Bicolor ebony sphere

[Dave Mount]

A little while back I posted a picture of a bicolor Gaboon ebony blank that I had, 3"x6"x6.25". I was stewing about how to cut it for making one or more spheres, working around a crack and other defects while using the figure to the greatest effect. After much agonizing, I decided that with some additional defects not visible in the photo, I was only going to get one 3x3x3 cube out of the cracked side it if I split it and filled the crack, and the two that would come from the right half would bring some surface checks on the right side into play. So, I decided to take the prime cut out of the middle, which could capture some nice figure in the black streaks and give me two sound blanks, and some scraps I might find other purposes for.

Below is a resulting sphere, and I have a second cube with similar figure. I actually sawed it up on a slight angle following the crack which ran slightly off the long axis. There were a couple small surface checks that were included, but nothing serious enough to even use CA on them. Wasn't a pleasant wood to turn, but not bad either. The sphere has a nice density, feels almost like a billiard ball, though larger at 2-7/8". The pictures weren't quite as well focused as I thought once I viewed them on a larger screen; my phone seems to struggle to get good focus on spheres, I don't know if it's the shape or the smooth surface.

Best,

Dave

Capture76.JPGIMG_20210515_201736209.jpgIMG_20210515_201717695.jpgIMG_20210515_201752521.jpg

[David Walser]

Definitely a great result.

[John K Jordan]

Another beautiful sphere!

A shiny surface can really confuse autofocus. Unfortunately, cell phones typically have a fixed aperture so you can't increase the depth of field by increasing the amount of light.
Does the phone have a manual focus mode? (My Samsung does: swipe right, choose Pro, then AF or MF (or use the selective focus feature). Either of these might benefit from holding a focus target to the side, a short distance back from the closest point (the best point is typically 1/3 of the way from the nearest to furthest points of desired focus.)
I suspect you know all this but some who don't might be interested!

Hey, in your spare time are you going to make a sphere-turning instructional video? Everything from your holding methods to your turning/finishing methods and tools would be of interest to a lot of turners! You'll be rich and famous. Well, famous...

JKJ

A little while back I posted a picture of a bicolor Gaboon ebony blank that I had, 3"x6"x6.25". I was stewing about how to cut it for making one or more spheres, working around a crack and other defects while using the figure to the greatest effect. After much agonizing, I decided that with some additional defects not visible in the photo, I was only going to get one 3x3x3 cube out of the cracked side it if I split it and filled the crack, and the two that would come from the right half would bring some surface checks on the right side into play. So, I decided to take the prime cut out of the middle, which could capture some nice figure in the black streaks and give me two sound blanks, and some scraps I might find other purposes for.

Below is a resulting sphere, and I have a second cube with similar figure. I actually sawed it up on a slight angle following the crack which ran slightly off the long axis. There were a couple small surface checks that were included, but nothing serious enough to even use CA on them. Wasn't a pleasant wood to turn, but not bad either. The sphere has a nice density, feels almost like a billiard ball, though larger at 2-7/8". The pictures weren't quite as well focused as I thought once I viewed them on a larger screen; my phone seems to struggle to get good focus on spheres, I don't know if it's the shape or the smooth surface.

Best,

Dave

Capture76.JPGIMG_20210515_201736209.jpgIMG_20210515_201717695.jpgIMG_20210515_201752521.jpg

[Paul Williams]

Great looking sphere Dave. I agree with John that a tutorial on your process would be good reading form me and lots of other creekers.

[Tim Elett]

I would like to see a video on this, the second one looks sort of unworldly.

[Dave Mount]

Thanks for the kind words. As it always is with spheres, it's the wood that makes a pretty sphere. I guess it would be possible to make an unappealing sphere with poor execution, but it's really the wood that makes the difference. It's been kind of fun hunting around for unusual pieces of wood that would lend themselves to a nice sphere. I was pretty intrigued when I saw this piece of ebony with those swirling black streaks. While jet black pieces of ebony are also striking, I think I prefer this piece with mixed colors for making a sphere. I have a piece of 2" all black ebony that was given to me by a generous turner, I hope to get that turned soon too.

I don't have any video equipment or editing capability, so a video from me is not likely, even though I would be inclined to do something to share what I've learned, since other people taking the time to do that is in turn how I learned. I've taken some pictures at the lathe over time to illustrate different steps in the process, maybe it's time to put those together with some text. I do think the video would be better; I know I learn better from that kind of presentation than from text.

Best,

Dave

[David Metzman]

So when are you going to start hollowing the spheres?

[Allen Mattsen]

Looks gorgeous!