Yarn Lazy Susan, Part 2: sanding the parts and working on the rods

 Hi Everyone,

Well it was a hot, humid day so I went out to the woodshop and did some work. I got all the wooden parts sanded smooth and I also beveled the ends of the wooden rods. Here's today's photos:

Here you can just see the parts sanded smooth. This is the ideal scrap wood project as it uses up all the small pieces that wind up getting saved after larger project. The round parts vary diameter, anywhere from 6" to 7 1/2" in diameter and at least 1" thick. Some of the bases are 2" thick. I wanted to use hardwoods as they are denser than soft woods and a little more likely to stay on a table without tipping. For this project I used maple, birch, mahogany, goncalo alves (aka tiger wood), jatoba, and hickory :

 

And here is a shot of the wooden rods. These are all red oak and I beveled the ends on my table sander:

I'll smooth and round the end that the yarn will slip over so as not to cause a snag.

So that's it for today. Tomorrow I'll give everything a coat of polyurethane.

See you then,
VW

Making a Lazy Susan for Yarn-Making the Parts on the Lathe

 Hello Everyone,

Well, I'm finally getting started with some wood turning projects and this is the first one-making a lazy susan-like spinner for knitting yarn.

I enjoy knitting but I don't enjoy having the yarn roll around all over the place. I've made myself a yarn bowl only to watch the yarn roll out of the bowl. I've tried cloth bags, paper bags, a large soup pot (the cats got into that one and had a field day), and a very large old fashion bread dough bowl. And none of them either kept the yarn skein from rolling around or cat hair off of the yarn or dust bunnies from getting all over everything. So after trying out a stationary stand with a wooden rod for the yarn, I've decided to make a lazy susan yarn spinner. 

These are designed to be placed ideally on a side table next to the person doing the knitting, but they could be placed on the floor as well (cat alert here). I've designed these to have a heavy base on the bottom and a smaller round disc on the top. Both the top and bottom have a 1/2" hole in them to accommodate a 1/2" diameter wooden rod. The top and bottom parts will spin on two 2" diameter fender washers, which also have a 1/2" diameter hole. So the whole thing is essentially a metal-wood sandwich.

Let's take a look at some photos:

This first photo shows the two different versions I'm making. The one on the left is has two parts cut out of some scrap lumber with a wooden rod in place. The second one on the right has a lower part made with 2" thick scrap mahogany and a 1" thick birch top. The next two photos are closeups of each spinner: 

I've refined the parts on the lathe to give them a more finished look. But these could be made square or have multiple sides. They do have to be sanded smooth however on the edges and both faces so as not to catch the yarn as it's being unwound. 

Here's some more photos:

The spinner with the thick base was made a little differently than the one in the first photo above:

I turned a 1/2" depression into the thicker bottom piece so as to inset the top into the base. I think this might help to keep the spinner from being too tall or too tippy:

This photo shows the placement of the washers:

I have made enough parts for 9 of these which I'm going to be donating later this year. 

This project is a win-win kind of thing: a non-profit will be getting the proceeds from the sale and I get to turn wood and shrink down my scrap wood pile. 

My next step to to finely sand everything and apply a finish-I think polyurethane will work well for this. Then I'll epoxy the washers to the base and top parts. Lastly I'll sand and fit the wooden rods in place. 

Stay tuned,
VW

The Desk Project

 Hi Everyone,

Well finished the desk project. It was cold here last week so I decided to just go ahead and finish it and here it is:


Well here's Rhubarb the cat who had absolutely nothing to do with this...

And here is the finished table. This wasn't a terribly difficult build. The legs are attached to a simple frame underneath the top at 85 degrees instead of 90 degrees. There are stretchers between the legs to stabilize the structure.  It's built out of pine and it was finished with General Finishes gel stain in prairie wheat. I topped that off with several coats of polyurethane, with sanding between coats. It has a nice smooth finish. 
The total price of materials came to about $120.00. 

