Oak Goblet

I made this goblet some 8 months ago. At the time I was experimenting with a lot of this slender shapes (I have to start experimenting again soon). This one is only of average slenderness (I’ll post some really slender ones when I take some pictures).

In the second picture you probably notice something interesting: the goblet is slanted to the right. You might wonder how I made that happen but, as it turns out, it always happens with these goblets. Since this is an end-grain turning, the pith is always included and inevitably goes through the base. The wood around the pith has very different characteristics from the rest of the wood in the tree when it comes to wood movement—it has the tendency to move a lot more. This larger movement creates a lump around the pith, which slants the stem.

The most important thing to remember when I make this goblets is not to have the pith right in the rotation center since I will end up with the pith along the stem and as a result have all of it crack. Care should be taken when turning this kind of piece with respect to the order in which material is removed. When working on the top, the bottom has to be still massive. This means that you cannot completely finish the outside and then the inside. You have to leave about 1” of material for the outside, make the inside and come back to the outside. When working on the stem, I usually support the piece with the tail stock (I put some soft material in before putting the tail stock).

One thing that is crucial for all the bowls I made is to get the thickness of the wall uniform (I’ll post shortly a project where I did not get this and you’ll see what happened). Especially for the top part, you an do a neat trick to achieve this: when you turn, you look with one eye at the outside surface and one eye at tool that cuts the inside surface. While this technique takes a lot of practice, it can tremendously speed up turning and make it a lot of fun.

When I look at these end-grain bowls/goblets, I rediscover again and again that I’m looking not only at a nice object, but at the entire history of the tree, the place it grew, how the weather was for all those years, etc. Those growth rings tell all thee stories and more.

-- -- Alin Dobra, Gainesville, Florida