How do yo turn a triangular salt and peppers with a spiral twist?
Ed
Ed
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turning salt shaker
- Thread starter Ed Jarvis
- Start date
With great difficulty
See Barbara Dill's book "Multi Axis Spindle Turning" and her website barbaradill.com
Brian Horais was good at it. His files on it are saved at the World of Woodturners. He had a good tutorial on it. I've done a few but it would be hard to explain all the details.
Definitely a good reference. His website seems to have disappeared -- he died several years ago. I hadn't thought to look on WOW.
I just went to WOW and looked at all his files. The one on making a spiral peppermill is there. It's a very good tutorial. It's good that someone there saved this information because his web site is out of commission.
Brian Horais was a member of our club and turned twisted things often. We all miss him. He visited my shop and we made some twisted things; he gave me one of his pieces. This one is a vase with carved petals on the top, but the same technique could be used for a salt/pepper grinder.
I walked down to the shop just now and took a couple of quick photos of the piece Brian gave me. You can see the spiral on the side. The end view may not quite look 3-sided because of the carving.
What he used could be described as a type of therming where a spindle, for example, is turned with the axis off to the side a bit instead of in the center of the round. To make different sides, you move the two center points to other positions around the central axis.
What Brian did was mark three positions on each end of the spindle on a small circle. I forget the approximate circle diameter but I have his template here somewhere, maybe I can locate it. The diameter of the circle would depend on the size of blank and the extent of the effect. (Any number of marks equally spaced around the circle would have the same effect but with more sides, eventually defeating the strong twisted effect.)
Would be a lot easier to explain with a diagram or three. But here are some words, probably not crystal clear:
Let's say circle was 1" in diameter for a 3" diameter rounded blank. If you made the three marks 120-deg apart on one end and numbered the marks 1-2 3 clockwise, then made an identical circle on the other end and numbered them 1-2-3 counterclockwise, and if the numbers were in the same position on each end, then putting the drive and live centers both on number 1 would let you turn part of a cylindrical surface opposite the #1 mark. Repeating this with the #2 then the #3 marks would result in a piece with three sides parallel to the central axis but with no twist.
But if you started with the drive center on #1 and the live center on #2 and turned the piece in the same way, the result would be a twisted side. Repeat with #2 and #3, then #3 and #1 and the end result would be a cylinder with three sides twisting along the piece, each side 120 from the next at any one point.
The ending shape depends on your imagination. Experiment! Vary the size of the circle and the shape turned (for example something a bit conical), and the result could be quite interesting. It would be straight forward to make a cylinder prepared/drilled for a salt/pepper grinder, then make appropriate wooden mandrels to fit the holes in the end, and turn the outside twisted.
I think I made notations and maybe a diagram in my notebook, I'll have to look. If I get time (and it would have to be after Sept 16), I could easily experiment and make a diagram and take a photo or two.
Brian turned with some kind of spindle and/or roughing gouge I think. After we played a while I tried making one with a skew and it worked the same way. I think about any tool would be OK, whatever comfortable with. A Hunter tool could be excellent. I wouldn't waste my time with a flat-topped "scraper" carbide tool.
After spending an afternoon with Brian,, I used the same principle, but with two axes on one end and three on the other, none of them equally spaced or on circles. As you might see, the end result can vary a great deal!!
JKJ
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Just for fun I turned a small handle from Tulip Poplar for a birdcage awl using the multi-axis method, non-twisted.
Did it real quick, just to review the principle, and kind of sloppy! Function, not art...
I made a circle with four points, 1-4, and mounted between centers 1-1, 2-2, etc. Turned about 2500 rpm with skew.
A little hard to see in the photo but each side, from near the end to the ferrule is radiused, not flat as if cut with the bandsaw. (The domed end is circular)
I sanded the off corners so it would be comfortable in my hand.
If I had put the centers on points 1-2, 2-3, etc, the four sides would have been twisted.
(Sorry, the focus is bad on the pointed end, but I'm quitting for the night.)
JKJ
Did it real quick, just to review the principle, and kind of sloppy! Function, not art...
I made a circle with four points, 1-4, and mounted between centers 1-1, 2-2, etc. Turned about 2500 rpm with skew.
A little hard to see in the photo but each side, from near the end to the ferrule is radiused, not flat as if cut with the bandsaw. (The domed end is circular)
I sanded the off corners so it would be comfortable in my hand.
If I had put the centers on points 1-2, 2-3, etc, the four sides would have been twisted.
(Sorry, the focus is bad on the pointed end, but I'm quitting for the night.)
JKJ
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Practice with a 3” diameter spindles
First turn one or two with straight sides. These use three centers aligned on opposite ends of the spindle
To get the twist you offset the center points on one end by 1.
You can get less twist by offsetting a half
My preferred method is turning the faces with a bowl gouge with an Ellsworth grind
Pull cut leave a nice surface.
I can show you how to do the lay out and how I use the bowl gouge
Today I found Brian Horais' handout from April 2016: off center turning, excellent. It's 6 pages of printed paper. I don't see a file on our club website.
However, on the last page he recommends these:
"For a much more complete treatment of off-axis turning, visit Barbara Dill's website at: www.barabradill.com"
"Review the tutorials and the Woodturners Magazine article from 2011."
Cindy Drozda has directions on her site for making triangle boxes.
I attended an IRD of hers on turning triangle boxes. She explained it all really well and made a tough project pretty easy. I did a demo for our club, but it was many months (maybe a year+) afterwards, so I needed to review parts of the process. They're really a lot of fun to do.
She has a great set of directions on her site that people can print.
I've known about it but just bought Barbara Dill's book "Multi-Axis Spindle Turning, came today.
Just browsing so far but what a WEALTH of information and ideas. She shows the method Brian H. and others use to make 3-sided spiral turnings plus much, much more.
She also includes a Gallery at the end of the book with photos and descriptions of some incredible work by a dozen multi-axis artists. Quite an inspiration.
JKJ
Multi-Axis Spindle Turning: A Systematic Exploration: Dill, Barbara: 9780764355349: Amazon.com: Books
Multi-Axis Spindle Turning: A Systematic Exploration [Dill, Barbara] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Multi-Axis Spindle Turning: A Systematic Exploration
www.amazon.com
Just browsing so far but what a WEALTH of information and ideas. She shows the method Brian H. and others use to make 3-sided spiral turnings plus much, much more.
She also includes a Gallery at the end of the book with photos and descriptions of some incredible work by a dozen multi-axis artists. Quite an inspiration.
JKJ
Dill's book is a great reference for multiaxis spindle turning, together with her articles in American Woodturner (available on the AAW website). On her website, her "new handout 2019" pdf is a beautiful visual summary of the fundamentals, better than in her book.
The gallery section of the book is indeed inspirational. It alone is worth the price of the book. Much of the work included, however, is not spindle-based. It shows how much can be done on a lathe, and the huge range of possibilities multiaxis turning offers. It's sent me off on some interesting byways.