Bob Carter: French Rolling Pin

Bob prefaced his demonstration with a strong recommendation for an article on design principles that was published in the summer 2009 edition of The American Woodturner, AAW's quarterly journal. The article is entitled "Sketch for Success" and was written by Keith Tompkins. The article recommends designing bowls within a triangular space fitting within the dimensions of the blank to be turned. The shape of the bowl should conform with catenary curves.

French Rolling Pin

A French rolling pin differs from a standard English rolling pin in two regards: the French design has no handles, and it is not a true cylinder. The French design is tapered from the center toward both ends giving it a slightly curved profile. The French rolling pin is rolled with the flat of the palms of the hands giving a better feel for the dough shape and thickness and the tapered ends allow the pin to be moved in a curved or circular path more easily.

Roughing the Blank

Bob began with a 2 × 2 × 22 inch blank of silver maple and mounted it between centers. He roughed the piece to a cylinder using a spindle roughing gouge ground with a 45° bevel. To avoid splintering off sections of the corners of the blank, Bob roughs square blanks in short sections beginning near the edges and cutting outboard gradually starting successive cuts nearer the center. He prefers to contact the wood with the heel of the bevel then raise the handle of the gouge to make cutting contact. He keeps the tool rest aligned with the ways of the lathe and turns at the highest comfortable speed.

Story Stick

Bob uses a story stick to mark critical dimensions on the blank. He aims for an 18 inch finished length for the piece and a 1-7/8 diameter at the center point. To establish the desired taper he has marked the 18 inch length into six zones, each 3 inches long. Thus the story stick has seven reference marks along its length: two marking the ends, one marking the center at 9 inches, and four more marked at 3 inch intervals between the center and the two ends. The desired diameter at the center line will be 1-7/8 inches; at the first marks adjacent to the center 1-3/4 inches; at the second marks 1-1/2 inches; and at the ends 1-1/4 inches. He has marked each of those lengths on the story stick for ease of setting a caliper for each reference diameter.

Turning the Profile

After using the story stick to mark the seven reference diameter points along the roughed cylinder, Bob used a parting tool and caliper to cut reference grooves at each location to the desired diameters. He also made stop cuts outside each end deeper than the intended finish diameter to clear waste wood and give the spindle gouge clearance past the finished ends. He then used the spindle roughing gouge to turn the surface between reference grooves to the desired taper and curvature. He again prefers to start cutting near the end and then advance successive cuts toward the center. He used a skew to refine the final surface of the rolling pin with planing cuts.

Tips on Using the Skew

Bob acknowledged that many turners avoid using the skew out of fear of creating unintended spirals in their work due to catches and tool skating. He explained that these catches occur when one tries to cut into end grain. Most catches can be avoided by always cutting down hill, taking very delicate cuts holding the skew with the finger tips and never cutting deeply enough to take the edge into end grain. He offered three keys to successful planing cuts:

1. Contact the wood with the cutting edge of the skew at a 45 degree angle to the axis of the wood (shearing angle).
2. Always cut on the bottom half of the cutting edge regardless of whether it is point up or point down, but not on the bottom corner.
3. Never allow the angle between the wood surface and the bevel to exceed two degrees.

Advancing the skew slowly across the wood will prevent washboard ripples.

Sanding and Finishing

Once the surface is properly cut, reduce the lathe speed to about half the cutting speed and sand through the successive grits wiping the surface with paper towel between grits to remove stray particles. The traditional progression is to increase the grit number by 50% at each stage.

Bob finished the surface of the rolling pin with Hut Perfect Pen Polish wax and buffed it in thoroughly with a folded paper towel.

He parted the ends from the rolling pin by making V-cuts with the skew to a very small diameter stub taking care not to burn or burnish the end cuts. After cutting off the stubs, he hand sanded the ends and finished them with Mahoney oil finish.

We apologize for not having pictures this month; our photographer was unavailable. We may pull some from the video.