Turning 108 balusters for our new deck

[John Kelsey]

This spring I tackled designing and turning 108 balusters for our new deck. This is no big deal to you professional turners, but for an amateur like me it was a big challenge, and it turned out to be a lot of fun too. Here's a short video I made late in the process. The deck is still being built, so I don't yet have any installation photos.
During the work I got two very helpful technical tips. First, from Mike Darlow: to beat vibration, instead of a steady rest, just grab the head end of the workpiece in a scroll chuck, rather than on a spur center - it worked! And from the guys in our club, rig up a full-length tool rest rather than moving the banjo several times - that worked too! The first one took 25 minutes to turn, by the end they were coming off the lathe every 10 minutes, and my skills had ticked up a lot. Take a look, see what you think -

View: https://youtu.be/vTwmeZ0JlgA

 

[Spike Cornelius]

Nice work! And so ambitious! I kept expecting the commercials that are ubiquitous to YouTube!

 

[Glenn Lefley]

Very nice. Beautiful work and nice video.

 

[Lou Jacobs]

Wow! What a great project and a superbly crafted video. Thanks!

 

[Bob Sheppard]

Very cool, John. That's my kind of turning. Turning that many pieces, and trying to match them all, really helps bump your skill level up.

 

[John Dillon]

Nice post John and nice work. I think it's great when members have the time and resources to post interesting and educational videos and examples of real life experiences on misc. woodturning topics. Helps anyone interested in learning and advancing their skills. THANKS for sharing.

 

[Randy Anderson]

Good video and admire your courage to take on this many of the same item. I do very little spindle work and am terrible with a skew so a bit of encouragement here to give it another go.

 

[Roger Wiegand]

Great video! Thank you.

A key piece of advice I got early on for turning multiples was "they don't need to be the same, they only need to look the same". Saved me a ton of fretting and fussing over the years. Your method of establishing the key landmarks and then filling in the curves captures that nicely.

 

[Dave Fritz]

Great video and project. Your tool skills are pretty darned good. Something to strive for.

 

[hockenbery]

Great video! Thank you.

A key piece of advice I got early on for turning multiples was "they don't need to be the same, they only need to look the same". Saved me a ton of fretting and fussing over the years. Your method of establishing the key landmarks and then filling in the curves captures that nicely.

I agree with one exception The heights of the elements need to be the same.
diameters and curves need to be close - look the same

a vee groove an 1/8” off will stand out in a line of posts.

a story board makes it easy to match element heights
also copy one post for the production run.

 

[robo hippy]

I think you turned at least 200 of them...... Good job!

robo hippy

 

[Rick Crawford]

Nice informative video...with one exception. Wearing long sleeves that close to the spinning spindle is inviting disaster if you're not paying attention just for a moment.

 

[Will Armstrong]

Great video! Loved the humour. Thanks John!

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

These 100 balusters were turned out of old growth red wood recycled from beer barrel 18' staves in about 2001. The details of the design were drawn with AutoCad then attached to the custom tool rest with double faced tape so all of the details could be quickly transferred or referred to. The chuck and the live center were fitted with non marring square adapters so there was never any need to premark any thing on the blank.

 

[R Henrickson]

[...] A key piece of advice I got early on for turning multiples was "they don't need to be the same, they only need to look the same". Saved me a ton of fretting and fussing over the years. Your method of establishing the key landmarks and then filling in the curves captures that nicely.

I agree with one exception The heights of the elements need to be the same.
diameters and curves need to be close - look the same
a vee groove an 1/8” off will stand out in a line of posts.

On teh whole -- "they don't need to be the same, they only need to look the same". Depending on the project, the key variables which require close similarity may differ. If the spindles are closely ranked parallel to one another -- such as with balusters on a porch -- matching of heights of elements is crucial, while curves ought to be similar. If, however, the spindles are further apart and/or at angles one to another -- such as in a chair -- "they don't need to be the same, they only need to look the same" applies. I do a lot of spindlework creating lattices in which similar spindles may be meet at a variety of angles one to another -- most often at 60*, but also 90* or 45* angles among others. In such cases, the alignment of angles can be as important as details of profiles, if not more so. Not every dimension/detail is equally crucial in any given project. Figure out which are the most important variables for the particular project, and concentrate replicating those accurately; the rest can be similar.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I have worked on a number of balusters over the years in our town that has a large number of houses on the historical register, when they do renovations on these houses they usually want to maintain as much of the original character of the house. I usually do these in multiple steps marking the various transitions along the baluster with a pencil making duplicate cuts and measurements with a set of calipers as you progress through the stack of billets cut to length. Having a story board or a finished sample behind the work piece you can usually get pretty close by eye after you turn a quantity of them.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

Well done Mr. Kelsey.
On center finding:
When I was a spindle turner and making duplicates for the historic homes in our area I had numerous jigs for locating the centers of blanks, depending on the stock size. Each jig was essentially 3 small pieces of 3/4" plywood attached to each other to form a corner with the bottom piece made large enough to accommodate a clamp. For example, if I had a job requiring 2"X2" spindle stock, the back wall of the corner would be 2"X2", the side wall of the corner would be 2"X6", and the bottom piece would be 3"X6". The center of the 2"X2" back wall had a sharp screw point that protruded just enough to make the required dimple. I clamped the jig to the bench top with a stop block behind it and the slid each end the spindle smartly against the protruding screw. I made a new jig every time I got a sizable job that required a new size that I didn't have yet and had about a dozen jigs hanging around.
I hope my description made sense. The jigs have all been chucked in the bin since I got out of that line of turning, otherwise I would post a photo.

 

[Roger Chandler]

A joy to watch John! A tremendous amount of work there, and any turner who can make 108 of anything nearly identical free hand has my admiration and respect!