hi, alan stratton from as wood turns (www.aswoodturns.com)when i was growing up, my mother would frequently serve us hash. we continued that traditionwith our family with our children. what is hash? hash is taking all the leftovers outof the fridge, mixing them up a different way, maybe adding a little bit, somethingnew, and serving it again. reusing your leftovers. now, i’m woodturning and the same thingapplies. i have all these leftover segment
wood branding iron date, rings that i don’t know what to do with.so i’m going to take them out of my fridge and turn them into another meal. this willbe a segmented bowl made out of scrap. it is lopsided, a little bit weird. the new elementthat i’ll add on is a carved base almost out of necessity but i’ll explain that later.but for now, let’s make our woodturned hash.
i’m using a threaded wood faceplate to whichi’ve already added the first segmented ring from my leftover pile. this ring is cherrywith twelve segments. i also added a piece of solid pine before the segment ring. i usedusual yellow glue for both of these pieces of wood. now i’m adding a twenty-four segmentring of oak. i don’t remember which projects these came from. normally, i would not randomlymix rings with different numbers of segments but this is segmented hash after all. forthis and all following rings, i’m using titebond original extend as i believe it givesme a more stable and sandable glue line. for now, i can use weights for clamping pressure.but, that is going to change soon. meanwhile, i glued a walnut cross grain plug into thebottom.
next i’ glue on an eight segment ring fromwalnut. this ring and the remaining rings all are left overs from my crazy droopy segmentedbowl. it already has a slant in the ring. i used one clamp to position it and weightsfor overall clamping pressure. however, the lopsidedness is starting to take its toll– all the weights slide off onto the floor and had to be replaced.now for a trip to the lathe. for now, all i want to do is to trim the outer perimeterto be round. i don’t want to reduce the diameter as i’ll need as much wood as possibleto clamp the next rings. i know that i’m pushing the glue time. it had an hour whichis enough to turn a little under light pressure. however, some of the excess squeeze out isstill fluid and spins out with the centrifugal
force. no worries.the next ring is an 8 segment ring of padauk also on a slant. now the clamping is gettingmore difficult but i managed to get the clamps to apply enough pressure. i thought that afterthe last experience with the crazy droopy segmented bowl that one ring at a time wouldgo easier. true but still messy. next to the lathe to again trim the outerperimeter. one of the challenges for this bowl is starting to show up. since i’m liningup the thin sides of the rings, trimming the perimeter is seeming like a multi-axis turning.there’s a lot of air on the short side of the bowl as it comes around. fortunately,the ghost image gives me a clue as to where the wood is.next an eight segment ring of oak – again
aligning the thin side but still with a littleoffset so that glue joints don’t line up. clamping is getting even more weird.back to the lathe for a trim. this time, there will be a change in ring diameter for thenext ring. it’s really hard for me to visualize the shape and how to optimize the ring placement.so this time, i’ll clean out the inside before it gets too deep. now the challengechanges to be like that of a natural edge bowl since the entry point for my gouge isoscillating forward and back as the wood revolves. the fact that the wood is dry and hard makesit tough going. i don’t go all the way right now, only the minimum to smooth out the inside.since i cannot visualize this project very well, i need all the wood that i can get tobe able to shape the bowl later on.
now to glue on an eight segment ring of walnut.this one is a larger diameter which is why i wanted to keep as much wood as possiblein the previous step. if i thought clamping was tough before, it is even worse now.now to trim up this last ring. originally, i had planned to add several more rings tothis bowl. but, as i started trimming this last ring, i realized that the wood was gettingvery thin and that continuing with more rings would like be more of a problem. even withwhat i had this was becoming very difficult to turn. so i adapted my plan to end withthis ring. with this “adaptation†i continued to shape the bowl, alternating between theinterior and exterior to get a shape that is pleasing. then a whole lot of sanding.i had to sand with the lathe stopped which
is especially difficult for the interior buti’ll spare you the sanding. next i’ll part it off but that’s not the end of myproblems. normally, i’d reverse mount the bowl the address the foot. but with an unevenbowl, that is not an option. so, now for the foot. not possible to usethe lathe unless maybe a vacuum chuck. but i think this bowl is an excellent candidatefor carving the foot. last weekend at the new oregon woodturning symposium, i saw trentbosch do some carving on a vessel. i don’t have all his tools so i’ll make do withwhat i have. i’ll start with a proxxon tool with a cutter. i’ve marked off three linesto indicate the areas i want to leave as feet. for this, three feet are better than foursince it will never rock. gently, i’ve removing
wood between them. this feels a lot like using5 grit sandpaper. next, i’ll switch to a small flap sanderto smooth out the deep gouge cuts and do some more shaping.for the final smoothing, i’ll move over to the drill press. i’ve mounted a smallsanding pad. now starting with 60 grit, i can smooth it more. with 80 grit, the shapeis complete. the rest of the sanding is to eliminate any remaining scratches. to me,the advantages of sanding with the drill press include that i don’t have to hold a heavy,unstable sander and that i am constantly feeling the project, its shape, and smoothness.i’m using a dremel engraver to sign and date the project before going over the engravingwith 400 grit sandpaper to debur the area.
then i’ll dump it into walnut oil for shortbath as a finish. this project adapted as it came together.it combines aspects of off-axis turning, natural edge turning, segmented turning, and carving.i think the three feet make for an interesting and very different base than a traditionalfoot. maybe i’m crazy but this little bowl was fun even when it was scary. maybe i’lldo another batch of segmented hash again. that’s all the fun for now until next weekfor another project. please subscribe to both my website and youtube channel. do yourselfa favor and always wear your face shield – goggles are not enough. until next time, this is alanstratton from as wood turns dot com.
