How would you disguise this?

[Mark Pruitt]

I'm attaching a pic of a turning that I'm about to reverse for hollowing, but I'm thinking ahead to finishing it. As you can see by where the arrow is pointing, the piece sheared on me and has been repaired and successfully trued up. The "line" around the stem is far more evident "in person" than it is in the pic. All voids were filled, so the surface is smooth. I am trying to come up with some creative ways of disguising this scar. I'd appreciate some suggestions!
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[Kurt Forbes]

a few wire burns will disguise it well

[Nancy Laird]

a few wire burns will disguise it well

That's just what I was gonna say! On that wood, they would be perfect.

[Ron Chamberlin]

How about a shallow groove cut with a parting tool, then fill with black embossing powder (from Michaels or Hobby Lobby) or coffee grounds held in with CA. Make the defect a design element. :D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mark....Kurt's idea of wire burns works well. I turned a bowl that was glued up. I hid the glue lines by using wire burns. Of course, in my case, the glue lines still showed on the inside of the vessel but not on the outside which is more visible.

[Steve Schlumpf]

I like Ron's idea the best but have to admit the wire burn would be so much easier.

[Andy Hoyt]

How about a small arrangement of a couple of coves and/or beads?

Lay it out so the glue line is in a tight valley between two, or at a shoulder.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I had the same problem Mark. I did what Andy said by making a cove so the glue line is at the bottom. You can make a shallow one and nobody is going to know. It worked on my salad bowl after Andy's suggestion.

[Mark Pruitt]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I've tried wire burns in the past but unsuccessfully because I had the wrong kind of wire. What do you use?

I ask that really more for future reference, because your friendly idiot just screwed up this piece yet again.:mad: :mad: :mad: It has sheared on me a second time, in a different location further down the stem. I'm so frustrated at this point I just want to throw my hands up and quit, but by God I ain't gonna do that. I will die before I quit trying.

I have no idea what's happening. I reverse chucked it, got it as close to true as I could, put it between centers, trued up the outside edge to the "new" axis, hollowed out as much as I could with it still between centers, removed the tailstock, hollowed out some more, and BANG, it sheared on me. I am disgusted with this. I just wish I knew what the dickens was going on.:mad:

[Jim Becker]

I also like the waire burn idea...but dupicate it up on the rim, too for continuity.

[Ron Sardo]

Question, What type of glue did you use for the repair?

I use a G string for burning.

(a guitar G string that is)

[Andy Hoyt]

Mark - I have had "reasonably good" success with this stuff (http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/cgi-bin/shopper?preadd=action&key=118-0151) for doing the wire burning thing.

Maybe it's time to remount the vessel (in a friction chuck, since I'm tempted to think you're not rigged with a vac system), reshape the bottom, bore a shallow mortise dead center to accept a tenon from a new chunk that will serve as the stem. Perhaps a piece of contrasting wood.

[Jeff Borges]

i was gonna vote for the cove or bead idea, perhaps a complimentary set high and one low?

As for the G string. you can buy single strings at your music shop. The strings can be puchased by diamter too, and one end usually has a bead of some sort on the end.

Turn a couple handles drill some holes and you have a wire burnerator.

maybe even do the beads and burn the edges of the beads to highlight them??:rolleyes: :p

[John Brown]

I have burned many accent lines. No special wire needed. I have used hanger wire for suspended celings and solid stainless steel fishing leader. You can also use a stick of wood with a very sharp edge. Either method used just turn the speed up quite high and bingo you have a black line. If using wire be sure to put handles on the ends to hold onto.

[John Hart]

I was thinking along the lines of Ron Chamberlin....Only, I use Ebony. I just turn on the belt sander and capture a handful of Ebony dust and mix it with epoxy.

