Dale Nish: Wooden Fruit

Dale displayed three bowls of turned fruit in various sizes. Most were in natural wood colors, but he also displayed several pieces that had been skillfully colored to simulate natural fruit. He provided two handouts suggesting techniques for turning and coloring fruit.

Over the years different turners have developed a variety of approaches to turning and finishing fruit objects. Some have made the stems and blossom ends integral parts of the turning. Others have chosen to insert separately formed stems and blossom ends. A variety of materials have been used for these inserts. Stems can be formed from stems saved from real fruit, turned dowels, twigs, leather, or formed metal. A whole spice clove makes a very realistic blossom end insert.

Since most fruits are round in cross section, they lend themselves well to wood turning. Clusters of grapes can be made by turning several spherical fruits with stems, drilling a hole in the stem then threading them together to form an attractive cluster. Lemons can be turned to shape then textured before coloring and finishing to provide a natural appearance. Bananas are usually cut to shape with a band saw and sanded to final form on a belt sander without ever being mounted on a lathe.

Professional turners have found that small items, like fruit, are more profitable to sell than large items. They can be made quickly in quantity using very little material and can fetch reasonable prices.

Apple Demonstration

Dale mounted a rectangular block of soft fiddle-back maple in a scroll chuck and secured it with a cone center in the tailstock. Dimensions are not critical since fruit can be of any size and even miniatures can be attractive. The block was turned to a cylinder with a bowl gouge, the outer end faced, and a tenon formed. The piece was then reversed in the chuck with a secure grip on the tenon.

The exposed end of the blank was shaped with a 3/8" spindle gouge to replicate the upper half of an apple. After removing the tail stock, this end was cut with a recessed center where the stem will be attached. A small hole can be drilled in the center of the recess to receive a stem insert later. If an integral stem is to be turned, a cone shaped tenon would flow out of this recess to provide the curvature desired for the stem. The unwanted sides of the cone can be ground off later with a grinding wheel to establish the desired stem shape.

The left end of the blank was then shaped with the 3/8" gouge to conform to the shape of the bottom half of an apple but leaving sufficient wood to support the turning in the chuck. The entire piece was then sanded to finish before being parted off.

Dale then turned a jam chuck from a piece of aspen and hollowed the jam chuck to provide a tight friction fit at the waist of the piece to expose the blossom end (parted-off end) for finishing. He again used the 3/8” gouge to refine the shape of the bottom of the apple and create a recess at the blossom end. A small hole was drilled in the center of the recess to receive a blossom-end insert, in this case a whole clove. The bottom was sanded to finish. If an integral blossom end was to be turned, enough wood must be left in the parting off cut to allow for shaping the blossom. The nub left after parting off would be shaped while the fruit is in the jam chuck to provide the flared blossom. After removing the piece from the jam chuck the segments of the blossom can be formed by notching the edges of the blossom on the corner of a grinding wheel.

Dale used a screw driver that had been ground to a conical awl to hold the finished turning for coloring and finishing. The point of the awl is simply inserted into one of the holes previously drilled in the top and bottom of the piece. Dale demonstrated the use of alcohol based aniline dye as a colorant. He mixed one teaspoon of powdered yellow dye in two or three tablespoons of alcohol to establish the desired dye density. A spray bottle was used to spray the dye onto the wood. The piece must be allowed to dry before applying the top coat of spray lacquer.

If a hole is drilled to receive a stem insert, an alternative to jam chucking would be to make a small screw chuck. This can be done by forming a short cylinder of wood with a dovetail tenon to fit a scroll chuck then drilling a hole in the center of the cylinder to receive a "grabber" screw of about the same diameter as the hole that will receive the stem. The turned piece can then be mounted on the screw to expose the blossom end for turning. It is wise to use a soft leather gasket on the face of the screw chuck to prevent scarring the finished surface of the turning.