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Hi, Alan Stratton from As Wood Turns dot com. A while back, I made a bunch of eccentric
magic wands for aspiring wizards. After that, my son got married and I have a new daughter
in law. She's into music, piano, organ, and leads music at church. So, I offered her one
of my magic wands to use as a baton to lead the music with. But she thought that something
more traditional would be more appropriate for a church environment. Now, I would have
thought that all she needed was a long stick in order to lead the music. It turns out that
there is more of an art to an appropriate baton than a magic wand.
Now, for a baton, it needs to be the distance from the director's elbow to the finger tips,
in her case 14.5 inches. That's a good point. Now the other point for her is, with it being
14.5 inches, we need to make sure it can be stored appropriately and not get broken. So,
this one will be collapsible; it has a little bit of stretchy cord between the handle and
the main part so that it can come apart and fold down. The cord attaches to a small button
on the other end. So, let's make a music director's baton for
Sarah. I'll start with a chunk of walnut for the
handle. I've mounted it in a set of long nose jaws and brought up the tail stock. After
some rounding, I'm cutting a tenon so it can reverse mount into the jaws more securely.
With the wood reversed, I'll clean it up a bit then drill a 3/8" hole clear thru what
will be the handle portion. Now for the fun part, spindle turning this
beautiful walnut. This handle will be fairly simple: a larger end where the blade will
join, followed by a bead. On the other end will be a simple flair. After wasting most
of the wood, I'll switch to a skew to refine the surface.
Then it's time to sand up thru the grits and finish with a mix of mineral oil and beeswax.
Finally, part off the handle and touch up the end. Oops, I didn't catch this one.
Since I have enough walnut left, I'll make the small button for the end of the handle
from the same piece of wood. I'll attack this with a skew and some peeling cuts first.
Then cut a tenon that will connect it to the handle. This is a good opportunity to use
my wrench tenon cutters to get it close, then clean up with a skew.
Then quickly drill a small hole in which I'll glue the elastic later.
Finally, test the fit and the look with the complete handle.
And, part it off. I caught this one! Now for the blade portion. This will be more
challenging primarily because it is so thin. I'll rough it round. I just wish I had a longer
tool rest on this small lathe. I'll cut a short tenon on the end to connect
the blade to the handle. But in the meantime, I'll use it to mount the blade on the chuck.
Now to reduce the diameter of the blade. I've cranked the lathe speed up to max and I'm
trying to take light cuts with a gouge. Even then I'm getting some very nice chatter effects
- if only I wanted chatter here. To
get a uniform taper, I'll sand the blade with 120 grit sandpaper on a small wood block.
For all other grits, I sand without the block. Then finish with oil and beeswax. Then part
off the end and touch up the end. I had trouble drilling a hole in the middle
of the blade tenon -- the bit kept drifting off. Finally, I decided to see if the blade
would fit reversed in the chuck and protruding thru the headstock. Happy days, it worked.
I glued one end of a hair band elastic in the button end with CA. Then carefully estimated
the length I would need for the blade and glued the other end in the blade.
Now Sarah's music baton is ready. I like the collapse and fold feature. The blade was more
challenging than a wizard's wand because it is thinner and more uniform. I'm happy with
it -- I hope she is also. Please click the like button on this video
and subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel. Always wear your face shield unless
you don't need to see out of that other eye anyway. Until next time, this is Alan Stratton
from As Wood Turns dot com.