Greetings Creekers
One dark cloudy day I decided to do a oak and hollow form. Once everything was glued up and ready to turn I made an amazing discovery - the banjo would not slide under the turning and there was no way to quickly work on the foot. So me being me I got some 3/8 steel and came up with this[ATTACH]banjo 2.jpg[/ATTACH] Now with that done everything else went great until I decided to do a run of 5 for Christmas presents. I wanted a chuck for this to be able to work on each peice as I wanted to. ( The oak and walnut was done glued to a piece of scrapwood on a faceplate) So with a new Super Nova 2 chuck I went to work on the next 5, made of maple, walnut, and zebrawood. After the first one shot off the lathe I attempted to use my steady rest but due to the low clearance it wouldn't fit. Back to it and hope for the best. Next one shot off, repair damaged rings and back to it. To make a long story short everyone came off the lathe with my head only catching one of them. Busted my face shield all to heck but better that than my head! For some reason I kept getting a catch on the second maple ring from the top. I finally determined that the problem was a loose nut on the gouge or a screw loose in the operator mechanism. The two are so closely related it is difficult tell which after being slapped silly in the head by glued up hunk of wood. Anyway what started out to be 5 matching hollow forms turned out to be 5 hollow forms, 261 pieces each, averaging 8-9 inches tall.
By the way the banjo extension is held in place with 3 grade 8 bolts when in use. I only put two in for the picture.
Enjoy. Comments and Critiques Very Welcome