Pin Wheels or a new take on the 3D Multi Generation Diamond Lamination Design

Pin Wheels
or

a new take on the 3D Multi Generation Diamond Lamination Design

For some time now I have wanted to try this design. This ‘pin wheel’ is simple and lots of fun with one exception (a very dangerous miter cut of 67.5 degrees) which we will get into later. It is a spinoff of the Multi Generational Diamond Lamination technique demonstrated in my last post. All the basics laid out there are essential. Please do not take this post independently. Use the previous one and graduate up. As with the other it is simple but not easy. Be willing to get it wrong a couple of times before you take it to your critics.
With that in mind let’s get started…..

Oop’s, almost forgot, as with many of these projects, variations yield a wide variety of patterns and designs that are surprising and delightful to explore. As it happens, I had left over from another project some previously laminated material. A 1 by 1 Brazilian Walnut laminated with a 1/8th Brazilian Cherry and its opposite. Going into this project using these materials I felt might be a fun exploration.

You be the judge.
So let’s get back to it.
The most important aspect of this technique is without a doubt the jig. With this design you need the ability to cut at 67.5 degrees. This cut is very dangerous. Most miters go to 45 maybe 50 degrees but you need the full 67.5 to make this work and it needs to be accurate. (Also pay special attention to the vertical 90 degree angle of the blade to the bed of the saw or you will be making a shallow bowl). I feel the table saw is your best bet.
Here you can see my jig. You will have to come up with your own but be aware you will need stops on the front and rear to keep the jig from moving too far into the blade. Also keep in mind your fingers are very close to the blade so spend the time to make a jig that protects them, slides even and true. Also, be sure and stop the blade from moving before you move the material forward to load up for another cut. Nothing can move, not the material that is loaded or your cut-off. Make sure everything is clamped down tight, and be sure and count your fingers before you start and write down the number. If the number is different when you are finished you may have to go upstairs and tell your wife she was right. Humor aside, there is nothing more confidence building than the proper jig which gets you and your fingers away from the blade.
This is the goal. Nice clean half diamonds made by flipping the material for each cut.
Now we feel more comfortable and will move into the more expensive material. Notice the jig holds everything in place, even the cut-off, and uses an oak stop block so each cut-off is uniform in length. When making this jig be sure and use 3/4 inch ply for a base. I have had problems with less than that taking my material out of square simply by the force of the hold down clamps. Substitute more clamps for less pressure on them to avoid this.
When I do my wood working lectures one of the most liberating aspects I talk about is safety. A little bit of safety goes a long way toward enjoying and having fun in your shop. The opposite is also true. If you are unsettled or unsure of your new jig or equipment – Do not use it. Just stop. Take the time to increase your confidence level by getting a friend involved or taking a course through your local wood working store. Do whatever it takes to turn this liability into an asset. Remember this is supposed to be fun, so if it isn’t, stop, reevaluate and get the help you need. You can always send me an email and I can help point you in a direction.
Here is the pinwheel pattern proper.
Here it is forming diamonds. For me, the previous post on MGDL diamond technique is safer and easier, but this one affords you the possibility of including vertical runs of laminate within the diamond. Also notice how the grain orientation is better with this 67.5 degree cut, running fully with the length of the triangle.
The different orientations and designs with these ‘half diamonds’ are also fun. I have fun with all these shapes before I commit myself to a particular look and bring out the glue bottle.
Here is another look you can get by simply sliding everything to the left or right. When I was making many backgammon boards I had lots of leftover elongated triangles so I glued them up. The more pressure I put on them the worse it got until I had glue on me the dog and a 2 foot diameter mess that sloped to the left horribly. So I let it harden up only to find one of the most curious and wonderful pieces I have ever produced. I turned it into a clock whose hands turn clockwise but the wood oriented counter-clockwise. Believe it or not the more I stare at it the more my hair grows back.  Do not be afraid of making mistakes as they sometimes are the gateway to unique and wonderful creations and ideas.
Still working on ideas and patterns before glue up.
Look at these last two pictures closely and see if you can pick out the subtle differences in design.
Now we are ready to get the glue out.
When it comes to clamping these, less is always more. If you do not have a tight fit do not force it. Stress in wood is a lot like stress in people, it will find its expression like water flowing through the path of least resistance. Work on better joinery rather than forcing a bad fit. Forced fits, generally speaking, crack within the first year or so. I use a lot of rubber bands. You should not need more than that. If you do, try hose clamps, they work great. Graingers sells them in the 16 in diameter but lots of smaller ones put together also work, in some applications even better because you have multiple tightening positions around your circle rather than just one.
You will be putting together the stars in one glue up so be careful not to damage the points with your clamping. One way to protect the fine corners of the diamonds is by using caul blocks cut from scrap to distribute the clamping forces to the broad faces of the diamonds rather than the sharp points (see picture below). Also using rubber bands as clamps gives you a bumper so to speak if you choose to use other clamps. Whatever you choose be sure and keep them nice and ‘pointy’.
 Then try a dry fit.
After the star we begin to add on the walnut triangles. The great thing about this project is the design possibilities are endless. You could use squares or 2 separate colors of triangles in both a horizontal or vertical orientation as you build out around your central pinwheel design.
It is important to remember you are adding as you go. If you let glue dry in the trough of the diamond it will act as an obstacle to your next fit-up. I use a tooth brush as you see here to remove any wet glue so that when it dries I have a nice fit for my next piece.
Rubber  bands act as clamps for the accenting black locust triangles.
Cherry triangles on top of the walnut  ones.
A close up of the pin wheel project.
So there you have it, another fun, fun, fun 3D-ish design that has many different applications. Weather a lazy Susan, cutting board, trivet, hot pad or wall decoration, it will get you lots of Oooohs and Ahhhhs through the years.
Yours in wet glue,
Steve

