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Knowledge You Can Build On — Est. 1998

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thought I would pass this on

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thought I would pass this on

#1

thought I would pass this on

eliot feldman

I have turned many boxes and I always try to get a good grain match. I recently saw a video where the turner (was his name Hamilton?) did something obvious, that I hadn't thought of before, to improve the grain match.

Let's say you have turned the inside of box top with a round mortise to fit over a round tenon that you will turn on the box bottom. Now you want to turn the box bottom with the round tenon. I have always just turned down the edge of the box to the right diameter, and in so doing, obviously lose some the grain match-- perhaps a 1/4 inch width.

In the video the turner anticipates the problem and parts off a little auxiliary cylinder from his main stock before parting off what will be the box top and bottom. He then turns a small mortise INSIDE the bottom of the box and fits this auxiliary cylinder into it. He then goes about making the box in the usual manner. And you see there's no need to waste that 1/4 inch or so from the box bottom.

Perhaps you all knew it anyway. But I ask a lot of questions here and get much out of this site. So here's something in return.

Re: thought I would pass this on

#2

Re: thought I would pass this on

Dave Paine

I have needed to try and conserve the grain pattern on some pepper mills.

An example of a spalted maple pepper mill. I used a hard back saw to cut off the top to minimize kerf width. I turned a small post from a piece of scrap, then drilled a hole in the top to glue in the post.


The wood in this piece had wonderful grain. It was a shame I had to turn away the grain to achieve the desired shape.

The mill after finishing.


Re: thought I would pass this on

#3

Re: thought I would pass this on

john lucas

Elliot. Good tip. I do a couple of things to keep the grain match. 1st is I use a really thin parting tool. I make the first cut about 1/4" deep. Then I use this cut as my fulcriumpoint. I aim the tool to the left and make a cut and then to the right and make a cut using this first cut as my fulcrum. So in effect I'm cutting a wider kerf inside to keep my tool from binding but the first 1/4" stays about as thin as my thin parting tool. This works well on boxes where the grain isn't too curvy.

The other tip which is similar to the one you posted is I cut off the lid and then turn a rebate into the cut portion of both the bottom and the top. Then I fill this with colored epoxy. Let it try and then turn my tenons and rebate out of this. I started doing that because you can easily cut threads into epoxy and have a threaded lid with the grain matching.