Great stuff! Pictures, pictures Please!
Don
On 2020-05-25 3:38 p.m., James DuPrie wrote:
> well, the glue up of the 6" and 3" thick 20" diameter blanks was a lot
> easier than I thought. Building a solid cylinder instead of trying to do
> fancier segmented bowl style glue-ups is the way to go.
>
> Error #1:
> I was planning to use a coping saw to round the blanks. I forgot that you
> can't use a coping saw on something 6" thick, and even a 3" thick hunk is
> tough - there isn;t enough room in the frame to get a good stroke,and the
> blade clogs up. So, I ended up a slew of cutting tools instead. Draw knife,
> spokeshaves, and a couple of plains where the grain was being difficult.
> Took a couple hours, but got both blanks round enough to toss on the lathe.
>
> Smart thing #1:
> using a brace and hex adapter to drive the 1 1/2" screws to hold the blank
> onto the faceplate. I love it when I can use a brace to drive screws. So
> easy.....
>
> I manged to get the exponential curve turned today, and it works pretty
> well. This was out of the 6" thick blank, so the grain ran across the face
> (flat surface) of the blank. That means that it wasn't as smooth as I would
> have liked - using cheapo dimension 2 by X stock makes it hard to smooth
> the surface without getting SOME grain ripples. Confirmed my idea to set it
> up for end grain when I make the real one (still thinking Beech...).
> In any case, a pool ball does a nice round orbit that decays with a very
> satisfying wub wub wub wubwubwubwubwus as it moves down the throat of the
> funnel. I was surprised how much noise it made just rolling across the
> higher parts of the curve, but overall still completely satisfied (also
> assuming it will be a bit quieter without the grain ripples).
> A marble (about 3/4") does OK, but doesn't have the mass or size to deal
> with the surface defects, so it decays a LOT faster, and doesn't exhibit a
> round orbit. Still makes a nice wub wub as it goes down though.
>
> I'm supposed to get a batch of 1" stainless steel ball bearing in a couple
> of weeks. I expected the proof of concept to take longer, and I didn't want
> to take anything from the client until I was more certain it would work.
> Sometime in the next few days I'll turn the 3" thick blank, and see if I
> can get a curve in that that works. I'm guessing no - I had to use most of
> the 6" in the current one to get a decent orbit and decay, but we'll see.
> the 3" disc is also set up with end grain on the face, so, assuming the
> tear out isn't too horrible (I don;t really like turning softwood) I can
> see how much difference it makes to the sound....
>
> -James
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--
"So it goes." Kurt Vonnegut
“Worry less, concentrate more, and above all relax.” James Krenov
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