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Remounting really wet wood

Spike Cornelius

Spike Cornelius

Joined
Jun 10, 2021
Messages
147
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217
Location
Oregon City, Oregon
Greetings and salutations from north Oregon,
my question today is about a piece of mungo pine that I am turning. It was cut last month and is the first piece of wood that I have turned that was so wet that I could feel spray on my arm! The piece is 5 by 5 inches and I am getting close to the point of remounting it in my chuck. The drive center that came with the ‘smith is doing the job getting it to this place. My question is what is the best way to remount it, a tenon or a recess?
Despite the shaking the old ‘smith is handling this pretty well, and I did not even pull out the speed reducer!
Best, Spike
 
I use a tenon almost exclusively on bowls.
more working room and I don’t have to design around recess in the bottom
on a 5” piece I can turn the foot in the tenon if I want save ing wood.

this thread in the tips is based on a demo I do. It has slides about wood, video of turning a bowl for drying and a video of remounting an turning a very warped dried bowl.

Working with green wood

The August 2015 AAW JOURNAL has great article by David Ellsworth on working with green wood. This is followed by 11 marvelous ways turners turned cracks into features. One of David's themes is that the deck is stacked against newer woodturners successfully working with wet wood. Might be a nice...
www.aawforum.org www.aawforum.org


the videos show the way I do it. Many others use a similar process.
 
Thanks a bunch! I was thinking that using a recess could be dodgy with wet wood that hasn’t had a chance to harden a bit. That pic is how I do them.
Best, Spike
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
I agree with @hockenbery 100% I never use a recess. A recess also gives you more design options. You can even carve some feet out of the tenon. Have you added some extra weight to the Smith? Keep having fun! Aloha
Click to expand...

It sounds like you are contradicting yourself. Did you mean to say that a tenon rather than a recess gives you more design options?
 
I knew what he meant right away! And feet have been on my mind for a while now, I am just not sure how I would get a good finish between the feet So that it looks like they grew there.
Also, when my blank is such that I don’t want to sacrifice any wood to the check tenon I can just glue a sacrificial chunk to the blank.
 
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Well, I always use a recess. Part of the reason is that it is my finished bottom and does not need to be turned off. As for how well it holds the wood, that depends on how well it is made. This is a point I make in my video on Mounting things on the lathe. I know the old argument about 'your bottom is not finished because I can see how you attached it to the lathe'. That is some thing that doesn't make any difference to the people who buy my bowls. For art pieces, then yes, I do remove a tenon, but not the recess. It is an extra production step, and takes more time and I can't charge more for this extra step.

robo hippy
 
When turning a tenon on green wood I usually make it a little oversized so that when the bowl blank dries I have enough tenon to true up to round when it is time
for the second turning. Some green wood tenons will be slightly out of round when they dry making it a challenge to properly seat into a bowl chuck properly.
 
Emiliano Achaval said:
********** (snippy doodah)******
. Have you added some extra weight to the Smith? Keep having fun! Aloha
Click to expand...
Yes, added weight- they make a wooden tool rack that you mount on the front of the legs of the machine, and not being one to buy what I can make, I mounted a board to the same place, and another on the back side, and another to bridge the 2. Now chunks of iron and steel reside upon this platform, so I guess that constitutes extra weight, plus the bandsaw resides on the end of it.
Best, Spike
 
robo hippy said:
Well, I always use a recess. That is some thing that doesn't make any difference to the people who buy my bowls. For art pieces, then yes, I do remove a tenon, but not the recess. It is an extra production step, and takes more time and I can't charge more for this extra step.

robo hippy
Click to expand...
Reed,

Sometime when you get a free moment, could you post a picture of your bottom? No, wait, that didn't come out quite right. I mean, the bottom of a finished bowl. Not that your personal bottom wouldn't also be spectacular.
 
The choice between a recess or tenon requires looking at the advantages and disadvantages of each method.
The tenon or the recess will shrink as the wood dries therefore the tenon must be over sized if using dovetail jaws and that will result in a poor grip when you need it the most. The recess can be turned to the ideal diameter green then when the piece has dried it can be trued up back to the ideal diameter.
The tenon is probably best when coring or if the wood has defects that would limit strength of the mount.
The recess has the advantage that it can be a part of the base on the finished piece and can be used to hold the piece for finishing.
101_1262.JPG This is a makeshift wooden two jaw chuck mounted to a rotisserie stand holding a bowl for spray finishing such that the entire bowl can be sprayed inside and outside at once as it slowly rotates. The finish can be applied thick and heavy and the rotation will prevent runs. The piece can be removed between coats for sanding then when remounting rotate about 45 degrees so the previously blocked area can get finished.
 
Thanks for that. Are the bottoms on the bowls at about 5:20 the same as on finished bowls? (maybe those are finished)
 
When I sand them, I have a set of pin jaws, so extended and small diameter, that I can wiggle around till I get a good enough grip for sanding. I could not use the same jaws for turning as they only work for low speed sanding. For me, low lathe speed for sanding is in the 10 to 15 rpm range, and only light weight pressure on the drill. I have had a few that warped so bad that I couldn't remount them for sanding. Most of the time that particular problem comes from too shallow of a mortice. 1/16 inch can be too shallow on green wood, but fine on dry wood.

robo hippy
 
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