Prior to the meeting getting started, everyone picked up their tools they purchased from our Tool making day this year. We had another successfull year, even with not having a centralized
location to make our tools. Thanks to everyone who helped out! Ron Williams started off our March 2006 meeting with a demonstration on turning wooden eggs. Ron Eberle brought a bunch of eggs that he turned. Here Ron W. is roughing a 7" long piece of maple between centers. Notice that he is working on turning a morse taper on the end. He will tap this taper into the headstock on the lathe so he can turn the egg without the use of a chuck. Here is his morse taper jig that he uses for sizing the taper to see if it is correct.
With the morse taper turned and tapped into the headstock, Ron begins to shape the egg. Here Ron is using a skew to get a nice clean cut on the egg. Once the general shape of the egg is completed, you can do many things to add detail to the egg. Here Ron is using the point of a skew to add a bead. Brightly colored markers can be used to liven up the egg. Here Ron discusses the types of details that can be added to the egg. Here is a closeup of the egg. A chatter tool can be used on the endgrain portion of the egg
Once you are satisfied with the details you've added, you can remove the tailstock and clean up that end of the egg. Once one end of the egg is completed, start to part off the other end. Don't worry about getting this end perfectly cleaned up. You can make a special "egg chuck" that you hold in your 4 jaw chuck to hold the egg. Just size the PVC pipe so that your egg fits inside, and tighten the hose clamp. Now you can finish off the end of the egg.
Thanks to Ron Williams for the demo, and also to Ron Eberle for showing us his egg chuck. |
