Henry Rifle Forums

I haven't done much of anything on the lathe in a couple years. Lots of things got in the way and I just kind of drifted away. Always planned on getting back into it.

Got a call last week that a close family member was having a health crisis and things looked bad. I decided I needed to be prepared, as I knew if the worst happened I would be called upon to supply an urn. I had one blank of spalted maple left that has been sitting in the shop for about 5 years. Sister blanks had produced some beautiful forms. I had no idea whether this blank was still usable, as something that big will always split as it dries. Exterior inspection showed it didn't look too bad.

I mounted and roughed it out, and things looked good. A couple of cracks, but since it is spalted I figured filling them with coffee grounds mixed with epoxy would probably blend in well with the spalt lines. Rough going hollowing out a dry piece. Green wood cuts SO much easier!

Anyway got it pretty much completed. Hollowed down to 1/2 in thickness and stopped in case it dries a little more and warps a little. Did a final sand and am waiting for a while to see if it moves.
It will look much better when finished, but looks fairly good to me. Not as nice as the stuff from sister blanks, but still has plenty of character. Finished urn will be about 3 to 4 inches shorter after I cut it off the waste portion on the bottom. Then I can start the finishing procedure. Plan on doing a hand rubbed lacquer finish.

Good news is that I probably won't need it for a while. Family member got some positive news this week and is now home. Hopefully this will sit on the shelf unoccupied for many years. Now I'm starting to keep my eyes open for wood when taking walks through the neighborhood. FYI, top was an experiment, and I have turned a much better looking finial style for it since pic was taken.

It looks beautiful to me.

It will look magnitudes better when finished. Unless I screw up. I almost lost it when I decided to refine the shape a little a couple days ago. I got careless with chisel presentation and got a nasty catch. Went pretty deep. Fortunately, I still had enough thickness to turn out the divot. I was able to reshape it to a more pleasing form in the process. I'm still a little rusty, but most of it came back quickly. Never was a top notch turner, but enjoyed it, and most folks seemed to like my work. Of course I gave most of it away, so gift horse and all.

OK, am nearly finished. I will need to wet sand and buff this last coat of lacquer. If there are no low spots or issues that will be it. You probably won't be able to see the difference in the sanded and buffed version in a picture like this, so I'm posting one now. Will need to sit a day or too to harden before sand and buff.
I'm quite pleased with it. Hollowing could have been thinner and a tad more consistent, but I'll refine that the next few I make and get back into the swing. I just didn't want to risk ruining this one with a misstep. I got down to about 3/8" and decided that's it, I'm done.

It's one of the nicer large pieces of wood I've had over the years. I wish now I had picked up a few piece of downed maple from a neighbor's tree a few months back. Put them in the back yard a let them spalt, and hopefully they would have turned out something like this piece.

Very nice CH.love woodworking!

I love spalted woods. When we first bought our VA farm back in the mid 90s, we planted a silver maple from one of those mail order catalogs. You know the ones... They show pictures of beautiful trees and shrubs, and send you a foot long twig a 1/4" thick.

That twig grew to thirty or forty feet, but eventually got infested with bugs and had to come down, the wood of the trunk has become boxes, knife scales, inserts, picture frames.

The urn is beautiful. Would love to start turning someday, but I already have too many interests as it is. Great job.

Wet sanded and buffed it out today. Was pleased with the finish. Took another few pictures and thought I'd post one or two.
I do like rubbed lacquer. If you don't like the shinyness, just rub it down with 0000 steel wool. If you want to take it back to shiny, just buff it again. Of course, you can only do that so many times before you burn through the lacquer, but you don't take much off, so you've got a lot of latitude. Also any runs, or other imperfections can be easily sanded out and buffed over.