TGIF, The Salt Cellar Lids, the 4 jaw chuck, and National Donut Day!

Hi Everyone,

Well, I have a cold and decided this morning that I can be sick inside or I can be sick in the wood shop-not too hard to figure out which place won!

Well, to carry on from yesterday: I needed to finish the lids for the salt cellars so I grabbed several small pieces of lumber from my scrap pile and began working. First step-drill a hole in the underside of each piece of wood. This whole will serve as the attachment point for the 4 jaw chuck (see below):

This is a cut off from a maple rolling pin project and I'm going to make a lid for the walnut box from this. Her it is with a hole drilled into the underside (hey, this looks like a donut...ok it doesn't look like a donut..):

Here is a photo of a 4 jaw chuck made by the Teknatool company. They make an array of different lathe tools. The jaws on the chuck are removable, with different sized jaws available that will screw onto the face of the chuck.  I use my chuck all the time and it's one of my most used tools over all. I don't know who invented the 4 jaw chuck, but I hope they won the Noble prize for it.

This is a photo of the chuck with the standard jaws. Note that I've removed two of the jaws so you can see how they screw on:

For Mother's Day (I don't want any of that "Let's take you out to brunch" stuff-I want tools!) I got a set of jaws that are designed to hold small diameter turnings and boy was I excited about that! Here is a photo of the small jaws:

Here are the jaws attached to the chuck and a piece of wood with a hole that will fit over the small chuck jaws:

This is a photo of the chuck on the lathe with the piece of maple attached. It's ready to turn:

For small boxes I like to cut a tenon under the lid sized to fit inside the interior of the box. This is a photo the maple with the tenon:

Now for some fun. I'm going to make kind of a fun, fantasy lid for the box:

This is the completed lid:

And this is the lid on the walnut salt cellar:

I spent the next hour or so turning the remaining lids for the cellars and here they all are. The lids are not yet sanded and finished but you can get an idea as to what they will look like:

I'll post more photos when they are done.  These cellars are going to be donated to this year's Blue House sale in December. More on that in the coming months.

Well, it's National Donut Day. Have you had your donut today?

And, I had the bright idea to wash my tennis shoe's earlier this week and they've shrunk! My feet are killing me!!! I'm going to go and get some coffee and take it easy for a while.

I need a small side table next to my lawn chair so I can put my coffee on top of it and some bookcases. I bought some cedar this morning and I'll post photos of myself making the table later on this weekend.

Thanks for dropping by the wood shop and I'll see you later,

VW