(country music) - Hi, welcome to The American Woodshop.

I'm Scott Phillips and today it's turning times.

If you've ever wanted to turn wood, we're going to cover it all today on the American Woodshop, so sit down and join us.

- [Narrator] The American Woodshop with Scott Phillips is brought to you by Woodcraft since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

Pro tools, for tool pros.

(dramatic music) Rikon tools.

Woodcraft magazine, projects, plans and web links, designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish silicon steel bandsaw blades and super sharp scroll saw blades.

A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

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- Turning wood is magical and it's easy to do, if you just know the basic steps.

There are really two types of turning.

One is face plate turning, which is how you turn these bowl-like things on these compotes.

That's what this is called, when you have a base, a spindle up to a bowl, that's a compote.

What's it used for?

Candies.

Okay, so in this case that's, look at that wood grain right there.

That is buckeye burl, and it's very colorful, kind of looks like starry night.

And then the spindle is spalted soft maple, and the base is mesquite.

And that's the cool thing about turning, you can turn any wood and each one has a story to tell.

And so today, we're going to use some very special woods, but first a word about turning safety.

Be sure to remove your rings, be sure to wear a good face shield, and if you're turning things that could have fungi and spores, that you could have allergic reaction to, like spalted wood, like that, wood that's started to decay, it's very colorful, you want to wear something like this, that has a built in HEPA filter in it, okay.

This shield and it really fits right up around your face, very tight, or wear an N95 dust mask and a full face shield, that's important.

So, work safely; be sure to read, understand and follow all the instructions that come with the tools and products you use and that you work with.

So the first thing we'll do, over at the bandsaw is cut out three blanks, so we can make our own new compote.

And that's a joy of turning, it can be whatever you want it to be.

Let's get set up at the bandsaw.

We need three turning blanks, a base, a spindle and a bowl to hold the candies.

And so, this spalted piece will be the spindle and this is punky, this is wood that won't hold together, you can tell.

So, I've just roughed in a line, going to cut this out on the bandsaw, and we're going to create a bowl to sit on top of that spindle, and it starts with a faceplate going on to a blank which is what we have right here, okay.

And this is air-dried walnut, and it has moisture content of 10%.

And that's a piece of mahogany, that will be for the base.

So, I used a compass to lay out the circles, and I'll cut these three items out, and then it's over to the wood lathe.

True to form, since I am cutting spalted wood, I want to be wearing an N95 dust mask and have good dust collection on.

(bandsaw whirring) Largest diameter circle here, cut that out.

(bandsaw cutting) A turning journey begins with spindle turning, because you lock the spindle with grain running this way, between the drive spur and the live ball bearing center.

And I used a center finding tool, to find the center point, mallet it in the center point with the drive spur, and now I can mount that securely between two centers.

Why do you start here?

Because since it's locked between the live ball bearing center right here, now lock that ram, that rams that into the end right there, you wanna make sure that's nice and solid, that's good and that's in place.

And so, the tool rest is locked, so the cutting edge of the roughing gouge, that we use to knock the corners off is a little bit higher than center line, and we'll get rid of that punky in there.

We're going to turn this into a spindle.

Now, face shield down, and I'll bring that up to speed.

How fast do you want it to go?

It depends upon your skill level.

As long as you keep the chisel to the tool rest, right here, and your hand on this side, you're in control.

I ease that in, and I just knock off the high spot and I get a better cut if I angle it, versus going like that, that would be a straight cut, this is going to be a shearing cut.

Now, I'm running right at 980 RPM.

(gouge scraping on the wood) Okay, I think we're there now, just take a look.

Turn that off.

That come to a stop, and for this, oh yeah, that looks really good.

For this next cut, I adjust the tool rest up, so the round carbide cutter is right at center line.

That's important, not the tool rest, but the cutter itself, that will give you a much, much better cut.

So, I want to have a cove here and a cove here.

You go, "How does he know that?"

Well, I'm a trained professional.

No, just kidding, I'm just having fun.

And let the piece of wood tell you where you need to go with it.

So, I'm creating a cove cut, which is a cave cut, and I want another one down here.

And these chisels are so much fun, because as long as you keep the flat to the tool rest, and you're going straight in, you can go up hill, down hill, it doesn't matter.

I want to go a little bit deeper here.

(chisel gouging the wood) All right, let's take a look at that.

And we'll see, this is the base, this is the top.

How do I know, because of the grain.

And now we're going to use the most difficult chisel to master in woodworking, the lathe skew.

S-K-E-W. And it's skewed right there on the end, this is called an oval skew, so that you can rub the bevel, that's this flat surface, to the wood as you make that cut, that's the key.

So, let's make that cut.

And you notice how I adjusted the tool rest up, so the cutting edge is halfway and I'm gonna take the speed up.

I love variable speed control here.

How fast do I want it?

