March 2019 Vol. 2 #3

DAWG News March 2019

Brian demonstrating how to make twisted pieces on a lathe. He is a member of the Smoky Mountain Woodturners, Knoxville, AAW and the East Tennessee Woodturners Guild. He was honored to have some of his work displayed at the Knoxville airport. Brian teaches at Tennessee Technical University’s Appalachian Center for Craft. He wrote an interesting and informative article that appeared in the December, 2017 issue of American Woodturner, pages 40-44. The term, twisted turnings, is more eloquently described as off-axis turning or multi-axis turning. Brian demonstrated the basic concept of off-axis turning with a clear plastic cup and three straws of different colors. The straws were all oriented in a straight line. Turning the lid caused the straws to intersect in the middle of the cup, showing how the ends are marked and placed in the headstock and tailstock. Brian started turning with an old lathe and became interested in multi-axis turning at a class at Arrowmont. Additional time with Barbara Dill, www.barbaradill.com, fueled his budding interest and added knowledge to turn and experiment. He showed pieces turned with segmenting. A pepper mill was passed around for the chapter members. He also does segmented pieces, using bits from the MLCS company, www.mlcswoodworking.com.

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By John Torchick

Brian Horais – Twisted Turning

DAWG News March 2019

DAWG News The demonstration was started by showing a piece of wood turned to round with a tenon on each end. Three points were marked at zero, 60 and 120 degrees at each end on a triangle. Brian keeps a “reminder” on his lathe to keep track of how he performs each operation of turning. This is a spreadsheet with headstock and tailstock each numbered 1, 2 and 3 and 3, 1 and 2, respectively. The off-axis piece is paired with the different numbers on the headstock and tailstock. For instance, 1 on the headstock is paired with 3 on the tailstock. Brian recommended a 5/8-inch four prong drive center in the headstock. The smaller diameter will allow the prongs to engage the wood. A larger drive center will have only one or two prongs engaging the wood, allowing slipping and the piece coming off the lathe. He further said to use a piece of hardwood as soft wood would tear, but the hardwood will engage the drive center. A pencil mark is made by resting a pencil on the tool rest as turning progresses to see the pattern of the cuts. We think of turning wood as taking off wood with each pass of the tool. Brian demonstrated that turning air is part of off-axis turning. The video screen showed this effect. A cup can be turned with the tenon in the chuck and drilled with a Forstner bit. Cuts in the rim are done with an Xacto knife or with a saw blade. The cup is then finished with a microplane. A bowl blank doesn’t have enough height so a sacrificial piece is glued on the ends. His website is www.harais.com has more information, videos, and examples of his work. See the handout on our website. ●

DAWG News March 2019

Bring-Back-Box

Donny Lawson won the Bring-Back-Box and examines the lovely pen and pencil set which was turned by John Torchick, last month’s

winner of the B-B-B. Nice work John!

DAWG News Pictures by Tom Barksdale

The sources of the supplies Allan talked about in his demo can be found at: http://www.daltonareawoodturnersguild.org/Coloring%20Wood%20Supplies.pdf

Remember to patronize our sponsor Woodcraft

DAWG News March 2019

Show & Tell Pictures by Tom Barksdale

Jerry Bowman – Pencil Holders – Maple/Walnut

Charles Jennings – Bowl – Walnut Charles Jennings – Vase – Ash

Charles Jennings – Vase

Charles Jennings – Ring Box - Walnut Charles Jennings – Pen/Pencil Holders –

Maple/Cherry/Walnut/Purpleheart

DAWG News March 2019

Show & Tell Pictures by Tom Barksdale

Charles Jennings – Platter

Charles Jennings – Beads of Courage Boxes – Walnut/Plywood

John Torchick – Slimline Pen –Maple – Black Sharpie Finish

Nancy Torchick – Slimline Pen – Boxelder – Her First Pen!

Wood Talk By Lloyd Speer

Pecan

The Pecan Carya illinoinensis is found in south-central United States and Mexico. It is the largest tree in the Hickory group, and grows to 100-130 feet tall and with a trunk diameter of 2-4 feet. Although the pecan’s natural range is a comparatively small one, limited only to the lower Mississippi River valley, the tree has been extensively planted that it is now common and well known throughout the south. Besides its value as a commercial nut tree, its importance as an attractive shade tree has long been recognized.

