Project plan

Hi Everyone,

Well, its gotten much cooler here and rainy too. What kind of weather is this? Yes, wood turning weather!!

Ok, our next project is a scrap wood project and here is the discussion behind this:

Discussion

I had some 12"x1" pine boards left over from a recent project along with a piece of 12"x2"western red cedar that I had been eyeing for a couple of days and wondering what I could do with all of it. I suddenly got the idea to laminate them all together and make a yarn bowl. Linda, my buddy who tests a lot of my kitchen ware, is also an amazing knitter and I got the idea she might like to try out a yarn bowl for me. I emailed her and she said yes but to make it deep with a wide bottom so it cant easily tip over. So this is what were going begin making today.

Plans

I am going to make the bowl out of yellow pine with a red cedar bottom. If you google the words yarn bowl youll see what they look like-typically a large, flat bottomed bowl with either several large holes drilled into the side or a hole-slot combination. The hole-slot thing allows the knitter to pass the yarn through the hole without having to break the yarn and it keeps the yarn in the bowl while its being knitted.

I used 8 - 12"x1" pine boards and cut them into 11" circles and I did the same thing with the red cedar. Im going to coat them liberally with wood glue, clamp them, and let the whole thing dry overnight.

Lets take a look at some photos:

Here is the stack ready for gluing. The whole thing is about 7"high and 11" wide and even though it looks huge in the photo, its not very heavy, which is important for my lathe as I dont want to exceed the operational limits by turning too heavy a block. You can also see a line on the side-Ive drawn that line on the edges of the boards to keep the end grain patterns lined up:


Im going to use carpenters glue and an old pain brush to spread the glue around. Ive also laid down a plastic trash bag to help keep some of the glue off of my work bench:


I cleaned all the wood dust off of the surfaces and applied a very thick bead of glue:


Next I spread the glue evenly across the surface, making sure that the edges have a thick, even layer:


And I did that repeatedly. Here is what the whole thing looks like at the moment:


Now, for difficult part: clamping the whole thing together. Laminated turning blocks need to be really solid and this means having enough clamps to produce even, hair-line joints in the block and ultimate in the bowl itself.  I used as many clamps as I can fit around the edge of the block, which in this case was 8 clamps:


Screwing down the clamps always makes the wood shift around a little so its helpful to have a mallet, in the photo you can see I use a plastic mallet, to gently tap it in place:


And then I clamped the hell out of it. Screw it down as tightly as possible. You should see glue oozing out of the sides of the block:


And Im going to let it sit for 24 hours. Well come back to this tomorrow.

VW

Hi Everyone,

Well, its getting colder and Ive been outside working all afternoon and my hands are semi-frozen! Heres the latest from the workshop:

I finished turning the outside and I sanded it to 150 grit paper and its smooth enough for a yarn bowl:


So I took off the faceplate, and flipped the blank over and screwed the faceplate back on with 1" #10 wood screws. Im going to use the tailstock again to support this blank as its very heavy and the screws are very short:


And here we are ready to go:


I turned it between centers for about 10 minutes and this is as hollowed out as I could make it. Time to remove the tailstock and hollow it out:


I like to drill out the center of bowls-it removed the center easily and establishes depth so Im not cutting too deeply. Here Im drilling out the center with a large Forstner bit:


And this is that entire section of wood removed. I wound up drilling out the center several more times to reach the bottom as this bowl is really deep:





The bowl was quite deep at this point, in fact it was so deep, my tools wouldnt reach that far so I resorted to a large, heavy bowl scraper to remove the wood on the bottom of the bowl. I ordinarily dont use the scraper for this but it was the only tool I had that reached into the bowl and could cut with out a lot of vibration:

And it did a nice job of smoothing the inside:


 I worked on the bowl for another hour after the above photo was taken. I had to cut the interior until the holes that I drilled into the sides came through. Below is a photo of the bowl, off the lathe, with a flashlight inside so as to convey a sense of depth:


And here are several more photos-you can clearly see the holes in the sides:




Now, most yarn bowls have a hole-slot combination so a knitter can slide the yarn into the hole without having to break the yarn. Ive emailed my friend to ask if she would like me to cut slots in the bowl. Until I hear back Ill continue to sand the interior and the rim of the bowl.

Stay tuned for the slot and the finishing.

VW