Topsy turvy

[Stephen Hibbs]

I got inspired when I went to the San Diego Fair and saw the woodturning club's tops for tots program. So I got some branches and made a few tops, then decided to try it with dowl. Here's the results from gluing small dowl into larger dowl and holding it in a drillbit chuck. If anyone wants I can make a little tutorial for these, they're pretty fun to make and use. These ones aren't so great as I had to make them in a hurry for my siblings' friends to decorate tomorrow, and also couldn't varnish them (only sanded to 150 and CA'd the tips to keep them pointy). I'm not sure what kind of wood, but I'm going to get some better stuff next time I visit Rockler as this stuff is terrible.
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[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

That is really cool, yeah, I'd love to see how you do that! :D

Cheers!

[Corey Hallagan]

Looks good Stephen! Nice job on those. I would love to see your write up on this as well.

Corey

[Don Baer]

Nice job Stephen, I enjoy turning tops. There very easy and don't take very long at all. I usualy chuck up a 2 or 2 1/2" piece of stock Slide the steady rest in, turn a top, part it off and slide the tail stock repeat until I'm out of stock. The neighbor kids have fun watching and when I part one off they get scrable to get the top off of the floor. I form the top of the top near the tail stock. Rafkin has a short segment on making them in one of his vidios that happen to catch at Woodcraft one day during a lunch break there.

[Barry Stratton]

Great job Stephen!! Sure, write away....Thanks!

[Henry C. Gernhardt, III]

Quite nice, Stephen. I bet the kids are going to have fun with those.

[Bill O'Conner]

My grandfather used to use the double headed nails and grind off the last head to a point for his tops (if this helps) it works great

Bill

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Cutzy Wootzy Topsy Turvys.

Bruce

[Stephen Hibbs]

I thought about using nails for the tip spikes, but the fact that they are chucked allows me to get the tips nice and pointy anyways, and then I varnish the tips with CA glue, so the nails would just be extra work. Plus, I've not been doing much with these, just giving fistfuls of them to my siblings occasionally, and they seem to get lost so quickly it's unbelievable. It was fun watching all the kids come over and decorate them though, that was why I put 2 guidlines on all of the tops, for easier deocrating. The next batches will be nicely sanded and varnished, and possibly out of (my favorite) ironbark eucalyptus!!!:D :D (I have a gloat and a package on the way)