IPE box
john lucas
I turned this Tuesday morning. It was a piece of wood about 6x 12 that had cracks everywhere. I almost threw it away many times but kept it around to show people what kind of wood not to bring to club meetings to give away. All the cracks were highlighted by my friend John K Jordan. Looked pretty useless but I needed some wood to play with hand chasing and thought there might be a 1 or 2" square piece that I could get out of it. I sliced it about a third of the way from the top and it appeared to be pretty solid inside. I can another slice off and then cut 1/2" off all 4 sides. Appeared to be pretty solid so I did some hand chasing. chased threads OK without too much chip out. Any way I decided to make a box a lid out of the rest. The checks went about an inch or so into each end so I made my tenons for the chuck on that end. Turned the box and then the lid. I hollowed the box with 3 Hunter carbide tools. I've included a photo. There is no sanding inside at all. Wish there was a better way to photograph the inside but you have to cut it in half to do that. I threaded the box using the Baxter threader. In the photo it looks like the lid doesn't fit correctly but it joins the base perfectly in real life.
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