Project Information
I was asked by a friend to glue up and make 30+ wooden balls from Bocote, Black Palm, Honduras Rosewood, Bloodwood, Sycamore, Mahogany, and Oak. These will be used for an art piece. They range in size from 3"(the Oak) to 9"(Sycamore). He bought the Oak ones online and I just sanded & finished those. The rest had to be milled & glued up from rough stock into suitable-sized blanks and turned.
I'll blog more about them later but I wanted to give you a sample of a late-comer that I just finished. It is a 7.5" Bocote, glued up from 2×2 rough stock. As you might surmise, there is a bolt in the blank for fitting to the lathe in the Jacobs chuck.
They were all roughed out by hand to within 1/8" or so of final size. I then mounted my homemade ball-turner on the mini lathe and turned them down to final size. Due to the weight of these, I had to keep the tailstock in place, thus requiring the ends to be finished off by hand. The left end only left 3/4" or so, but the other end left about 3.5". They were sanded to 400 and finished with a wipe-on Poly.
I'll blog more about them later but I wanted to give you a sample of a late-comer that I just finished. It is a 7.5" Bocote, glued up from 2×2 rough stock. As you might surmise, there is a bolt in the blank for fitting to the lathe in the Jacobs chuck.
They were all roughed out by hand to within 1/8" or so of final size. I then mounted my homemade ball-turner on the mini lathe and turned them down to final size. Due to the weight of these, I had to keep the tailstock in place, thus requiring the ends to be finished off by hand. The left end only left 3/4" or so, but the other end left about 3.5". They were sanded to 400 and finished with a wipe-on Poly.