Trapezoide becomes a Triangle becomes a cutting board

3D Triangles
Here is another design on the right, with many of the same characteristics in the tumbling block design. I call this design the tumbling triangle design although I am sure it has many names. Since many of the techniques are similar I will spare you a lot to the comontary and try to move through the project with more pictures and less chit chat.

Rather than a diamond here we are looking for the off angled, 4 sided shape above. Although we use the same angles as in the diamond here we assign the length of the enterior side of the shapes length to the same (exactly the same) as the cross cut of the shapes width after the miter cut has been made.

If done correctly the above traiangles can be glued in place with the help of rubber bands. Remember to clean off any excess glue from the exterior of the triangle so the next one will fit snugly along its side after the glue has dried.
Notice there are two rows. These rows may look the same but believe me they are not. To make the final product you will need equal amount of triangles both your first one and then its opposite. These are like gloves. They are identical except they are opposite or face one another. Experiment with your shapes and you will get it.
Each piece gets glued to its opposite.
here is my glue up. Very messy. Augh !!!!
But the result on the right are well worth it and is completely unique.
I assure you that none of your wifes friends or their friends friends have anything remotely like this in their kitchens.
Enjoy

3D Patterns in wood working

3D Patterns in wood working

Hey there fans.
For some time I have been experimenting with designs in wood art. Some of them make it to my grandfathers lathe and some are used in a flat design, (cutting boards, lazy susan’s etc.) The 3D concept is a fun project and although it has particular challenges, they can be overcome with practice and determination (not to mention a lot of wrongly cut pieces in the scrap bin).
So without any further ado, lets get started.
Lets start with the tumbling block design.
As you can see this design is made up of diamonds. These diamonds take some time and lots of scrap to get just right. You will need a very accurate mitre box or cutting tool to get these just so. Proceed only after you have a very tight uniform result or you will be chasing gaps and spacing in the glue up and never get a good result. Start with pine before you get into the expensive stuff. Here you see I have chosen ash, brazilian walnut and brazilian cherry. Go for an equal contrast, ie: pick types of wood of equal denisity and hardness and more important for the 3D, equal distances of diversity in color. Two colors that are similar will highlight the third and diminish the depth of the 3D’ish,ness ??? (is that a word) of the work.
Back to the cutting, each piece must be uniform in length and length of cut. What does that mean? Well, they need to be equal length across the cut and the running grain. All 4 sides must be equal for this to work. The width of your material will form 2 sides. Likewise the length of your saw cuts will form the other 2 and must be equal to the first two. This takes some practice and a couple of custom jigs to get just right. The coolness in the character of the 3D design is enhanced by the smaller diamonds but the smaller are much more difficult to get right. A smaller diamond tumbling block design is a real eye catcher every time but start with the larger on your first try for simplicity sake.
I start the gluing with 3 diamonds and a hexagon. If I use any clamping (which I usaly do not) it may be a rubber band. Holding them in place for 10 seconds is more than enough though without any assistance or clamps, then just set them aside to dry. If your cuts are right you need not force a better fit with clamps.
In all wood working you can not and should not make up for bad jointery with clamps. This will internalize stress within the piece which will some day find its way to the surface and express itself. Besides, wood has enough issues all on its own (moisture content, grain stress etc.) without us adding to the mix.

