• July 2025 Turning Challenge: Turn a Multi-axis Weed Pot! (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to James Seyfried for "NE Red Oak II" being selected as Turning of the Week for July 21, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Interesting Cube

David Springett does all sorts of work with cubes and spheres.
They run from super complicated to simple.
He has several books woodturning wizardry, woodturning magic, elliptical woodturning, turning full circle…..

This could be one of his designs
 
Last edited:
I saw this cube and wondered how it was done, so I had to attempt. First challenge was how to hold the cube without marring the wood. Second challenge was each bowl had to be as perfect a hemisphere as possible or the "windows" would not be identical.
This is a mock up of how I did it. I didn't have the tower jaws at the time and it still worked. I tightened the cube and culls in the chuck then hot melt glued the culls to the chuck jaws. I cut a circle template for the bowls to get them as precise as possible, then went back and fine tuned as needed.
All in all a fun project, I hope others will share their procedure...

053F2E4C-39FB-4E0A-B9CA-273BBA68352A_1_201_a.jpeg tempImageUXXxD1.png
 
That was my idea. I think I wrote an article for the journal but will be glad to look it up. I was issue 32-6 pages 28031. It simply occured to me that if you turned a bowl into the sides of a square and the bowl was the right size they would create a hole. So I drew out a diagram and played with circles until I found the right overlap. You can see on the photo with 3 cubes the one on the right has more holes in the center. I used a 1/2" round over router bit in my drill chuck to create those small bowls.
 

Attachments

  • 5 square ornaments.jpg
    5 square ornaments.jpg
    302.9 KB · Views: 53
  • July fancy ornaments-5.jpg
    July fancy ornaments-5.jpg
    254.8 KB · Views: 51
Last edited:
That was my idea. I think I wrote an article for the journal but will be glad to look it up. I was issue 32-6 pages 28031. It simply occured to me that if you turned a bowl into the sides of a square and the bowl was the right size they would create a hole. So I drew out a diagram and played with circles until I found the right overlap. You can see on the photo with 3 cubes the one on the right has more holes in the center. I used a 1/2" round over router bit in my drill chuck to create those small bowls.
That’s ingenious!
 
Back
Top