Using a donut chuck to turn a 1 piece coffee scoop

[Jesse Tutterrow]

Recently I have become interested in turning 1 piece scoops and have many YouTube videos on the subject. One of them used a donut chuck to hold the piece so you can hollow the inside of the bowl. The only problem I could see was that the handle stuck out where you could get your knuckles whacked if you weren't careful. How about extending the diameter of the front disc (the one closest to the tailstock) so that it extended beyond the handle? This way if you touched it there would be a spinning disc not a stick.

 

[hockenbery]

As you pointed out getting whacked with the spinning handle is to be avoided. Usually staying on your side of the tool rest works well enough for that.

How the ball is held for hollowing determines the angle of rim of opening to the handle.
A jamb chuck is often used which puts the handle above the opening which IMHO makes The best looking scoop with the most natural feel to use.

You can get the same look by cutting a slot in the donut chuck center so the handle can angle up a bit. The donut will hold it firmly.
Still need to be careful. If you are concerned about the handle you can tape the handle to the donut chuck with several turns if 2” wide masking tape. This will eliminate any edges and greatly reduce the effects of touching the handle. Still might tingle but you won’t get cut.

Soren Berger does a terrific scoop demo.

Another option
This guy has a series of videos showing the steps. This one shows wooden jaws that put most of the handle out if the way

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLCF1666C2CD6D35EB&v=BqhPvR_16_E

 

[hockenbery]

I should add that the off axis turning can be intimidating the first few times you try it.
There are safety issues in being sure the method you use to hold it will hold it.
You also need to have good foot position and tool control so you don’t move any body parts into the spinning wood.
Usually I can rest part of my forward hand in the tool rest so that if fellmquite comfortable.

The sound is often quite scary just by itself.

These a fun projects when you have all the parts come together.

One project you might try first is to turn a 2” or 3”cube from a solid piece of firewood
I do this by putting each face against the tail center
This is just the multi axis turning with every thing fairly well centered.

 

[Dean Center]

One of our local mentors has a nice tutorial on making spoons, with are very much like small scoops. (This method involves turning two blanks glued together and splitting them, so the side that gets turned starts out flat)

Basically, you make a solid jig, similar to that shown in Al's video, turn a hemisphere of the desired diameter in the center of the face, then cut/drill/chisel a groove for the handle. Next you make a donut of plexiglass or masonite which gets screwed onto the face and holds the blank in place. Michael Hosaluk can make the wood stay in the jig without the donut cover, but I can't. The center hole of the donut needs to be the diameter of the inside of the scoop, so you have to cut it to leave the desired wall thickness of the scoop. There are a couple of key parts to the method, one of which is turning the ball part of the scoop to the exact diameter needed for the chuck. Another is learning to turn a proper sphere for the scoop, which is a great skill to develop. Unless you make a new chuck each time, or make a set of jigs, the scoops will all be the same size.

If you are interested in the method, a written tutorial can be found on our club website, here: http://nrwg.org/index_files/page0006.htm The author is Tony Huckert, from world famous Manhattan, MT.

I've done some spoons and ladles by this method and you're absolutely right, Jesse, it really hurts when the handle WHACKS you on the hand. Instant learning experience! Worse than the pain is that it also often breaks the handle.

 

[Mike Peace]

I did one of those coffee scoop donut chuck videos. As Al says, the first time you do off axis turning can be a bit intimidating. But who hangs their fingers over a tool rest? Keeping all of the body parts on the right side of the tool rest is not that difficult.

 

[Dennis J Gooding]

Alternative to Donut Chuck for Scoops and Ladles


I have turned quite a few scoops and ladles ranging in diameter from 0.5” to 2.75” using the basic technique described above of turning a ball on a stick, shaping the handle, and hollowing the bowl. Rather than making a donut chuck, I make a simple wooden band-clamp chuck that can be held in a four-jaw chuck. It has a couple of advantages over the donut chuck. First, it does not require dedicating a four-jaw chuck to the purpose or disassembling and reassembling chuck jaws every time it is used. Second, it provides an easy access for calipers to check wall thickness during the hollowing process.


The following figures are pretty much self explanatory. For fairly small diameter scoops, the bowl of the chuck can be hollowed using a Forstner bit. After shaping the outside and hollowing the inside, four saw cuts are made to create four wooden jaws. Each cut is terminated with a largish bored hole that provides stress relief to minimize the chance of splitting. In addition, a larger hole is bored to allow access by one jaw of a pair of inside calipers when making wall thickness measurements of the scoop/ladle.


The band clamp is installed so that the free end of the band trails during rotation. I usually wrap a piece of duct tape around it just in case. The clamp lies beyond the rotating handle during the hollowing process so it poses no additional risk to the turner. Once made, the chuck can be re-used indefinitely.

 

[Tony Perelli]

One of our local mentors has a nice tutorial on making spoons, with are very much like small scoops. (This method involves turning two blanks glued together and splitting them, so the side that gets turned starts out flat)

Basically, you make a solid jig, similar to that shown in Al's video, turn a hemisphere of the desired diameter in the center of the face, then cut/drill/chisel a groove for the handle. Next you make a donut of plexiglass or masonite which gets screwed onto the face and holds the blank in place. Michael Hosaluk can make the wood stay in the jig without the donut cover, but I can't. The center hole of the donut needs to be the diameter of the inside of the scoop, so you have to cut it to leave the desired wall thickness of the scoop. There are a couple of key parts to the method, one of which is turning the ball part of the scoop to the exact diameter needed for the chuck. Another is learning to turn a proper sphere for the scoop, which is a great skill to develop. Unless you make a new chuck each time, or make a set of jigs, the scoops will all be the same size.

