While waiting on my Vicmarc Chuck

[Julie Wright]

I decide to start a small mushroom farm. Hopefully the chuck will be here soon, or who knows what will happen??? (I used to live near Reading PA, I know what a bad day is like)

[Richard Allen]

The mushooms look great!

The club I belong to has a woman who was the President when I joined. She turned mushrooms. She looked a pictures in books about mushrooms and made different mushrooms to match the pictures in the books.

She did the mushrooms on multiple axis so the cap was titlted slightly to the stem. Easy enough to do and the effect was quite interesting.

Before she did a demo of her mushrooms it never occoured to me that I could turn wood between centers on muitiple axis.

[Julie Wright]

Thanks for the info. I always like new ideas.

[Steve Inniss]

Richard, and Julie (of course),

Here's another perhaps unusual twist on using miltiple axis mounting for creative effect.

I was riveing some red oak into 34" spindle blanks from a tree at the lake here, in my never ending quest to continue to at least think about, maybe someday, that I might... make a windsor chair from scratch. I was reminded of bamboo by the way some of the grain split. I thought it might be cool to see how much I could make it look like bamboo on the lathe - then "Hey, how about a faux bamboo walking stick?" thinks I. "It certainly won't break like bamboo." I could use it when walking the dog in case a nuisance bear shows up. I doubt I could defeat him with it, but holding a stick would give me the courage of 10 men and the bear will probably sense it;) I also remembered a website that gave walking stick defense lessons: (http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_barton-wright_0200.htm) and have seen sticks go on auction for $500-$4000. And what a great gift idea... you know the process

Anyway back to the point, the oak when I first turned it, looked too "perfect" to be bamboo 'till I re-mounted it just off-center 3 or 4 times and turned it at random spots along it's length. You will see some eccentricities that resulted in the images below.

I then Turned a piece of box elder for the top with a 3/4" x 1" post and drilled into the stick 1". I also used a 7/8 forstner and countersunk the bottom for a chair leveller. This disguised the mounting tricks so no one will ever know how this thing came into being - oh, except everyone here.


I stained the stick first with a golden/yellow stain, then used a small brush with ebony stain on the ridges, then BLO, turps and poly.

Depending on you/your lathe it's not for the faint of heart. Good if you can hand support to prevent whip.

Aren't lathes just the most creative tool?

Steve

[John Shuk]

I've made one mushroom out of Aromatic red cedar like you've got there. It didn't turn out so well as I had a catch with my skew and broke the base. The form was ok. My biggest problem is leaving it alone after I get a good shape. sometimes I just HAVE to try to touch things up and wind up going too far. Thanks for sharing what you've made.
John