# Segmented turning ideas



## Mrowell (Apr 13, 2015)

Hello everyone!!

I am looking to try my hand at segmented turning and am looking for some design/plan help. My in laws have been extremely helpful to my wife and I over the last few years so I would like to do something special for them. They both love custom made wooden stuff and my wife suggested a nice fruit type bowl for them to put out at their new house as a house warming gift. I have a stock of beautiful aged cherry that I got from my wife grandfathers shop after he passed away a few years ago and I have been saving it for special projects for the family and would love to use it on this bowl. These are two bowls my wife found that she likes so if anyone has plans or suggestions for something similar I would greatly appreciate it! I know this is going to a time intensive project so If you have a plan already generated that you don't mind sharing that would be ideal, I would love to have this completed when they move near the end of the month/first of June.


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## OSU55 (Dec 14, 2012)

I do some segmented turning - I have some of them posted in my projects. I use this software for design. There are several methods to do the design work, but for ~$40 the software was worth it to save designing time. Since you haven't made any segmented pieces, I highly recommend you do a couple of "test" projects before doing the "big one" with treasured stock etc. Design is one thing, cutting and building is another. Here is my process guide. There are other ways of doing the various steps. This works well for me. Since doing the blog I have built and used a "wedgie sled", helpful if you plan to do quite a few projects or if you want to grain match the pieces.

A note about material. Folks will use exotic brightly colored wood that looks great when completed but fade to a shade of brown after a year or three. For this reason I stick to typical hardwoods like cheery, walnut, maple, sycamore. Some use colored plastic for thin inlays between segments, etc. I doubt you can make your proposed schedule, but good luck.


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## hairy (Sep 23, 2008)

https://www.woodturningonline.com/projects.php?catid=98

This is 1 of mine. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/105833


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## TheDane (May 15, 2008)

I would suggest you start with a good, illustrated book on segmented turning. I know that is not the answer you were looking for, but IMHO you'll get more satisfying results.

If you are only going to buy one book, I would recommend Malcom Tibbetts' book *The Art of Segmented Wood Turning: A Step-By-Step Guide* … https://amazon.com/Segmented-Wood-Turning-Step-Step/dp/0941936864/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495195839&sr=8-1&keywords=malcolm+tibbetts

I bought Malcolm's book several years ago … I have done a couple of hundred segmented pieces over the last 6 years. Check out my projects for some examples: http://lumberjocks.com/TheDane/projects/


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## Mrowell (Apr 13, 2015)

Thank you guys for the advice and those are some beautiful pieces. I will look into some books (especially the ones above). If I don't make the timeline its not the end of the world I can give it to them late. I plan on trying whatever design I end up with on some scrap stock I have before cutting up the the cherry from his shop.


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## JulianLech (Jan 13, 2011)

YouTube has many videos on segmented wood turning. You can find thousands of examples by doing a Google search. As mentioned above; I would suggest a "wedgie" sled. Search YouTube for "Jerry Bennett, Woodworker" and there is a step by step video how to make the sled. I have been doing segmented turned for a few years and this makes the process faster and more accurate. That's my 2 cents.


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