 Here we are combining the hexagons into groups of 3.  When you do it this way it is essential that you clean all the glue off the exposed or unused (exterior) sides or this glue will keep your next glue up from going well. I use my wife’s tooth brush, please don’t tell her.

Coming along fine
The problem with these 3D designs is always jointery and glue up. You are essentially gluing up hundred of joints simultantously verses multigenerational work in which the sections of multiple pieces are joined, a much easier thing to do. Jigs help but honestly it is a mess. Don’t spare on the glue, get it everywhere. Here is my glue up jig being used to hold for the belt sander. I do run these through the planer also but only for uniformity and only a 32nd or 64th off in any one pass.
Here is a hint on glue up jigs you will love. There is a material that is used to paint the ends of lumber to keep it from drying too quickly and also used to cover exotic woods so their moisture content does not change. You know the stuff right, essentially a liqud wax which hardens into a coating. This stuff is not hard to get and is sold by the gallon. I coat all my jigs with it, especalay my glue up jigs. I use it on my some of my tools also. Brush it on and wait 24 hours and nothing will stick to your jigs. It is God’s gift to those of us who love glue.

 ere is a close up of this piece which is a cutting board.

And here is the final product with edges of a 45 degree. With this design rounded edges do not seem to compliment the work. Now we finish sand up to 400 grit and apply finishing oils that are food friendly

Another cutting board pattern



I had so much fun with this cutting board thing that I decided to try another project. This time I used 3 types of wood and combined them in pairs. One vessel (weed pot design, 12 inch height , 7 inch diameter) of mahogany and poplar, one of poplar and birch and the third of birch and mahogany. I used ebony bases and tops. We will use pic’s to show the process since we have been here before.

Here I have taken the bottom and inserted a plug in order to sign and date. The ebony will not show any detail so this is important. It is always important that you sign and date your work. Your grandchildren will thank you for it.

Here is the result


Enjoy
Steve

Cutting board to a bowl or vase technique

Making a bowl or vase from a cutting board technique

Here is a fun project that is similar in many ways to the cookie method only easier and simpler. This particular method has a very high ‘ou aha’ factor with not any real high degree of difficulty and really looks great. Also it has may variations and twists and turns to keep your work original and dynamic.

It difers from the cookie method in that it is simpler. You do not need to angle your rings to make one bowl from one cookie, rather you can make lots of material and create and harvest as many rings as you wish to get the forms and shapes you want.

The down side of this method is end grain. Yes, unfortunately you will be turning end grain with this process, but there are some woods that lend themselves to this better than others so pick your material with that in mind.

The making of the cutting boards is basic so in a picture here is the process.

Cut lots of material same width and length

Glue it up and make a cutting board, or many of them. They will become your material.

Mark them up with the sizes of your rings making sure to leave enough room for the blade width.

Mount your rings to a backing board of MDF attached to a face plate. The backing board will help reduce the blow out when your tool goes through the back side of the material.

to insure accuracy Make sure your potential wall thickness is adequate.

Get funky with the alignment of the stacking and glue it up in two’s and then on the lathe


Simple, easy to work with and no math, my kind of project.
Enjoy, Steve

If you give a turner a cookie…..




Making a bowl from a cookie

If you give a moose or a mouse a cookie or a muffin he may just want to turn it into a bowl. It has been too long since my last posting but I promise to make this one worth your while. If you like the salad bowls below and have only scrap wood around you, this is the perfect project. It takes a while but it is tons of fun and will push your skills. This can be done with a single board (which I recommend for practice) but segmentation allows you to avoid end grain turning and gives you and endless number of combinations in color pattern and style (which is where most of the creative fun is).

So if you like these Cheery and Walnut bowls, lets get started.

Things you will need:

Screw clamps (can be ordered at Grangers, pack of 10 for cheep)

Different colored material in uniform width and depth (length is not important but that you have enough is).

A very thick pasty glue, not a thinner extended set up time glue.

Varying sizes of hole saws (not absolutely necessary but speeds things up).

Must have a face mask, full shield, absolutely.