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DAWG News March 2019

Wood Talk By Lloyd Speer

Pecan - continued

The leaves are pinnately compound and alternate as in the other species of the genus, though there are more leaflets, usually from nine to seventeen. These are slender and glossy, finely toothed along the margins, very tapering at the tip, and often somewhat sickle-shaped. Pecan falls into the Pecan-Hickory grouping, which tends to be slightly more stable, but weaker than the true-Hickories, and is considered to be a semi-ring-porous wood. The strength characteristics of Pecan are somewhat influenced by the spacing of its growth rings. In general, wood from faster-growing trees with wider-spaced growth rings, tends to be harder, heavier, and stronger than wood from slower-growing trees that have rings which are closer together. In addition to strength and hardness applications, Pecan also has a very high thermal energy content when burned, and is sometimes used as fuelwood for wood stoves. Pecan is also used as charcoal in cooking meat, with the smoke imparting additional flavor to the food. The heartwood tends to be light to medium brown, with a reddish hue, while the sapwood is a paler yellowish brown. The grain is usually straight, though occasionally wavy and texture is medium, with a low natural luster. Pecan is considered to be non-durable to perishable regarding heartwood decay, and also very susceptible to insect attack. It is difficult to work, with tearout being common during machining operations if cutting edges are not kept sharp. The wood tends to blunt cutting edges. It glues, stains, and finishes well and responds well to steam bending. Pecan wood is used for tool handles, ladder rungs, wheel spokes, and flooring. It has slightly lower strength values than some of the other species of Hickory, but it is still among the hardest and strongest of woods native to the United States. The wood is commonly used where strength or shock-resistance is important. Horticulturally, in the past fifty years there has been a great development in improving the pecan nut size and quality. These improved varieties do not reproduce their type from seeds; budding and grafting are used to propagate them, just as with apple and other fruit trees. The nuts, long and pointed at both ends, occur in compact clusters of three to eleven, each nut covered with a thin husk. This husk is usually marked with wing-like projecting ridges, along which it cracks open when ripe. Not only is the kernel of the nut delicious, but it is easiest of all the native nuts to extract. This is our only native nut tree which has been developed commercially. Today, there are many varieties of large, thin-shelled pecans. The average dried weight is 46 lbs/ft3, with a specific gravity (Basic, 12% MC): .60, .74. The Janka hardness is 1,820 lbf (8,100 N). Crushing strength is 7,850 lbf/in2 (54.1 MPa) with a shrinkage of Radial: 4.9%, Tangential: 8.9%, Volumetric: 13.6%, T/R Ratio: 1.8 ● Sources used: Trees of the South by Charlotte Helton Green, https://www.wood-database.com/pecan/

DAWG News March 2019

Turning Pages A book review – Jared Bruckner

Turned Boxes 50 designs Let me begin by telling how I came to choose this book to review this month. I woke up in the early morning hours one night a couple of weeks ago. Normally I go right back to sleep, but I got to thinking about the projects I was working on preparing for the demo I will give at our March meeting. I had chosen the making of a Trinket Box for my topic and had turned a couple in the past day or so. Mary, my wife, had mentioned how there was so little room inside the boxes that I had turned. So, at 4:30 am I was up thinking of how I could provide more space inside the boxes. I got out a pencil and some graph paper and did a few sketches trying to determine a shape that would allow more room inside the box. Within a hour or so I had a full sized sketch of a Trinket Box with a modified shape that would allow more room inside. I was happy, because in that relatively short period of time I had come up with my own design for a Trinket Box. Yes, it was based on the one that I had been copying, but this was my own design. I went back to bed and right to sleep. The next morning, I reviewed the sketch I had made in the night, and thought of this book with the 50 box designs. I wanted to see if perchance my design was one of the 50, or maybe there would be something that would help me improve my design. In paging through the designs one by one, the 31st design caught my eye, or was it the title given to the 31st design – Trinket Box. The bottom part of this design was similar to my design, but the top was different, in particular the finial was way different. Both boxed use three different woods with contrasting colors. In addition to the finial being different, the box in the book lacked the continuous flowing curves of the boxes I had been making and the new one that I had designed. And that was how I happened to choose this book to review here. The book is broken into three parts. Part one (45 pages) begins with a brief history of turned boxes, follow by a description of the author’s woodturning life. There is the mandatory section on safety, a section on tools and machinery, and a lengthy section on wood, which isn’t all that interesting as most of the timbers are European. There are sections on deciding what to make, where to get inspiration, decorating, finishing, displaying and common faults. Overall, I would rate this part of the book as a B+, some very good sections and some sections of little interest. Part 2 (104 pages) is the interesting part. Each of the boxes is given two pages, the first with a picture and text describing how the box was turned, the second page is devoted to drawings with detailed dimensions and in most cases a full side drawing of the box. For most of the boxes some variations are described in text or drawings. The boxes get more difficult as the number gets higher, but only a few of the boxes would require expert turning skill. For two boxes, #1 and #8 two pages of pictures with descriptions illustrate how to turn the box. Part 3 (19 pages) is a gallery of turned boxes by several well know turners.

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DAWG News March 2019

Turning Pages A book review – Jared Bruckner

Turned Boxes 50 designs – continued

One thing I noticed was how most of the boxes were small. Fifteen boxes were 2 inches or under in diameter and ten more were less than 2.5 inches in diameter. There were sixteen boxes between 2.5 and 3 inches in diameter, six boxes between 3 and 4 inches in diameter, and only 3 over 4 inches in diameter. Overall I would rate this book a A-. It has lots of great ideas, good pictures, and excellent descriptions. The only distraction is the space given to European timber. ● Stott, C. (2002). Turned boxes: 50 designs. Lewes, East Sussex: Guild of Master Craftsman Publications. ISBN 1-86108-203-7 $19.58 at Amazon Prime.