Skirted Aspen Box

Beautiful!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Cool man, you’re spreading inspiration like Washington is spending our money. Some good will come of your talent. Great little piece.

-- mtnwild (Jack), It's not what you see, it's how you see it.

Wow, it’s beautiful. I would love to know how to do this on my mini lathe!

-- Jim Sollows --- Langley BC Canada --- www.sollows.ca

First you will turn the piece between centers roughing out the overall box as a spindle. Turn a spiggot on the tail stock end. Dependent on the jaw size of your four jaw chuck that is the size of your spiggot never leave more than a 1/4 inch gap between jaws. Rest the face of the turning on the face of the jaws. The bottom of the spiggot never touches the bottom of the jaw. The rule I use is 90 degrees of torque 360 degrees grip. Turn the top 3/4 of the box doing all turning including hollowing and lid. Make sure you mark one of the jaws before you take it out to use the same process to turn the lid. The hollow box becomes the jamb chuck for finishing the turning of your lid. Now turn the box around and put it on a jamb chuck you make for the box to slide onto supporting it with the tail stock. Turn the skirt inside and outsiide leaving just enough to support the box. Before you take the box off, mark the skirt with index lines fully up the skirt to the base of the turning. Some where up the skirt make a pencil line bisecting the index lines. Drill a hole of your choice in size every other index line, be carefull to minimize blow out. Now on the inside turn or sand away blow out. Then turn away the support to the point you are comfortable with as a turner. You will remove more as you get better as a turner. Now clean off the little bit remaining using a carving tool and sand paper. The piece is now sanded between every other index line so your holes line up with the tip that will be the point of the foot. You do this by sanding with a spindle sander between each index line. Hope this explains the process.

-- Dale