Music box continued and we're getting more snow...sigh...

Hi Everyone,

I've decided to do an hour's worth of wood turning everyday regardless of how cold it is. I'm getting cabin fever and the only remedy for that is time in the wood shop. Period. End of discussion.

Here is my hour's worth for the day:

I was thinking about the music box and what the next several steps should be and I decided it might be a good idea to cut the exterior of the box. Doing this will help establish the thickness of the walls of the box. I don't want them too thick or the wood might muffle the sound of the music box mechanism. Too thin and the box might crack or break if dropped.  So I decided to shape the bottom edge and exterior sides of the box. Here are the photos:

I've decided to go ahead concave the sides of the box. Since it's a rather wide, squatty looking thing, I think pushing the sides in will alleviate that appearance somewhat. To keep the box firmly in the chuck jaws, I've decided to turn it between centers and I've moved up the tailstock to do just that:

I'm going to cut away that extra unneeded wood on the left side of the groove in the body of the box. I've also marked the center of the exterior so the concave surface will be symmetrical:

And here is the box about a minute later. Next I'm going to turn the bottom edge under. I used the long edge of my skew chisel for that:

And here it the bottom edge. Using the skew leaves the surface of the wood very smooth and I have great cutting control with the long edge of the skew pointing down towards the wood:

In this photo you see how the surface is starting to curve inwards. Whenever I turn a concave surface, or a convex one for that matter, I like to keep an eye on the horizon of the piece while I'm actively turning. I can see the shape appear instantly that way and I can get the entire surface symmetrical by doing it. This is one of the few examples when I'm not looking directly at the cutting surface of the chisel:

Here is  the shape thus far. It's not quite symmetrical at this point but I can even that out with a little light sanding. Ordinarily I would cut the shape out completely but since this wood is so soft, I can easily accomplish the finish shaping with some sandpaper and a few minutes of sanding:

Here is the box spinning on the lathe:

And here is the finished surface:

I decided while I was doing this to cut the tenon down about 1/4" and to widen the lip that the lid will sit on:

And here is the box-I've rotated the photograph to get a better idea of what it looks like standing upright:

My next step will be to hollow out the box another 1 ' 1 1/2". More on that tomorrow.

Well, it's snowing and it's time to go in and do the laundry. I'm beginning to recovery from my cabin fever.

More tomorrow,

VW