Sawdust is your friend :)
Wood Turning
“There's something relaxing about the idea of carving a piece of spinning scrap wood at 2500 rpm.”
So my UNCG Bachelor-of-Fine-Art-Majoring son and I decided to fire up the scroll saw and lathe to make some small pieces of wood-turned art. This was a class assignment for him, so I decided that this would be a great opportunity for him to watch me but also get his hands dirty as well. He was tasked with creating circles and cutting the pine board with my shop scroll saw. After that the rounds were simply sandwiched together with some Elmer's wood glue and allowed to dry overnight.
The next day I slapped on the chuck and grabbed the 1" gouging tool to rough out a cylindrical form. I shouldn't have to mention that anytime you have pieces of wood flying at your face at a high speed, you should be already wearing some sort of face/eye/head protection! There's something relaxing about the idea of carving a piece of spinning scrap wood at 25oo rpm.
After some scrape finishing and sanding I immediately applied some stain and buffing polish to give this meager piece of scrap pine some personality. I stained the outside with some Minwax Ebony wood stain and the inside was done with wood turning polish - basically a clear coat that heats up and fuses the with wood as it is applied with a rag while spinning.
The end result was a smallish bowl that could be used for car keys, pocket change or some old SD cards! At a later date I will add a felt pad underneath the piece so it does not scratch the coffee table. Check out this extremely short highlight video to see the process.
Dumpster Diving for Materials!
Driving by discarded piles of old furniture or wooden boards, crates, palettes, or simply tree stumps can prove to be the object of your next masterpiece!