Bottoms of Vases, Weed Pots, Etc.

[Dave C. Brown]

I'm totally new at this, but finally got my lathe and tools and I have a quick question about finish turning the bottoms of small vases, pots, etc.

I started with the blank between center and turned the outside shape. Then I parted in to separate the bottom and the top. The problem was the cut on the ends was fairly rough. I tried to sand it, but I think it could be better, especially if I could use a skew. But my jet mini lathe only came with a live center that has a cup on the end so if I'm working small, it's hard to get into the end with any tool.

So my quesiton is how do you hold these small pots to work on the ends? I've seen methods using compression chucks for the bottom of bowls, but that won't work with tall thin shapes, will it?

I have a nova g3 chuck, but the standard jaws require the piece be fairly large (2 inches minimum?) and the thing I turned was miniature -- say about 1 inch in diameter.

I'm hoping to recover from the initial tool layout before buying more, so shopmade or cheap would be great.

Thanks in advance for any help.

--Dave

[Corey Hallagan]

A weed pot is kind of tough case they are not easy to jam chuck. What I do is usually plan to loose an inch on the bottom. I use to use a parting tool down to the last inch or so and cut off with a flush cutting saw. I have better results using a 3/4 skew and using it as I was going to cut a bead in it and just keep pealing it down nice and smooth until about 1/2 inch or so and then trim with the flush cut saw. Still tough to decorate the bottom much but it isn't real raggy on the bottom at least. If someone has a good jam method I am all ears!

Corey

[Andy Hoyt]

I will often do much like Corey describes.

Another method I use is described here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=41807).

Hope it helps, and good luck, Dave.

[Ernie Nyvall]

Dave, you can buy smaller jaws for your chuck. They are 30 bucks at Woodcraft right now. Also, you can make jam chucks for this sort of thing. You take a piece of scrap wood and turn it round big enough for your chuck to hold it. Then cut a hole in the center that is the size of the piece you are finishing. Push the end you are not finishing up in the hole... it needs to be tight, and finish the bottom. There are variations of this jam chuck like cutting across the face of it down to the bottom of the hole and then using a hose clamp to tighten it up around your turned object. Now just let your imagination go with those ideas and you can come up with all kinds of ways to hold a piece. Hope this helps.

Oh yea, something as small as a weed pot hole, you can jam that around something, and then there's Andy's photos and Corey's idea.