First Hollow Form

This was a mother’s day gift that took me in a new direction. I had mainly purchased my Jet mini to make the joystick tops for my game controllers. I have been following a few turning sites and got inspired to make something like this.

The base is cherry and the body is apple. I had the most problems keeping the two pieces together. I finally turned a tenon in the body and a mortise in the foot and used CA glue. The black that you see in the bottom is a result if burning the two pieces to a friction fit.

The next issue I had was chattering near the bottom of the hollow. The sorby hollowing tool was at it’s limit and cracked the neck of the vessel in several places. I was able to use CA glue here too to repair the cracks. The walls ended up being less then 1/8” in places and up to 1/4” in others. The thin spots will allow light to pass through and that is mostly at the neck and above.

-- Computer programmer by day, fine woodworker by night. Custom made joysticks for Console Systems and Personal Computers.