Turning a Wooden Pet Urn

Hello All,

During this latest long lay off, I had a request from a friend: a cat that she owned for a long time had died and could I make her an urn for it's ashes? Absolutely yes. Here is the discussion and plans:

This project presented me with two challenges: my lathe and it's history of not working or only working for several minutes at a time and then stopping. Those of you who have followed along for a long time will remember the issues I had with the on/off switch and not being able to find another one. I finally found a switch that would work but the plastic housing the covers this switch was too small. My husband made a wooden housing and that fits over the switch quite nicely but the electrical issues still remain. I have found that if I turn below 400 rpm, the lathe seems to work and that's what I've been doing this morning. I'm keeping my fingers crossed until I can purchase a new lathe later this summer.
The other problem is wood. Owing to the shelter-in-place order here I haven't been able to purchase dry wood in person and I've run out of lumber. Fortunately I have some sections of a maple tree that fell down in a storm a few years back that I was saving for bowls and the smallest section should work well for this project. I would have prefered a different colored wood but we'll have to go with this.

Plans
Turn a pet urn, that can be re-opened in the future, out of a maple tree branch and that has approximately a volumn that equals 2 cups. Here's the photos:

Photos

Here's the block. It's hard maple and I like to remove the bark on tree branches or trunks manually rather than take it off on the lathe. Bark collects a lot of grit, silica, nails, and other stuff that can be hard on turning chisels so off it comes with a hammer and chisel:

Here's the block without the bark. You can see the top of the block is diagonal. I'll be turning that off as I true up the block:

To reduce the weight and irregularity, which I worry could affect the ability of the lathe to turn properly, I'm removing the outer sap wood layer with a mallet and a hand axe. This only takes a minute to do:

And here it is between centers on the lathe. I've marked off the bottom and top of the urn with a parting tool. There is also a deep crack on the side that extends about 1" into the block. I'll have to see if I can turn that away in the course of roughing out. If not, this is going to be a short project as the urn must be solid:

Still turning. The crack is still visible:

Here I've removed more wood and the crack is getting smaller. The heart wood (rt side of the block) is beginning to show up:

Ahh, the crack is smaller still-I'm beginning to feel hopeful:

And wood shavings! I haven't seen that in a loooonnngggg time!

I've taken a break for lunch. Afterwards I'll continue turning and shaping the urn.

Stay tuned,
VW