Large jaw chuck 4 to 6 inch

Face plates for each cookie

OK, so let’s get started

The shape is somewhat pre-determined on this project. You are making salad bowls and the angle of the bowl height is predetermined as you will see later. What you can determine is the pattern and look of possible bowls. You do this by deciding what pattern to make the cookies. The objective is to make cookies out of segmented pieces of wood that then will be used in combination to make bowls. So we begin with making cookies like those below.

Remember you have 360 degrees to work with so count with care. See in the pic my cut list on the vertical board. For example one cookie may consist of 9 slices of 10 degree pie and 9 slices of 30 degree pie as the one closest to you in the pic above. The 10 degree pieces are made up of 2 five degree cuts to get the 10 degrees and likewise 2 fifteen degree cuts to get the 30 degrees. So 9X10 is 90 plus 9X30 is 270 gives you the 360 needed to make the circle. I have used many combinations of degrees to get my 360 including non uniform random patterns (applying the fibinachy sequence here can be fun for all you math heads). The cookie on the far right is of scrap. Always make an extra one of scrap to take to the next step first. Better to practice on it first. If it makes it all the way through the process you can give it to your mother in law, she will love you for it.

Making a 360 perfect is always problematic if not completely unattainable. All I can say is make your miter cuts as accurate as possible weather you use chop saw or table saw. Keep this in mind, the tighter and cleaner your joins the less wood will be flying around the room when you turn (full face shield is a must). Also remember that excessive clamping will not make up for bad joinery, just because you squeeze does not mean they are tight. One way to insure this is to do the half ring program. Make your cookies a half ring at a time so that the slop (the less than 180 or the more than 180) end up in the middle with a nail or round dowel rod to pivot on. Then sand or cut off to a proper 180 middle, then glue up the half’s into a whole. I use this a lot when the pattern will allow. As you can see from the above some of these patterns would not because the number of degrees did not allow for 180 (in other words, there is no middle point that cuts the cookie in half). Also when you trim the middle you lose conformity with the other cookies you might not trim in the exact same way. This will bite you in the ass later when you swap out some cookie rings for other cookies rings but more on that later. For now just know that the more they are similar with each segment uniform not only to the other segments in the cookie but each cookie similar to the other cookies, the more they will look like you actually knew what you were doing when you made them (which is nice but not required, remember you can always go the random route which hides a multitude of sin).

The next step is mounting the cookies to the lathe. Actually simple and straight forward first we mount a block of MDF to a face plate (honestly the MDF never leaves my face plates. I glue more on as I use it and turn it off) and then mount the face plate to the cookie. This allows us to get it on the lathe to clean up the other side of the cookie and mount the bowl bottom which will double as the mounting block for our chuck and triple as the center of the hub of the interior of the bowl and provide a forth benefit of keeping the bowl bottom from shifting around in time by being glued to 5 to 6 inches of stable material.

Above are the cookies being readied with the walnut bottoms on hand prepared with a hole saw.We mount these face plates to prepare the other side on the lathe to except the walnut bottoms. It is vital that the entire surface be scraped and sanded flat. Use a straight edge to help. I use the sanding block made of Formica counter top. This is your only chance to make the bottoms of the rings you will harvest later flat. If they are not flat they will not sit properly on one another later in the process.

Now we are ready to mount the bottom by first cutting a uniform hole to accept our tendon which we will make in a portion of the walnut bottom. The uniform hole can be done with a hole saw as shown.

Now we are ready to make our walnut bottoms with its tendon

As the pic says, I hope you are wearing eye protection. Using a hole saw I start the process and make a tendon that fits the hole in the cookie precisely. Remember that any slop in this fit will be very evident and visible in the bottom of the bowl.

Now we are ready to mount to the cookie and cut away the MDF and face plate

Removing the face plate we can then prepare what will be the interior of the bowl by scraping and sanding perfectly flat and smooth the face plate side of the cookie. Again much care needs to be taken to make sure it is flat or it will show up when you try to put another ring on top of it.

The above is the goal, to have the bottom used as a mounting block for the chuck so that we can begin harvesting rings by parting them from the interior of the bowl.

Here we have a cookie, mounted in the chuck, the tendon of the bottom seen in the center of the cookie. Looks like a nice fit. Now the parting tool. Lots of parting with this project. Here is where the face shield is an absolute. You can not know if every joint is tight, so wear it. The idea here is to harvest rings that will fit on top of each other because they are cut on the bias or angle. Set a 45 degree angle on the tool rest to make sure your cut is consistent. Less than 45 and you will get into trouble with wall thickness. Allow yourself at least half an inch or more in the distance between rings, which will be your wall thickness before you turn. You will need all the room you can get to fudge the patterns to make them look good and consistent in the final product so thickness now will pay off later, but not to thick or you will be making a plate not a bowl, right?

