4 Foot Square Base 2x8 Pine Bowl

[Thomas Canfield]

This is a test piece of 2x8 pine prior to turning a piece of 1"x7"x7" hard maple for club challenge. The challenge is to see what you can make without adding any wood to piece, but can embellish with carving, piercing, color, inlay, and other junk. I am going for fairly simple turned piece and possibly add some burning. The 2x8 was about same size, a little thicker, but the concept works. I had turned a half dozen or so prior out of 2x6 material in preparation for demo at SWAT. This piece only sanded to 400 and then buffed with Tripoli. Pine about 3/16" thick and maple will be about 1/8". 355925355926355927
Piece is nice enough to finish in more detail later.

[John RStegall]

Looks very good Tom. Good idea on a practice board or too.

[Frederick Skelly]

That's a very nice piece! Can't wait to see the one you make for the "challenge".
Fred

[allen thunem]

doesn't look 4 foot square to me:) appears smaller than that:):)

[Thomas Canfield]

doesn't look 4 foot square to me:) appears smaller than that:):)
'
Allen - you need to see it spinning at 1600 rpm. It is 7.25" square at the tips. You are right, not 4' square but 4 footed square bowl with bowl about 1/8" clear of support.

[John K Jordan]

'
Allen - you need to see it spinning at 1600 rpm. It is 7.25" square at the tips. You are right, not 4' square but 4 footed square bowl with bowl about 1/8" clear of support.

When I first saw the thread title I also thought, wow, what a big turning! Even a square 4 sq ft base would be big. :)

I also like to turn "squarish" pieces, usually about 9" across, sometimes larger. Your nice piece give me an idea to make a squarish dished platter/bowl with the top and bottom identical and a challenging gap between them.

JKJ

[Steve Peterson]

doesn't look 4 foot square to me:) appears smaller than that:):)

I fell for that one also. I was expecting to see a 4 foot bowl, not a 4 footed bowl.

Looks nice. I have never tried cutting or sanding air.

Steve

[John K Jordan]

I have never tried cutting or sanding air.


Steve, you should try it!

A couple of things, I like to put some contrasting background behind the piece - dark for light wood, etc. For light wood, a dark background and a bright light on the work lets you see the ghost image. Still, be aware and careful of fingers and tools! (I've never been knocked with the wood, knock on wood.:))

I make sure I have a positive grip on the tool on the wings as well as rubbing the bevel as usual. It can be noisy and a bit unnerving the first time. Eventually, it's no different than turning a platter.

I mostly use hand scrapers instead of sanding which work extremely well on "wings", followed by hand sanding. If I use power sanding, I prefer gentle, slow motion with a pneumatic Grex random orbital sander with 2" disks. With the hand scrapers it rarely needs much sanding, maybe 320 or finer depending on the wood.

The only time I use sandpaper on "air" on a spinning piece is with spindle turnings. I like to use a fairly long (maybe 6-8") strip of cloth sandpaper 1" wide, holding the ends of the strip and applying light down pressure, letting the flexibility of the strip take the beating. This rounds the edges a bit - if I didn't want that I'd just sand by hand. I use the sanding strips on these:

356115 356116

I hope this doesn't look like a thread hijack; I've posted these pictures before. I've made a bunch of these squarish dished platters, all from 8/4 lumber, about 9" across. I cut the outline on the bandsaw, smooth a bit with a disk sander, turn the piece (outside first), sand the surfaces, then sand the edges by hand with a sanding block before taking it out of the chuck.

356114
(Eastern Red Cedar, Black Cherry, and figured English Walnut)

JKJ