[Mark Pruitt]

Maybe it's time to remount the vessel (in a friction chuck, since I'm tempted to think you're not rigged with a vac system), reshape the bottom, bore a shallow mortise dead center to accept a tenon from a new chunk that will serve as the stem. Perhaps a piece of contrasting wood.
Andy,
I think that's what I'm going to try to do. Who knows, maybe I can save this thing yet. Interesting, how things were gliding along so smoothly, one successful bowl after another, a long string with no major screw ups, and now this. I obviously did not know the correct way to shape this vessel. I did what seemed to me like a logical sequence of steps. It's back to the books for me before I try another one like this.:(

[Claude Arragon]

For wire burning I use STEEL wire (not iron)
I guess to hide the defect I would have taken a small profile gouge and took the defect off, but it's true, on remonting you had a false center...
Fianlly how does the piece look like?

[Brian McInturff]

Mark,
Sounds like you were leaving the hollowing to last? If so that's the problem. I usually turn to get my general shape but leave enough mass, then hollow, then go back to the outside to take down to what my final dimension should be. Brian

[Mark Pruitt]

Mark,
Sounds like you were leaving the hollowing to last? If so that's the problem. I usually turn to get my general shape but leave enough mass, then hollow, then go back to the outside to take down to what my final dimension should be. Brian
Brian,
Once you've hollowed out the inside, what do you then use to mount the piece? Do you have a way to mount it between centers or do you rely solely on the foot mounted in a chuck?

Sorry to be so inquisitive...I'm just trying to figure this out. Of course I could make this whole problem disappear by cutting a blank with the grain parallel to the ways, but I prefer to turn it as facework, not centerwork, if at all possible.

[Brian McInturff]

On that piece I would just turn it withthe foot or possibly a Jam chuck. I don't have my Vac set up yet or that would obviously be an option. Once the wieght is gone from hollowing out then it becomes easier. The weight from the mass was working against you. You were probably turning at a pretty high speed or applying just a little to much pressure for the speed you were turning at. Another option would be to bore a small diameter hole in the bottom and use a pin chuck, but I'd leave that as a last resort. One final note, Your stem area could have been just a bad area in the wood and none of the options would've worked. I ran into a similar problem with some wood I recieved from a downed tree. Found out later the tree was brought down by lightning so it probably had stree fractures all through it. Some can not be visible to the eye. Good luck and just to let you know, I think it's an excellent shape and I'm sure with your talent you'll have this beat in no time. Brian

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mark........Am I missing something here? Are you wanting to turn off the foot...... Hollow the bowl and then reattach a foot via turned tenon and mortise?

If so.....I'd turn a tenon on the bowl while turning off the foot/pedestal. I chuck up the tenon and bowl and hollow the bowl. Then rechuck the bowl using a donut chuck and some styrofoam to support the bowl from the inside and proceed to turn the bottom as necessary to accept the tenon from the new pedestal/foot.

When turning NEs turning off the tenon on the bottom of the bowl at first perplexed me. Then I figured out a way to do it. I turn the bottom of the NE with a tenon. Chuck up the tenon in my SN2 and turn the inside of the bowl. The problem was how to turn the tenon off and finish turn the bottom of the NE without damaging the NE on the bowl. I take some 2" styrofoam insulation and using double sided tape ...tape it to base plate of my homemade donut chuck. I turn the styrofoam to form a cone of sorts that will contact the inside bottom of the NE....supporting it without letting the sides of the NE make contact with the base of the donut chuck. I add as many thicknesses of the 2" styrofoam insulation as necessary using doublesided tape to achieve the required thickness and support cone. Then I trap the NE on the cone between the halves of the donut chuck. Then I carefully spin by hand or by motor the trapped NE and work on getting it perfectly centered for returning. Once centered and the donut chuck tightened up.....Turn away. I think you could use a similar process.....for your bowl on a pedestal.

Turn the outside edges of the bowl and rough turn the pedestal with a tenon on the bottom. Chuck up the tenon and turn the inside of the bowl. Then trap the bowl in a donut chuck and finish turn the pedestal.

I hope I didn't mistaken something in my initial analysis of your problem.

Let us know how you resolve this!

[Brian McInturff]

Ken, just curious and please post so I can learn, how do you find a true center own a NE with a donut chuck. The one time I tried I ended up with a rocker.

