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Hi, Alan Stratton from As Wood Turns dot com. With Valentine's Day approaching, I have a
problem. The problem is that everything around Valentine's Day seems to be heart shaped.
How do you do a heart on a lathe as a lathe project? Ugh! Problem!
Well, let's solve this problem. Here is a segmented turning. It has two chambers inside.
I would probably put chocolate candies. My wife may put dried flowers. In any case, this
is a segmented heart. Turned on the lathe for Valentine's Day.
My wood is red oak salvaged from a friend's stair tread project. I'm starting with one
of the two lids. Each lid consists of 3 segment rings. Each ring is 8 segments with a cutting
angle of 22.5 degrees. I glued segments into half rings, sanded the mating surfaces, and
then glued the half rings into full rings. I mounted all rings to a board with double
stick tape before running them thru a thickness sander to have a uniform thickness. Now with
the rings glued together and mounted to a threaded wood faceplate with hot melt glue,
I'm tooling a rough exterior shape including a mounting tenon. This lid will be reversed
into my 4 jaw chuck for interior shaping. Now for half of the body. This half is made
of 3 rings of 8 segments. Hot melt glue holds the stack to another threaded wood faceplate.
Just to make things a little easier, I'll bore out the middle with my largest forstner
bit. Then do a little shaping of the body. Now it's time to cut the mortise and tenon
between the lid and the body. First the lid is now mounted to a 4 jaw chuck. After a little
cleanup, I'm cutting a mortise and making sure the sides are parallel. Then just removing
just a little more wood inside the lid. With the lid and its mortise done, I'll remount
the half body and start fitting the tenon. I'm preferring a square carbide for this but
a square scraper would work also. This is always pretty much the same: rough cut a small
tenon a little large; cut a chamfer on which to test the fit; then gradually, cut the tenon
smaller and longer while continually testing the fit.
Once it fits, I'm putting the lid on so I can refine the overall shape and flow. I've
brought up the tail stock for support. I'll turn off the mounting tenon then sand and
finish the lid. Back to the body, I'm refining the interior
and reducing the wall thickness. Now for the second lid. It's almost the same
process as the first one with one important difference. This time I want to fit the mortise
to the tenon I just cut on the half body. Later, I'll fit the tenon on the second half
body to this mortise. Then my lids will be interchangeable.
Now for the second half body. This one has one additional segment ring. Again, I'll drill
it out first as much as I can. Then clean up the exterior. Then cut the tenon to match
the mortise on the lid I just cut. So reduce, chamfer, test, reduce, chamfer, until it fits.
Finally, I'll reverse mount the half body onto my chuck to clean up where it was glued
to the faceplate. Then glue the two body halves together and let the glue dry.
With the two halves together, the body is getting a bit long. To lessen vibration, I'm
using my home made steady rest while I clean up the inside.
With the body completed, I'll saw thru it. My goal is to cut it from about 3/8" down
from the tenon on one side to the same point on the opposite end and opposite side. Since
a round cylinder does not have opposite sides, this is a challenge. I made a sliding table
for the band saw. With hot melt glue and scrap glue blocks, I'll secure the cylinder and
make the cut. Well, I did not get it exactly the same so one end will be slightly longer
than the other. Next, I'll clean up the saw marks on the cut
edges. Finally, I'll rotate diagonally two halves so that both lids are on the same end
to form my heart shape and glue them back together. Clamping this is very much a challenge.
After the glue dried, I sanded the joint and added a simple finial on each lid.
Voila, a heart shaped and segmented valentine's box -- fill it with chocolate candy and we're
ready to go. One side of this heart is a little longer than the other. I'll work on that more
on the next one. But no worry about that. I'll make a simple stand and we'll be done.
It turned out much better than I expected. Please click the like button on this video
and subscribe to my website and YouTube channel. Always wear your face shield. Until next time,
this is Alan Stratton from As Wood Turns dot com.