds!!

[John Keeton]

Lee, welcome to the creek and glad to see you posting! Actually, you did a pretty decent job with this one. Looks like the glue joint between the two halves slipped a little in the clamping, and it is chucked a bit off center - but, not too shabby! Nice rim treatment.

Pine seems to be inherently difficult to turn. Curt Fuller has turned some Ponderosa Pine, and it seems to do better. I shun pine, myself - just not interested in fighting it. Cedar is beautiful, but very prone to cracking. Any time you are dealing with a very soft wood (both of what you have used) you can easily get irregular sanding. And, the soft grain/hard grain differential is possible with any wood that has prominent growth rings.

Try another one and post it!

[Jim Burr]

Welcome Lee!
Lot better than anything I could do! The geometry really stands out...no doubt to the wood selection!! You are well on your way sir!

[Lee Alkureishi]

Thanks for the comments!

John, The glue joint did indeed slip some - I filled the crack with sawdust and CA glue, but it ended up a little darker than I'd like. I think the problem with centring was more related to my initial cuts on the mitre saw - the 45 degree cuts were more wedges than slices; they were bigger at the top than the bottom. I'll need to figure out how to calibrate the saw before I do the next one...

Thanks again for the nice comments - when I've been staring at the same piece of wood for a few hours, it's all too easy to focus on the imperfections!

Lee

[Steve Schlumpf]

Lee - Welcome to the Creek!

About the only thing I can suggest when working with Pine or Cedar is to make sure to use VERY sharp tools and take light cuts! I have zero experience with segmenting... so all I can say is ... Pretty wood!

Looking forward to seeing your next turning and getting to know you! Also... you can update you profile to add your location. You never know how many other Creekers live in your area!

[Lee Alkureishi]

Absolutely.

Yes, I found that out on this project! I had been using my homemade tools (radiused square and circular carbide cutters, copies of the easy wood tools), and switched to my newly made oland tool with a 1/4" 45 degree round HSS tip. Even with that, the tear out was something awful. My round nose scraper didn't fare much better...

I'm still struggling to get the grind right on my bowl & spindle gouges, but I'm guessing it will be better once I fix it up :)

Lee

[Bill Wyko]

Hi Lee, welcome to the Creek. You're off to a good start, let me see if I can help.
1-Use hose clamps around rings to hold them while the glue sets up.
2-To prevent slippage of one ring to the other when stacking, put just a couple grains of small sand bits or broken glass bits between the rings and clamp them tight.
3-Learn to love sharpening your tools. Make it a challenge. Not only will dull tools cause tear out but they can cause very dangerous destruction of a piece of wood.
4-I use truncated cones to aling rings from one to the next. They are expensive but you can make your own out of wood.
all in all, you've started with a creative design, let the immagination flow. The sky's the limit when it comes to segmenting. I look forward to your growth, keep it up.

[Dan Hines]

Lee,

It sure looks good to me. Takes some real thinking to get all of that together.

[Lee Alkureishi]

Afraid the thinking all belonged to someone else - me, I just copied what I saw!

Lee

[Lee Alkureishi]

Thanks for the tips Bill - I made a jig for sharpening, but it needs some more work to give me consistent results. Working on it!

Lee

[Bill Wyko]

I might sugest a few books. One on Ray Allen, Malcolm Tibbetts and the new book by Dennis Keeling. All have tutorials and are very informative. I learned almost all my techniques from the first 2 and will be trying some new tricks from Dennis's book soon. Good luck.