Yeah, ideal speed somewhere around 1200.

So, if you're looking for a universal turning speed, 1200 is it.

So, you lay the skew up at an angle, a skewed angle.

You rub the bevel, then raise the handle, until the bevel and the cutting edge hits the wood at the same time, and you get these wonderful ribbons.

Now, if you skate down to the heel, that's what this end is called, that heel will grab; I'm not going to show you that, because I don't want to do that.

This is the way you're supposed to use it, and the reason you do that, this way, now oops, gotta rub that bevel, did that on purpose, okay.

I want to show you what you can get with a skew cut, right here, look at this.

And this is why I use it; makes a super smooth cut, that you really don't need to sand.

Okay, and when you come around to the areas that's punky, we're going to take that down a little bit more until we get solid wood.

So much fun.

Now, that should do it, with the skew.

The next thing, to cut the tenons, going to use a square carbide cutter.

And that has to be the cutting edge of the cutter, right at center line.

Now, before I make that cut, that's good, everything locked in place, I want to establish a shoulder, and I'm going to go back to the skew and I'm going to put the skew up on edge, like this, and use the toe of the skew, just create a shoulder right there, that's 5/16 of an inch long.

And you go, "What is he talking about?"

That little space right there, if you measure it, it's gonna be 5/16 of an inch.

How do I know that?

It's a calibrated eyeball.

Now, watch what I'm going to do, I'm going to go in, and if it starts to bind, lower the cutting edge, ever so slightly.

And what I'm doing here is cutting a tenon.

Now, I don't want to go too small, that's the diameter with the calipers that I'm going for, right there.

(chisel scraping on the wood) And this is going to go into the bottom of the bowl, this will tenon down here, will go into the base, out of that mahogany piece, the round mahogany piece.

So, I'll get those sized to perfection, and let's check that out.

Needs to go down, just a hair more, same thing on this end.

And those will be the corks in the bottle that hold the top to, and the bottom to the spindle and make the compote.

So I'll get this done, and then a bit of sanding, a little bit of Arm-R-Seal on this, and we'll take a look at the finished piece.

(lathe whirring) So, let's take a look at this, as that Arm-R-Seal semi-gloss is drying, this is gonna be the base, this is the top, and this will marry to the big bowl on top, and this goes into the mahogany base.

So, I'll set that out of the way and now what I can do, and this is important for you to learn, use the knockout bar to gently tap that drive spur out, that's important.

Gently, it can come out like a rocket, put that away.

And now I bring up this face plate that's secured to the top of this walnut bowl, and this is going to be the base.

We're going to turn a tenon on this base, so that we can use a chuck.

I'm gonna lock that spindle, so I can spin this up and on, in place, and it's really important, secure that, use an Allen wrench to tighten the Allen nut on that face plate, securely.

That way it can't spin off.

This is a big turning, okay, so voila, just like that.

And the other thing is, you want to bring that live ball bearing center forward and lock it in place, and by doing that, it balances everything, whenever you sand you take the tool rest off.

This is up and ready to go, let's check it all out.

Unlock the spindle, we've got clearance, it all looks good.

And the cutting edge of the half inch bowl gouge needs to be about 1/8 of an inch above the center line.

And that looks good, and we'll rough this round.

Once we get it balanced, let's turn the speed down, just a bit.

I'm going to start around a thousand.

That looks really good, right there.

It's 900, going to ease this in, until I make contact, gently.

And I hold that chisel securely to the tool rest, as I make these passes, and I'll balance it.

And then, I can undercut it to make that foot.

So much fun, so easy to do.

(chisel scraping the wood) When I'm making this foot or spigot, as turners call it, needs to be undercut about three degrees, and you'll see why in just a second.

I think the diameter is just about perfect here.

And when you're using a bowl gouge like this, you always want to be rubbing the bevel, whether it's coming in this way or coming out that way, you rub this flat spot first, and then you raise and move the handle until the bevel and the cutting edge are kissing the wood at the same time, and that's how you get a really good smooth cut.

Now, let's check this.

That's looking good, right there.

Now, I wanna show you one thing.

So, what's going on here?

This faceplate, which is right there, it's going to come off.

Then I'm going to mount this four-jawed chuck onto the drive of the lathe.

And you can see right here, I'll open this up, what's going on.

Here's the foot or the spigot as it were, and that is going to go into this dovetail assembly, undercut, so it really hooks in there and you close the jaws down and then you can open up the bowl and you can take a little bit more off on the inside, by bringing the tool rest over here and doing that now to take some of the weight out of it, but that's what's next, so I'll get that set up.

(gouge scraping on the wood) I almost forgot, I need to drill the mortise in the bottom of this bowl, the foot, it's nice and thick, so this won't weaken it.

And so I put the chuck in with an inch and 1/8 forstner bit, for this inch and 1/8 tenon of the connecting column.

