Dale Nish turning birdhouse ornaments

Compiled by Dale Dallon

(photos pending)

Birdhouse ornaments are fun to turn and make great gifts. Dale sometimes sells ornaments for about $75 each since they involve about 3 hours labor, but some have been auctioned at symposia for up to $550. The key to efficient production is to use mandrels and make the roof and body parts interchangeable. Dale bores a 1" hole for the roof-body joint and a 5/8" hole for the central chamber of the bodies for consistency. He has ground several inexpensive screwdrivers into ice picks to serve as holders for turned parts during the spraying and drying steps. Always begin with a design already drawn on paper as a working drawing. In general, both the roof and the body blanks are 2 × 2 × 2½" blocks chosen to provide contrasting colors and interesting wood. Dale gave those in attendance a reprint of his “Birdhouse Ornament” article from the December 2004 edition of Popular Woodworking.

(Click here to see pictures of Dale's demonstration.)

Turning the body

1. 1. Mount the blank in a scroll chuck.
2. 2. Turn the body blank to a cylinder. Dale has made semi-circular templates of appropriate diameters to avoid having to use calipers for sizing. He used a ½" bowl gouge rather than a roughing gouge.
3. 3. Face off the exposed end of the blank to give a square fit against the chuck and reverse the blank in the chuck. The end then exposed will be the top of the body.
4. 4. With a 1" Forstner bit mark the outside diameter of the joining tenon on the face of the blank.
5. 5. Turn the tenon down to the marked diameter with a parting tool. Then face off the surfaces with a skew.
6. 6. With a 5/8" Forstner bit, bore a hole 1-5/8 inches deep for the central chamber.
7. 7. Locate the position of the entry and perch holes with a two-point scratch gage. Dale has made a gage by driving two brads spaced 3/8" apart through a small flat stick leaving enough point showing to leave scratch lines when held against the cylindrical blank turning on the lathe.
8. 8. Drill a ¼" entry hole and a 1/8" perch hole from the outside into the central chamber.
9. 9. Shape the exterior with a 3/8 spindle gouge.
10. 10. Use a Nish shaped scraper to hollow the interior chamber to match the desired exterior shape. This is done primarily to reduce the weight of the ornament. Be careful to leave 1/8" of the original boring in the bottom of the piece to seat the tip of the body mandrel. Dale marks the scraper with tape to show the maximum depth he wants to enter. The tool rest must be set back far enough from the face of the blank that the wide surface of the scraper can lay flat against the rest. This helps counter act the torque when the scraper contacts the inside surface. It is also important not to let the shaft of the scraper scuff the lip of the hole at the face of the body.
11. 11. Remove the piece from the scroll chuck and mount it on a cylindrical mandrel with a 5/8" diameter shaft 1-5/8 inches long. The mandrel should contact the piece both at the entry lip and in the 5/8" recess remaining in the bottom of the central chamber. If the fit is too loose, use masking tape or paper towel to improve the jamb fit. Hold in place with a cone center in the tail stock. If a mandrel loosens due to wear, it can be restored by covering the contact area with a layer of thick CA glue and re-turning it to the desired diameter.
12. 12. Finish shaping the exterior with a gouge.
13. 13. Power sand the exterior to finish smoothness. Dale used 240 and 400 grit disks.
14. 14. Drill a 3/16" hole in the bottom of the body to receive a finial later.
15. 15. Remove the body from the mandrel and mount it on one of the ice-pick holders. Spray coat with lacquer. Dale uses Master's Magic sanding sealer.

Turning the roof

1. 1. Mount blank in a scroll chuck and turn to a cylinder as with the body section.
2. 2. Face off the exposed end that will be the bottom surface of the roof section.
3. 3. With a 1" Forstner bit bore a recess to receive the body tenon joint. This recess need not be very deep, perhaps 1/8".
4. 4. With a 5/8" Forstner bit bore another hole past the recess to receive the roof mandrel. The depth of this hole will depend on the design of the roof. A depth of ½" is ample to hold the mandrel, but deeper will remove more wood and make the ornament lighter, if the roof shape permits.
5. 5. With a gouge, shape the bottom surface of the roof and rough shape the exterior of the roof.
6. 6. Sand the bottom surface of the roof.
7. 7. Remove the piece from the scroll chuck and mount it on the roof mandrel. The roof mandrel is similar to the body mandrel with a shaft turned to a
8. 5/8–inch diameter cylinder 3/8" long. The inner end of this shaft (nearer the chuck) should step out in a square shoulder to register with the bottom of the tenon recess. The outer diameter of the shoulder should be about 7/8" to fit inside the recess comfortably. Adjust the roof piece on the mandrel to run true then use the cone center in th tail stock to stabilize the roof on the mandrel.
9. 8. Finish shaping the roof exterior with a gouge and sand the roof. Before removing the roof from the mandrel, drill a small hole in the center of the roof top to receive an eye hook.
10. 9. Remove the roof from the mandrel, mount it on an ice-pick holder and spray the roof with lacquer.

Turning the finial and perch

1. 1. Dale normally turns the perch and the base finial from the same wood starting with a blank ½ × ½" square. Mount the blank in a pin-jaw chuck and turn one end to a cylindrical dowel.
2. 2. Turn the finial to the desired shape. It is difficult to turn pointed finials right down to finished shape since the point will usually chip. It is better to stop short of a point and finish shaping the point with sand paper.
3. 3. Cut the end of the finial to be inserted into the body to a 3/16" diameter tenon to fit the hole predrilled in the bottom of the body section. Dale has taken a set of small end wrenches and ground the upper arm of the wrench to a cutting edge. By choosing the proper wrench size he automatically sizes the tenon diameter.
4. 4. Sand and lacquer the finial while still on the lather before parting it off from the blank.
5. 5. Allow the lacquer to dry then part off.
6. 6. Turn the next section of the blank to the diameter and shape desired for the perch.
7. 7. Turn the end of the perch to be inserted into the body section to a 1/8" tenon.
8. 8. Sand and lacquer the perch, dry, and part off as with the finial.

Assembly

1. 1. Insert the finial and perch into their respective holes. Apply a drop of thick CA glue into the respective holes inside the body chamber and set with a little accelerator.
2. 2. Glue the screw eye into the hole in the top of the roof.
3. 3. Turn the roof upside down and apply a light bead of thick CA glue to the tenon recess in the roof. Spray accelerator on the tenon of the body and join the two pieces.

A final comment

Dale recommends signing each piece with at least initials and a year date using a very fine fiber tip pen. He signs his on the bottom surface of the roof. This might be done more easily before joining the roof and body sections. Dale also provides with each ornament a printed card on which he has identified the type of woods used for the roof, body, finial and perch pieces.

(Click here to see pictures of Dale's demonstration.)