Music Box, continued: the finial turn and lid completion

Hi Everyone,

Well, today I made the finial and finished the box lid. Here are today's photos:

The Finial

Finials are a common thing to see on turned boxes. In addition to acting like a knob to open a box with, they add considerable visual interest to a turned piece. Finials are usually black in color were traditionally made from ebony or blackwood and given the density of those two woods, it's possible to create finials from them that contain extraordinary levels of details. Some finials are really spectacular and I think the music box would benefit from a finial being added to the top.

I've made finials from all sorts of different colors of wood and today I'm going to use Brazilian Cherry for this finial. Given the color of the music box wood, I think the red color of Brazilian cherry will contrast nicely.

Ok, here we go:

This is a photograph of the skew chisel I got. I'm going to use this to shape the turning blank and to cut out the finial with. I love this tool-it's a work of art:

This is the turning blank. It's a 4" long piece of 1"x1" Brazilian cherry left over from a previous project. I've mounted it between centers and I'm using a short 6" tool rest:

 I used the the skew to turn the blank into a cylinder. It took about 30 seconds to do that:

To begin, I narrowed the left hand end of the blank some. This will let me mount it on the Nova chuck:

And here it is ready to go. I'll do the rest of the turn with the blank inserted into the chuck:

Starting from left to right: I've taken the bedan tool and cut the stem of the finial and then I've marked out two small flanges and the top of the finial. It will be a simple oval shape:

 I put down the camera and roughly shaped the flanges and the top. It's still attached between centers on the lathe and will be until almost all of the sanding and turning is complete:

After several more minutes of turning the waste wood on the top of the finial is ready to be removed:

And I placed it back on the lathe and turned off the waste wood:

This is the completed finial and the lid next to one another for comparison. I think the finial is the right size for the lid:

I put the lid back on the lathe and sanded finely and I drilled a hole for the finial stem with a 3/8" forstner bit:

And viola! The finial fits perfectly!

Here is what the whole thing looks like at present:

This completes the lid.

Tomorrow I'll begin hollowing out the bottom of the box.

See you then,
VW