Indian Vase

Fabrickator

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Hello to those of you that followed my fabrication of the Bling Rings in "Member's Projects" section.

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=24853

The purpose of this exercise was to try and incorporate metal art that I created on my machine shop equipment - into wood art that I made with traditional wood working equipment to create a multi-media Indian themed vase. I turned a lot of wood projects some years back that you can see here:
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=20308

But this is the first wood turning project that I've made in 13 years now with the exception of a small base for my Elmer's Fancy motor. The story there is I married my current wife back in 2001 and share the garage with her laundry room and so she wasn't too keen on a bunch of dust and chips everywhere. I used that to my advantage and invested in welding, fabricating and machine shop equipment over the past few years because I convinced her there was no dust. :lmao:

The next problem was that I didn't have enough room for a lathe and mill and so I set-up my mini mill on the bed of the wood lathe, precluding me from being able to use the lathe anyway. When I wanted to make this project, I found that I could move the mini mill out of the way just enough to share the lathe bed space and leave me with some room to turn.

I found that my wood turning skills were a little bit rusty but it came back pretty quickly once the chips started flying. I also remembered what I DON'T like about working with wood, it's always moving and doesn't hold tolerances or concentricity for long.

After starting on this turning, I decided that it would have to be done in an unconventional manner. Instead of gluing up all of the wood and turning it, I had to turn it in 3 pieces to about a 98% finished state and then do the glue-up and finish work. This was primarily for fear of catching the tool and running it across my finished bling rings.

I used Curly Maple for the main body and Bubinga for the end caps. I used black veneer to better define the edges of the rings. I haven't yet decided on the finish, but I'm leaning towards a honey color stain with polyurethane finish, or Tung/Danish Oil which would be about the same color with less sheen.

The pics show where I'm at today, and this week I will do the boring and finish the top flare. After that, I will hollow the vessel using a special, hand-made tool a friend in the Inland Woodturners Club made for our members. I try to maintain about 1/4" wall thickness on most projects but I will stop short if I get too nervous.

Rick

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Very nice, Rick! A wonderful combination of woodworking and metal working.

I hope you will post more photos when you have the final finish done!
 
I finally finished the Indian Vase. I have some pics of it getting several coats of Danish Oil (natural color) over a light wipe of water-based Pecan stain to bring out some of the Curly Maple features. I then have some pics of it wiped off. I haven't done a final, high luster buffing or applied any glossy top coat, but I'm not sure that I will at this point. Sometimes less is better and I don't want it to compete with the embellishment of the metal work.

One of the many challenges with this project was how to keep the bling from getting scratched up and still do a finish sanding in prep for applying a finish. I had keep switching setups and had the vase in and out of the lathe a dozen times between sanding and buffing.

I was able to open up the inside to 1/4"" thick for the bottom 1/3, and then gradually thickens up to the top to about 3/8" thick. The following day I started developing some cracking as it dried internally but nothing a little Superglue couldn't take care of. After sitting in the pre-turned stage for 15 years in a wood storage shed you'd think that it would be thoroughly dry by now.

The Bubinga is a very hard wood -to turn and sand, and it even popped a crack mounting it from the bottom dovetail I cut in it. I has some really pretty flaming, flecking and a deep red color.

This was a very challenging project and it looks great in my curio. I've laid out on paper another 10 Indian theme designs to do something similar in the future if I ever get around it it. But for right now, I got an idea for another unique metal project. :thinking:

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Wow, that's a beautiful piece, lots to look at in that one. very nice.
 
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