And I'll bring that up to speed, and then I'll make this the perfect depth to join everything together.

Then I can reverse-chuck this, so take it nice and easy, I'll dial the speed down, just a hair, with this forstner bit.

See how that works?

And once we get to the other side, we can hollow out the core, so we know how deep to go.

So, now I can get the four-jawed chuck set up.

So, here you can see how it's flipped around.

And now what I can do, same technique on this side, I'm using this forstner bit to establish my depth that I need to hollow to.

That stops me from going all the way through the bottom of the bowl.

What do you get when you do that?

Well, it's not a bowl, it's a funnel, so this is a very helpful technique right here.

And now what I can do is back everything off, including removing this tool rest all the way, and then we'll hollow this.

This walnut bowl is really looking nice.

What I'm doing right now, is rebalancing the outside form of this bowl, because whenever you reverse-chuck it, like we've done here, it won't be perfectly aligned.

And I want to take this lip down and create a nice little cove right in here, keep it balanced, light touch here.

And now, and this really bugs me, when you're turning, if you move that tool rest while that's spinning, eventually that's gonna get you in trouble, because you can jam that tool rest into a spinning workpiece, get your hand in danger's way, and you don't want to get either your fingers or your hand caught between the tool rest and the spinning workpiece.

Okay, so that's why I like to wait.

Need to raise that just a hair, that's real important to get a good cut.

And now I can hollow.

Just that simple.

And it's nicely balanced now, let it come up to speed.

It's 930, I can take it up a bit higher.

Okay, that's good, 1010.

And why is that important?

It'll give me the perfect cutting speed, I can really get a good cut.

And I'm rubbing that bevel, what am I doing also?

I'm pressing this wood into the chuck.

So, this is all a very good thing to do.

Now, I'll just hollow this on down.

(bowl gouge scraping the wood) Just one more pass.

Keep in mind, that this is dry wood, this is not green wood turning.

And we hollowed this and formed all of this with this bowl gouge.

And so, now let's take a look at it.

We'll turn that off.

And you notice how I moved the tool rest in, so we could have good support as we made that cut, that's a good cut.

And the wall thickness is a uniform 3/8 of an inch.

How do I know that?

Best calipers ever invented right there, your hands.

So now, tool rest off and out of the way, and I'm going to turn the dust collector on, right there, and we'll do some sanding on this, get the banjo out of the way, and then once I get it sanded down, we'll friction on some finish and do the test fit.

(lathe whirring) I'm using a high friction polish, called Doctor's Woodshop, like that, and what that does, is it brings it up to a beautiful sheen and it's good for candy contact once it's all cured out, but I want you to see just how tight that mortise and tenon joint is, that presses together like that, and then we need to marry this to a turned base, and that will be our compote.

And to do that, I'll set that aside, we have a screw chuck mounted on the lathe, just insert on the jaws and you close the jaws down on that screw chuck, and I'll lock that in place, and I'll spin this piece up and on, because I have a 3/8 inch hole that's square through this almost two inch thick workpiece.

And now I'll spin that up and lock it in place, and using all the techniques that we've seen before, we'll turn this into a beautiful base, and then once it's turned, sand and finish, and I'll drill with the tailstock, that mortise with the forstner bit, inch and 1/8, just deep enough to marry the three parts together.

Now, I just need to make that mortise in the bottom of the disc, turn that off.

And now, what we're going to do is see the fit.

So, this spins off, a piece of genuine mahogany, okay?

And that comes right off the screw chuck, like so, and now, if all the tenons were sized properly and (he blows) I trust they were, I'll bring this up and on.

And when you have a good fit, it stays on without glue but that will get glued down the road, and that is the compote.

And that's a handy thing for any kitchen.

Now you know all the basics to turning, so go out there and give it a go.

It's a blast, you can't have more fun in the woodshop, I promise you, and take some lessons, that will help you tremendously.

Well, thanks for being with us this year, in the American Woodshop, season 28 and thank you for all the great comments that come off of Facebook and our website.

It's just been a dream come true for both Suzy and myself.

So, go out and make beautiful things for the people you love, see ya.

- [Narrator] Woodcraft, since 1928, providing traditional and modern woodworking tools and supplies to generations of craftsmen.

Woodcraft, helping you make wood work.

Pro tools, for tool pros.

(energetic music) Rikon tools.

Woodcraft magazine projects, plans and web links, designed to help you make wood work.

PS Wood, home of Timber Wolf Swedish silicon steel bandsaw blades, and super sharp scrollsaw blades.

A bed to sleep on, a table to share meals, a house that feels like a home.

The Furniture Bank of Central Ohio, providing furniture to neighbors in need.

- For more information on tips behind the American Woodshop and to watch free episodes 24/7, check us out online and like us on Facebook.

(country music)