A quick word about parting. Wear your face shield. I use at lease two parting tools. One used for cutting the other in water cooling. This process generates a lot of heat. Don’t let your tools over heat, also keep them sharp. The sharper your tools are the less you will have a problem with heat. Watch constantly for bad joints and pieces that want to spin off (bad joints can be treated with super glue on the spot). Most of the time bad joins will reveal themselves more through the sound of the turning than sight. Turn slow, 500 to 900 tops. At this point you also have another alternative for cutting and harvesting rings, namely the band saw. You can if you choose put your band saw bed at a 45 degree angle and cut your rings that way instead of on the lathe. Of course you will have the entry scar from where you entered the particular ring but with gluing that can be dealt with. It is a much safer, easier way to handle it although you will have the glue line from entry. Some have dealt with the glue line by cutting the rings off the half circle or half cookie which is another way of doing it, however I find it difficult to glue together two half’s of a ring that has a 45 degree surface and it makes making the surfaces perfectly smooth and flat problematic. I have used both ways and both have worked, still there are many ways to accomplish the same result; this is just the one that I currently feel the most comfortable with.

So here is what we are looking for, rings at a 45 degree so that the bottoms will fit on the top of the previous ring.

Off the lathe they should look like this

Stacked properly they should begin to take your salad bowl shape

Now this is where the fun really begins.

What would happen if……

… we swapped rings?

Played with each combination?

What might happen?

Well for one thing you would have a blast, but remember you can only swap if you have been very attentive to each angle being 45 degrees and each cookie the same diameter and each ring in that cookie the same interior and exterior diameter and thickness both on the bottom and top. It is a lot to keep track of but here is where is pays off, complex patterns that are simple to form. And what is the down side? What if you mess up a bowl different from the rest? Still you can rotate the patterns of the same cookie and they will fit to get a great look or try a random look. Worst case you can always give it to your mother in law, right?

The turning from here is pretty basic. After just make a jig to flip and finish the bottoms away from the chuck mount look and more into the bowl bottom look, sign and date always even if it is a sharpie. Your kids will appreciate it.

The pics below are how my 6 turned out. Notice that with close inspection the patterns are not perfect but merely close. The practice bowl never made it to finishing. It is in more pieces than I care to mention scattered across my shop floor the victim of bad joinery.

Having fun on

My Grandfathers Lathe

Steve

here are even more pics for your perusal





Oh, by the way I found this glass inside this vase during the turn. The scrapes and waste of this style are almost more fun to play with than the original concept.

Making these plywood designs



Creating these designs is probably the most difficult wood work I have ever done. It is not in the turning but creating the material. I might spend 8 to 10 hours creating material that takes 30 minutes to turn. Consistency is also a large problem along with minimizing cumulative error in the material. Glue up jigs are a must to keep the glue up from sliding and moving on the triangular matterial.

Running 8 inches of material through 4 inches of table saw blade is a scary proposition. So heads up, if you go down this path you need to be extra carefull. Be sure and count the # of fingers you have before you start. After, if the number is in any way different be sure and tell your wife she was right. An easir solution would be a 12 inch table saw but who can afford that, right?

The problem lies in cutting on the bias. A 45 degree is nice, less is better. A 30 gives you a bigger ‘eye ball’ so to speak as the vessel on the right vs the 45 degree bias on the left. You can see this in the material next to each which are the scraps of the original material.

These vessels are created with 4 pieces with 2, 45 degree cuts each. Allowing the 4 piece construction is trickier to get perfect seams and connections perfect (which gives you the most dramatic look) but the longer slices of the pie make the slopes and curves more dramatic. Of course because you are turning a quarter of the round by the time you come to the end you are into end grain, augh as can be see in this close up. But using a more end grain sensitive matterial (unlike this walnut) can get you the best of both worlds as with the butternut. The benifits with the 4 piece construction are well worth it. the design as the pieces come together is the ‘big wow’ you are looking for. You can get the owl eye look or LA freeway look and and combination thereof depending on how you align the joining ends. It requires experimentation for sure. I often was suprised with what waited for me inside the wood by way of design.
Try it and see if you can have as much fun as I have.
Steve