Not a spindle turner (nor bowl turner some days) so.....

[Sam Fleisher]

Legend has it that this was used in one of the many battles with Voldemort so it has seen a lot of strong magic.

That's one thing to say about it.... The other is I was just messing around and the spiraling was not intentional. What was I doing wrong to cause it? I was trying to get a smooth surface but that didn't work out but I liked the look of it so I stopped there without completing the project and that's why it's proportions are not right.

 

[Phil Hamel]

Nice! Was it chattering in the mounts? Looks offset. Came out looking good.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

The piece was flexing as you cut it and that causes the spiraling. There are ways to eliminate it one being to use your left hand as a steady, two make extremely light cuts with a very sharp skew or use both one & two together.

 

[Dan Stromberg]

I'll add my 2 cents... reducing the axial pressure will also reduce the flexing. Use a chuck if you can instead of a drive center, and back off the tailstock enough so it is just supporting and not pushing into the wood.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Spiraling - For me, these days, it is the shameful point where I realize I should have sharpened my tools a LONG while ago! But it is also due to any flexing of the piece if you have your tail stock cranked down too tight (or too loose) but most always from dull tools or too much pressure of the tool bevel on the piece (But then , if you are applying too much cutting pressure, your tool is probably dull!) If your tool is freshly sharpened, it is helpful to wrap a finger around tool rest behind the piece as a steady rest to equalize the pressure being applied from the tool (or if it is slightly out of round or off center either due to flex or tailstock pressure, because as it hits the tool edge or bevel it deflects easily)

I found that doing thin pieces like that (and finials) are excellent practice for getting "the touch" to make very light cuts , as well as learning to see/feel (and hear, for the rest of ya) when tool cutting edge is getting dull , so nice job otherwise.

 

[Sam Fleisher]

See, learn something new everyday around here.

I used a chuck but it was a fairly large blank to start with so I just cranked the tailstock down as always. Didn't think of that causing flexing. It probably didn't matter when it was 2x2.

Using my trusty Benjamin's best RG I was getting a fairly good surface until I got down to that size and switched to a Thompson spindle gouge. It was sharp I hope because I had just spent the previous evening reworking my sharpening station to hopefully get the correct geometry on it. (more on that in another post)

What determines the speed you should turn something like that? Type of wood, diameter, length or something else?

Thanks for the replies!

 

[hockenbery]

What determines the speed you should turn something like that? Type of wood, diameter, length or something else?

Mostly experience and feed back from the cut- how it feels how it looks.
Faster is often a cleaner cut.
Small Spindles I tend to turn above 2000 rpm. Some times a slower speed is better. I usually do slower speed parting off or cutting the tip of a finial.

 

[Dave Landers]

Yep, spirals are usually either wood flexing or tool bounce. In either case, the tool and wood move away from each other - either the tool bounces or the wood flex away. That stops the tool cutting. Then the wood (or tool) bounce back and cut deeper. Then the whole things starts over again. While that's happening, you're moving the tool along the wood and it's spinning - that ends up with a spiral.

Flexing of the wood is the likely culprit for a thinner spindle, and might come from too-tight tailstock and/or from pushing the gouge against the wood. The bevel of a gouge should ride on the wood, but with no pressure against the wood. All your "pressure" should be on the cutting edge (in quotes because it shouldn't take much pressure), in the direction of the cut, to move the cut along.

Tool bounce has the same spiral effect, and is also caused by too much bevel pressure, but more often happens on things like bowls when the tool digs in on side grain, and bounces off the harder end grain.

 

[Richard Coers]

Just like a washboard chatter when driving on a gravel road, once you get spiraling, it's hard to remove. It tends to amplify the spindle movement more as you turn. So you have to lighten your grip and take finer cuts with a very sharp tool to remove them and then go about the final sizing.

 

[robo hippy]

"The bevel should rub the wood, but the wood shouldn't know it", attributed to some unknown skew master. So, as others have said, too much compression from the tailstock, and too much bevel rub are the most probable culprits. Developing that feather light touch is huge in all aspects of turning. Oh, another quote I like to use, from an old black and white movie about Cyrano De Bergerac, "Hold the sword as you would a bird. Too tight and you kill it. Too loose and it flies away." Tools in our case....

robo hippy