Mark to finish up the bottom of yours with a tennon still in place I would use the tailstock with a small diameter blunt point center. Don't advance the tailstock fully until the item itself finds center(this is using a jam chuck. Backup a minute: at the beginning you should drill a hole in your tennon to the depth you want the bottom(probably a small inverted cone). Now back to where I was:The blunt center fits inside the hole in the tennon, the jam chuck is loose, and spin at low rpm. Should find center by gravitational pull. Tighten up the tailstock. Turn the tennon off which will leave the item spinning between the jam chuck and blunt center. I learned this off of someones video so I definitely didn't create this way of doing it but it did work for me. Brian

[Andy Hoyt]

Wow. I completely missed the fact that this was facework oriented.

Here's my perspective, Mark. Most stemmed vessels I've turned or encountered were mounted as centerwork with the wood prepped with the pith completely absent. With the pith present you run the risk of future cracking, etc. By orienting the wood as centerwork, the resultant piece will have a much higher degree of structural integrity.

But in either case, the solution is the antithesis of getting as much "turned object" out of a given chunk of wood. Specifically, you have to waste wood - a lesson that was very hard for me to learn, in all aspects of woodturning.

Mount your piece (oriented however you wish) between centers and get it cylinderized. Put a tenon on one end and shove it into a four jawed chuck. Bring up the tailstock and re-cylinderize it. If you have a bowl steady, now is the time to use it. If not, just go slow with light cuts and form the vessel's interior to completion, including sanding.

Shove a wadded up rag or some other soft thing into the hollowed area and get your tailstock back in play. The rag cushions the pointy end of the tailstock thereby obviating any chance of inducing new blemishes to the interior. I actually use a piece of an old cloth mouse pad for this, and there are other remedies too - such as cones, tailstock mounted jambchucks, live center adapaters, etc.

Anywho, now that you have adequate support at either end you can remove the steady rest (if employed) and form the exterior. Light cuts are essential (especially if mounted as facework) because that stem is the weak link in the piece - very weak. Stop often, pull tail stock out to check wall thickness, put tailstock back in. Rinse, lather, repeat as needed to form the entire piece through to completion, including sanding.

Sidebar - I rarely apply finish on the lathe these days, but if that's your thing, now's the time to do so.

I said this was about wasting wood, and it is. The chunk should have been tall enough in the first place to allow you to form the foot far enough away from the chuck so you don't have to worry about smashed knuckles and stuff. For me, this is usually an inch or so.

I then carefully remove all the material between the jaws of the chuck and the foot with a narrow (1/16") parting tool taking light cuts because this is now becoming an even weaker link. Doing so provides tool and clumsy finger clearance for what comes next. When I'm down to about 1/2" inch thick, I switch to a 1/4" skew and with the pointy end aimed towards the center of the foot I clean up the bottom down to the 1/2" thickness.

Remove the tailstock. With your right hand caressing the piece and your right thumb pinching the skew onto the toolrest; continue removing that 1/2" shaft right where it connects to the bottom of the foot. Be scary at first, but once you get the hang on of it, you'll find it's no big deal. Magically, once you've skewed through the shaft, the piece stops rotating, is resting comfortably in your hand, and all is good.

A quick touch with sandpaper will clean up any mess on the bottom.

This procedure has worked quite well for me on all manner of footed forms. You might want to practice the parting off sequence on some junk wood first just to get the hang of it.

[David Walser]

I understand the frustration you are feeling. I'm sure we've all been there and most likely will be there tomorrow.

On the topic of what kind of wire to use for burning, as has been suggested, you can use guitar strings. But you don't really need any special kind of wire. Piano wire or baling wire will work, too. You just need to be able to hold the wire in one spot on your turning (I cut a small groove where I want the burn mark to be with the long point of my skew chisel) while the lathe spins without getting your fingers burned. Wooden handles on the ends of the wire prevent your fingers from getting burned, but you don't need them.

You also don't need wire to get an attractive burn. As has been suggested, sandpaper or another piece of wood will produce enough friction to scorch the wood. Rather than reaching for a piece of wire (which is on the other side of the shop) I usually resort to a piece of old paper towel that I just fold and hold the folded edge taught against the spinning wood. A couple of seconds later, I've got a nice thin burn line. If I'm doing lots of them, I'll go find the wire.

Hope this helps.