Leon's Tea Box-Part 4: Applying the Finish

Hi Everyone,

Well, I'm feeling more rested than I did last night so it's time to bring this project to a conclusion.

Finishing

I think that choice of finishes should first of all be based on the eventual use of the item. As I make primarily kitchen ware, finishes have to be durable and food safe. I used to use a lot of oil and beeswax which is pretty and easy to apply but it washes off easily and doesn't protect the item particularly well. So I've stopped using that type of finish. I have begun using more salad bowl varnishes, which are food safe after they have cured. This is durable and protects the item. A good way to go.

As this project will be used for holding loose tea and not for making or serving food, durability is not quite as critical a factor. So my second criteria for a finish is appearance. I want something that will enhance the color and grain patterns in the wood. My third and last criteria revolves around the hardness of the wood. Soft woods like evergreens-pines, douglas fir, poplar, and silky oak in our case-really don't do well with oils. The wood is soft and it tends to absorb oil and soften the surface. This makes it look muddied. In this case we need a finish that sits on top of the wood and adheres well to it.

So my selection for this is lacquer. It has a number of good qualities-it can really make the color and grain in wood pop. It is also very easy to apply as it comes in a spray can (there are brush on lacquers you can purchase if you prefer this). It dries rapidly so multiple layers can be applied in a short period of time. And it polishes beautifully. So lacquer it is.

Here we go:

First I took the tea box and put all of the parts back on the lathe for a final sanding with 400 grit paper:

And then I got out the secret weapon: old, soft, nylon scrub pads. The kind you wash dishes with. This will clean off any fuzziness on the surface of the wood without damaging it or cutting into it like sandpaper:

And then I began spraying the ends of the box parts. The wood here is the end grain and end grain soaks up finishes like a sponge. These areas will need at least 2-3 coats of lacquer:

I'm going to let these harden for about an hour and then go down and spray the sides of the box parts several times and then let them dry for several more hours. Late this afternoon, I'll put everything back on the lathe one last time and turn it on as fast as is safe and polish the the surfaces with the nylon pads and polish them with a hard wax. I use parrafin for this last step.

Come back later today and I'll post the finish photographs.

VW

Leon's Tea Box Part 3-Creation of the inner lid and completion

Hi Again,

Well, the wood fairies must be smiling today because absolutely nothing has gone wrong with this project. So let's sail on and complete this turn.

Here is the box portion remounted on the lathe. This box will have an inner lid so it needs a lip created inside of the box for the inner lid to sit on and you can see it just inside the box. And this is another critical area: there needs to be just enough wood for the lid to sit on and the inner sides of the rim have to be parallel with the outside of the rim. Other wise the lid won't fit properly or it will fall into the box:

Ok, we're on the home stretch. I've taken the blank for the inner lid and mounted it on the lathe. It's going to need to have the face trued up and the diameter of the lid shaped to match the inside of the box exactly:

This photo was taken several minutes later. It fits perfectly:

Now I needed to hollow out the underside of the lid so I can re-mount it on the lathe and that's what I've done in this photo. In the photograph you can see 4 concentric circles. Those circles represent the women in Leon's life: his wife and his three daughters:

I've turned over the lid and now I'm ready to shape the top of it. It took about 30 minutes of careful turning to get the lid to fit properly underneath the outer lid:

And here are the results. This is the completed, assembled tea box:

This is the box with the outer lid off and the inner lid in place:

And here it is completely disassembled. You can see the inner lid in the left lower corner of the photograph:

And this turn is completed.

I'm really tired and so I'm going to put the finish on it tomorrow and I'll send photos and discussion of this part of the project tomorrow.

Well, my back is killing me and I've been clobbered by mosquitoes so I'm going to go and have some chocolate milk and sit down with the cats.

See you tomorrow.

VW

Leon's Tea Box Part 2: Completion of the outer lid

Hi Everyone,

Ok, I'm back.

Here is the box with the lid on the lathe. I'm getting ready to finish the top of the lid:

Now I've taken away the tailstock and I'm going to turn the top. I have the beginning of a knob on the top. This is an important step as the box doesn't have a lot of detail so the lid is the only area that will have some detail to it. I wanted to give the box a Japanese-like formality so there isn't a lot of detail. Instead the box will stand on it's shape, the shape of the lid, and the figure in the wood itself:

Here is the lid several minutes later:

And here is the completed lid. It has been sanded and smoothed and it's ready for a finish:

These next two photos show the lid by itself:

The tea box is about 3/4 finished at this point.

Let's go to the next posting and you'll see how it came out.

VW

Leon's Tea Box-Part 1: Turning the outer lid and the sides of the box

Hi Everyone,

I was in the shop this afternoon looking at the silky oak pieces that have been drying in preparation for the tea box I am planning to make for my cousin's husband Leon, and I decided that the wood was dry and stable and so it was time to begin the turn.