If you are interested in the method, a written tutorial can be found on our club website, here: http://nrwg.org/index_files/page0006.htm The author is Tony Huckert, from world famous Manhattan, MT.

I've done some spoons and ladles by this method and you're absolutely right, Jesse, it really hurts when the handle WHACKS you on the hand. Instant learning experience! Worse than the pain is that it also often breaks the handle.

Hi Dean - I'd be interested in seeing this tutorial, the link is not working at the moment. Sounds interesting, thanks! tony

 

[Tony Perelli]

Alternative to Donut Chuck for Scoops and Ladles


I have turned quite a few scoops and ladles ranging in diameter from 0.5” to 2.75” using the basic technique described above of turning a ball on a stick, shaping the handle, and hollowing the bowl. Rather than making a donut chuck, I make a simple wooden band-clamp chuck that can be held in a four-jaw chuck. It has a couple of advantages over the donut chuck. First, it does not require dedicating a four-jaw chuck to the purpose or disassembling and reassembling chuck jaws every time it is used. Second, it provides an easy access for calipers to check wall thickness during the hollowing process.


The following figures are pretty much self explanatory. For fairly small diameter scoops, the bowl of the chuck can be hollowed using a Forstner bit. After shaping the outside and hollowing the inside, four saw cuts are made to create four wooden jaws. Each cut is terminated with a largish bored hole that provides stress relief to minimize the chance of splitting. In addition, a larger hole is bored to allow access by one jaw of a pair of inside calipers when making wall thickness measurements of the scoop/ladle.


The band clamp is installed so that the free end of the band trails during rotation. I usually wrap a piece of duct tape around it just in case. The clamp lies beyond the rotating handle during the hollowing process so it poses no additional risk to the turner. Once made, the chuck can be re-used indefinitely.

View attachment 25966

View attachment 25965

Dennis - this looks nice, I love when a tool is pleasurable to see and use too.

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

You just had to mention donut and coffee in the same sentence didn’t you.

 

[Timothy White]

Here is a link to another product that can help with turning scoop’s ladles and other things. https://www.rubberchucky.com/store/p132/SOS_Chucky__(Scoop/Offset/Sphere).html#/

 

[Dean Center]

Dennis - this looks nice, I love when a tool is pleasurable to see and use too.

Sadly, our club web site is inoperable and Yahoo hasn't shown any interest in fixing the problem over the last 5 months.

Here's an American Woodturner article that basically presents the same technique, in the August 2019 issue.
https://higherlogicdownload.s3-external-1.amazonaws.com/WOODTURNER/1ec5d7b6-5b42-a367-7be1-afef990687aa_file.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAVRDO7IEREB57R7MT&Expires=1642822707&Signature=JDI5mRgQu/PDf9Qfu3atuhuj5yQ=

 

[Lars Hansen]

@ Dean: Your link sends me to a page with an error code.

 

[hockenbery]

@ Dean: Your link sends me to a page with an error code.

The article @Dean Center referenced was by David Springett one of the most creative woodturners I have had the pleasure of meeting.
Wood turning wizardry is a fantastic book.

 

[Daniel Henry]

One of our local mentors has a nice tutorial on making spoons, with are very much like small scoops. (This method involves turning two blanks glued together and splitting them, so the side that gets turned starts out flat)

Basically, you make a solid jig, similar to that shown in Al's video, turn a hemisphere of the desired diameter in the center of the face, then cut/drill/chisel a groove for the handle. Next you make a donut of plexiglass or masonite which gets screwed onto the face and holds the blank in place. Michael Hosaluk can make the wood stay in the jig without the donut cover, but I can't. The center hole of the donut needs to be the diameter of the inside of the scoop, so you have to cut it to leave the desired wall thickness of the scoop. There are a couple of key parts to the method, one of which is turning the ball part of the scoop to the exact diameter needed for the chuck. Another is learning to turn a proper sphere for the scoop, which is a great skill to develop. Unless you make a new chuck each time, or make a set of jigs, the scoops will all be the same size.

If you are interested in the method, a written tutorial can be found on our club website, here: http://nrwg.org/index_files/page0006.htm The author is Tony Huckert, from world famous Manhattan, MT.

I've done some spoons and ladles by this method and you're absolutely right, Jesse, it really hurts when the handle WHACKS you on the hand. Instant learning experience! Worse than the pain is that it also often breaks the handle.

I got lucky, the handle didn't break. But that dry White Oak sure did hurt.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

fellmquite

Is it too much to ask that we don't get distracted trying to figure out what some of these "new words" mean?

 

[Dean Center]

@ Dean: Your link sends me to a page with an error code.

Me, too. Sorry about that, I didn't realize or test it. Al's pdf file has the article.

 

[Lars Hansen]

@ Al: Thank you.
I agree, the Springett books are great.