three -d carving on a HF

Re: three -d carving on a HF

John K Jordan

>>>so i wanna make a wavy hf... like a scalloped edge bowl... like a clam shell wave but some of them i want to extend way out of the normal circumference.. so the waves wont be the same.. some will be deep and some shallow and some wide and some thin... so the deep ones that extend out of the circumference... i have seen people gluing bits of wood onto a form and then carving it away..

Darrin,

I would personally not try go glue something on then carve it. As you mentioned, I think it would be difficult to get the surfaces to mate perfectly. In addition, you would you get the grain to match? Maybe it would work if the piece was going to be painted afterwards.

If I understand what you want to do, I think I would just turn it and leave a band of extra wood extending from the piece then carve it away. This makes everything the same wood but can in fact be a little tedious. If turning green, I might do some of the carving right away then finish it when dry, depending on the type of wood.

After watching John Lucas turn a bowl with feet and handles, I decided to try one. This is the bowl before the carving, dry Bradford pear:

This is after the carving:

If that wouldn't work in your case, maybe you could post a quick sketch showing what you want to end up with.

JKJ

Re: three -d carving on a HF

Ralph Watts

Nice work John! There may be hope for you yet..... Carving sure opens a wide range of additional options and it looks as if you have 1, excellent carving skills and 2, great sense of design.

Re: three -d carving on a HF

John C Lucas

Sand or carve an area flat then glue a piece on. Unless you are really good at matching grain the glue joint will show. You can sometimes disguise it by careful selection of where you glue as car as the details of the carving. If your going to paint the piece you can hide the joint.

Ideally you find a piece of wood large enough to carve without gluing a piece on.

Re: three -d carving on a HF

John C Lucas

I should have said its extremely hard to match a curve to a curve. Ive done it by making a template with the scroll saw so you have a male and female form. When you get close rub chalk on one part and fit the other wiggling it slightly. Then carve away the high spots and repeat. Very time consuming and requires a lot of patience.

Re: three -d carving on a HF

John K Jordan

Ralph,

Thank you. Any inspiration I've had or will have comes from the Master.

Great to hear from you, Master. :-)

I'm still using wood I got from you.

JKJ

Re: three -d carving on a HF

Dick Coers

If the area is not on too sharp of curve on the hollow form, you can tape a wider piece of sandpaper on the hollow form. Then turn on the lathe at a really low speed, and bring up the piece you want to contour. This will contour sand the mating piece. Make sure the overlap in the sandpaper is correct so it won't catch.

Re: three -d carving on a HF

Don Evans

That is exactly the best way to do it Dick, in fact it may be the only way. One addition to what you said is to make a jig that mounts on the ways of the lathe with and long piece of wood attached to the base with a hinge. Then mount the piece to be carved to the arm so it will rub the sandpaper when moved up to the piece on the lathe. You can put more pressure on it that way and do it quicker with no worry about it twisting in you hands with just hand held. I suggest mounting it to the long arm with screws just like using a faceplate when turning.

Don

Re: three -d carving on a HF

john lucas

I have tried that method. May work on larger pieces but for smaller work like putting a spout on a tea pot it's too aggressive. If you move it the wrong way just barely it's like rocking it and it takes off too much wood where you don't want to. Works well with the lathe off but I still ended up using the chalk and hand sanding to get a really good fit. I've put handles on things using the sandpaper on a turning method and almost always had to turn the lathe off and take it really slow to make a perfect fit. I found it much easier to make a flat area and check it with a straight edge and then make the other part fit. Then carve the flowing curves over the joint similar to how Sam Maloof makes his chairs. So it depends on what you are trying to do. If your plan is to add something like a spout to a T pot. Then the chalk method is best because you have a curve in 2 directions. If adding a piece of wood to simply get more length for a protrusion is what you want then it's far easier to make a flat. You will almost always see the glue line so you have to either disguise it or make it part of the piece.

When I made my heart lamp piece I had to custom fit the defibrillator paddles. Took forever to fit that compound curve. They didn't have to be perfect but really really close.

heart lamp...

John K Jordan

I've never seen that one! Where do you get your ideas??! I want some of what ever you're smokin' :-)

JKJ

Re: heart lamp...

john lucas

Hey we can sit around a fire talking about the where the edge of the universe is while passing around whatever I smoke.