Here are the photos and discussion for the outer lid:

Here are the basic pieces of wood for the box. They consist of the box, an inner lid, and an outer lid. I've been nervously drying this out in the shop as this is a critical step. The box parts are going to have to fit precisely so if there is the slightest bit of moisture still left in the wood and it dries out after I've shaped the pieces, the parts won't fit and I won't be able to put them back on the lathe for adjustment.

I've been drying these pieces in the shop for weeks now and they feel light enough and they haven't distorted so I think now is the time to go:

This is the outer lid in it's rough cut state:

 Here is the lid on the lathe. I'm going to hollow out the underside of the lid and true up the face of the blank:

Here is the blank after the face has been flattened. Time to hollow it out. The pencil lines indicate the thickness of the walls of the lid, which is 7mm thick:

Hollowing only took a few minutes as this wood is soft and the blank itself is small in diameter. One thing that was important was the rim of the lid. The inside walls of the lid have to be parallel with the outside walls so it will fit properly over the box. After I finished hollowing it out, I sanded it with a sanding mop. These are nifty gadgets that enable you to sand an irregular surface:

This is the finished underside of the lid:

Next, I took the lid off the lathe and attached the box and got it ready to turn. The pencil lines on the side of the box and the first line on the edge denote where I am going to remove wood so that the outer lid will fit flush with the box portion of the tea box:

In this photo you can see how the rim is being created. This is another critical step as the lid has to fit very snuggly so I can use the box to turn the top and sides of the outer lid (you'll see what I mean shortly):

And here is the finished box:

Now I've fitted the top on the box. They fit very tightly for this next step which it the  shaping of the sides and the top of the lid:

Here I've placed the box and lid between centers for turning:

And here are the sides of the box. You can see they match up:

 And here is a photo of the outer box having been shaped, and sanded. It's ready for a finish, which we'll do later:

I'm unable to add more photographs to this posting so I'll end this and start another and show you how the turn was finished.

VW

Dressing a Grinding Wheel

Hi Everyone,

Ok, let's see a show of hands-how many of you have ever dressed a grinding wheel? Not many?

Here's how's it's done or at least this is how I did it:

I use my grinding wheel as much as I use my lathe, or in other words, constantly. And the grinding surface had developed some deep grooves in it and it needed to be flattened out.

So I bought a wheel dresser:

It kind of looks like an old-fashioned safety razor and is just about the same size. The head of the dresser is embedded with industrial diamonds and it's the diamonds that grind away at the surface of the wheel and flatten it.

The process is fairly simple-you turn on the grinder and firmly push the surface of the dresser into the wheel as it spins and then gently move it back and forth until the surface of the wheel is flat and square to the sides:

Viola! You're done!

Now, I was so jazzed about the grinding wheel thing that I decided to begin working on Leon's tea box which I'll do over the next several postings as it was a long, nerve wracking process.

See you in the post,
VW

Turning a Rutabaga on a Lathe-Discussion and Photos

Ok World,

You've seen it here first: how to turn a rutabaga on a lathe.

Discussion

My husband has been wanting to try unusual vegetables that we ordinarily don't eat. We had some beets the other day (which I baked and turned into a salad) and while I was grocery shopping yesterday I picked up a rutabaga:

These are big, heavy root vegetables that come sealed in wax. Hmm...this looks like a meteor from outer space. Anyway, it needs to be peeled before cooking. As my hands are still hurting from the spoon I carved last week, I decided rather than trying to peel it, I would put it on the lathe and turn off the waxy outer coating and peel.

So I put it between centers, started the lathe up and off we went:

Here we are about 5 seconds into the turning. The outer covering is coming off nicely:

Here's a photo of the turning waste:

And here is a photo of the whole thing. Total turning time: 30 seconds:

I'm going to chop it in chunks, coat it with olive oil and sprinkle some salt and pepper on it and bake it for about an hour. I'll let you know how it works out.

Another triumph for Selkie Wood Works!

VW

Next Projects

Hi Everyone,
Well, I've cleaned out my shop and I've installed some new dust collection stuff and I've even taken my Nova chuck apart and cleaned it so it's time for more projects"

Holly's Bowl,
I think this bowl has finally settled down so I'm going to finish it later this week.

My kitchen table,
Yes, we're going to work on something that isn't round! I'm going to re-do my kitchen table and you can watch this on the blog.  Keep your fingers crossed that this works ok.

And, my birthday present to myself came:

Yes, I know, it's a big block of wood. But what else would I want for a present? This is a large block of coffee wood and I'll turn it into a fruit platter.

So grab a cup of coffee and drop by the wood shop-summer is just getting started!

More later,

VW