Ok, it's still too cold to turn on the equipment so no wood turning this week. I'm occupying myself by making an archery rack for my youngest son. Keep your fingers crossed that spring time finally gets here.

Stay tuned,
VW

Hello and Welcome Back! Project #1 for the Year: Desk Table out of Pine

 Hello Everyone!

Well, it's been a long and very cold 6 months here but the weather is gradually warming so it's time to go back to work.

The first project of the year is a desk for myself. I've gone back to college and I really need a place for books and other stuff. And I haven't owned a desk of my own since high school and that was about 100 years ago. So it's time to build one.

I purchased 6 2x4s yesterday and this morning I went back to the lumber yard and got a glued up pine panel that is 1 1/4" thick for the top. The panel will save me a lot of time edge gluing. 

Here in this first photo you can see the framework parts. They're just butted together on the underside of the panel. I ripped one of the 2x4s down to 2 1/2" wide for the legs as I think that will look a little more refined and less bulky: 

My next steps are to sand all the frame parts, legs, and panel smooth and apply the stain. I've had good luck with General Finishes gel stains and I've used it for several projects and it comes out very well. I'm debating between the Prairie Wheat color on the left and the Nutmeg color on the right. All the parts will be stained and given a preliminary coat of polyurethane  before I assemble the table:

I still have to figure out the length of the stretchers and make those but that will be in a few days. 

I'll save you the agony of a post about sanding.

I'll be back in a couple of days-stay tuned.

VW

The Wedding Present-Completion Photos

 Hello All,

The bowl is finished and I'm happy with the way it turned out. It required quite a bit of finessing and that really helped. That and some patience to let the finish work it's magic. 

Here's the completion photos:

I think our niece and her fiance will like the bowl and find it very useful over what I hope is a long, happy marriage. Congrats to Sarah and Joseph!

Ok, this is the last project for the year. I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday season and a terrific New Year. 

See you next Spring!

VW

The Wedding Present project-Sanded and First Layer of Finish

 Hello All,

Well I got up early today and took the bowl off the lathe and sat down and hand sanded it and I managed to fix most of the problems on the bowl. About mid morning I stopped and went out and ran an errand and when I came back, I put the bowl back on the lathe and did a full 100 to 400 grit sanding. It leveled out the surfaces and eliminated all of the deep scratching and minimized the pitting. I followed up with some hand sanding to a couple of rough spots and smoothed them. Then I cleaned the surface with compressed air and gave it it's first layer of salad bowl finish. Here's the photos:

As it's too cold for this to dry in the shop, I'm going to wait a couple of hours and then bring it inside. It should be dry enough to pick it up by then. 

The first layer will dry and raise the grain a little bit but I'll sand that smooth tomorrow. Then I'll give it several more coats and those will be the finish coats.

I'll post completion photos this weekend.

VW

The Wedding Present-Whew!

 Hi Everyone,

Well, I managed to smooth out some of the ridges in the bowl. Here's the photos:

When last we met, the inside walls of the bowl had a lot of ridges and scratching that I didn't think I could remove by using my turning chisels and I didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to hand sand that flat. Scratching like this can be really difficult to totally remove so I was at my wits end:

So I talked it over with my son Critter the Welder, and he suggested an angle grinder with some sanding disks. I went out and purchased one:

I connected it to the air compressor and sanded away. The sanding disc that came with the grinder is very coarse-maybe 80 grit and it started to really chew up the wood, so it took it off and replaced it with a wider disk that is about 120 grit. It smoothed off the ridges and helped with the scratching. It also smoothed a few high spots in the bottom of the bowl so I think with a proper diameter, finer sanding disk I can probably remove the scratching. You can still see some of this in the photo below:

It's freezing cold this afternoon so I took the bowl off the lathe and brought it outside for some photos:

And I took it inside to compare it with my fruit platter of recent memory:

Overall I'm pleased with the project and plan to finish it. The bowl is a nice size and will hold a lot of fruit.

Ok, I'm going to get some smaller, finer disks for the grinder tomorrow and give this another shot.

Stay tuned,

VW