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The subject of this demonstration was a hand-bell shaped ornament that was
actually a friction-lid box in which a small gift could be placed. Kip also
demonstrated how to make a single-ornament stand to display the ornament. This
ornament is one of those featured in the new teaching videos Kip and Rex
Burningham have just released on turning ornaments.
The Display Stand
In this demonstration Kip chose a piece of ¾" walnut for the base of
the stand. The piece had been sanded flat and true on one face to facilitate
attaching it to a plate with double sided tape. Instead of using a waste block,
Kip used a disk turned from Corian. A dovetail tenon was cut on one face of the
disk for mounting in a four-jaw chuck. The opposite face was left flat and
true. One advantage to using Corian is that the stock is of uniform thickness
with parallel faces. The walnut blank which had been roughed out on the band
saw was mounted on the face of the Corian disk with double-sided tape. The
assembly was mounted in the chuck and the walnut trued up to a disk about 3
inches in diameter. Kip used a 3/8" spindle gouge and trued the edge by
working from each face toward the center of the edge to avoid feathering out
fibers at the face. Using the same gouge Kip profiled the exposed face of the
piece to a shallow dome shape. At the rim of the base he cut a decorative cove
and differentiated it from the dome with a decorative groove. He then used a
1/16" drill bit in a Jacob’s chuck in the tailstock to drill a hole into
the center of the base to receive a support wire. The entire surface was sanded
and finished with a homemade beeswax/mineral oil paste. Kip makes this paste
wax by mixing 4 parts of mineral oil with 1 part of beeswax. The mixture is
warmed on a stove until the wax melts into the oil.
The support wire was formed by gripping the end of a 1/16" diameter
stainless steel welding rod between adjacent jaws of the chuck and wrapping the
wire tightly around the outside of the jaws to create a full circle bend. The
wrap was removed from the chuck and the circle broadened by hand by just
opening the bend somewhat. The sharp bend at the tip that had been held in the
chuck jaws was snipped off. Needle-nose pliers were used to bend a more
attractive hook into that tip on which an ornament could be hung. At the
opposite end of the wire another bend was made to create a straight section
that would be inserted into the hole in the wood base such that the curved
support wire would hold the ornament above the center of the base.
The Bell Ornament
Kip prefers to use either colored wood or very light toned woods for ornaments.
He feels that darker neutral tones get lost when hanging on a tree. In this
demo he chose a piece of pear wood for the ornament blank. The blank needs to
be approximately 2"×2"×7" in size. Kip mounted the blank between
centers and roughed it to a two-inch diameter cylinder with a spindle roughing
gouge. He used a skew to cut dove-tail tenons on both ends of the cylinder
applying a peeling cut. A thin parting tool was used to cut the blank into two
sections. Grain orientation between the two sections should be maintained. The
shorter section (about 2½" long) would become the base of the bell box
and the longer one the handle and lid of the box.
The short section was mounted in a four jaw chuck and the rough face of the
parting cut was trued with the small spindle gouge. Kip made a pencil mark at
the intended external diameter at the top of the bell. The body of the bell is
basically conical in shape with the top narrower than the bottom so the
diameter of the pencil mark determined the amount of flare toward the bottom of
the bell. It also provided a reference for hollowing the inside of the box. Kip
next marked the length of the bell body at about 2" with a parting tool
cut. He used a shallow spindle gouge to cut a broad cove between the bottom
mark and the top of the bell. The bottom edge was kept at the full two-inch
diameter and the upper edge was cut to the pencil mark on the face of the
piece.
Kip used a back-hollowing cut with the 3/8" spindle gouge to rough hollow
the interior of the bell. The hollowing was refined with an E-Z Wood scraper
mounted with a square edge carbide cutting tip. He was careful to maintain a
true cylinder in the upper 3/8" of the interior but tapered the rest of the
interior to parallel the outer profile of the bell. The flat bottom of the
chamber was cleaned up with a modified square-end scraper that had been ground
with about an 80 degree skewed edge that facilitated working the scraper across
the bottom to give a clean smooth surface. That scraper was also used to put a
very slight inward taper on the lip of the hollowed bell. The interior was
carefully sanded and finished with the paste wax mixture. The area between the
bottom of the bell and the chuck was cut down with a parting tool to a diameter
of about ¾" to save some material for a simulated clapper bead to be
formed later. This section was then removed from the chuck.
Kip mounted the tenon of the longer section of the original blank in the four
jaw chuck. After facing off the end of the blank, he cut a 5/16" long
spigot on the end of the blank that was to fit inside the hollow of the bell.
The usual "cut and try" method was used to bring the spigot to the diameter
needed to create a tight friction fit. The shoulder area between the spigot and
the outside edge of the blank was trued up with the 3/8" spindle gouge so
it would be perfectly square and sufficiently clean to require no sanding. Kip
then hollowed the area inside the spigot to reduce weight. He used the same
back hollowing and scraper cuts to refine this area as he used in hollowing the
bell. This face was then waxed.
Kip mounted the hollowed bell onto the new spigot as a jam chuck. The bottom
end of the bell was supported by the tail stock using the same center mark
resulting from the original mounting between centers. Kip decorated the bottom
edge of the bell with a bead. A decorative groove was cut at the upper edge of
the bead. The flat bottom face of the bell body was faced off cleanly with the
spindle gouge. The ¾" nipple left at the center in the earlier stage
was then cut to a bead representing a clapper ball protruding from the center
of the base of the bell. He delayed parting off the bottom of the bead from the
tail center until the remainder of the turning of the handle was completed.
The handle/lid section could then be shaped. Kip chose a design such that the
lid was a bit wider in diameter than the top of the bell section. This allowed
him to roll a bead around the edge of the lid and then cut a domed profile on
the upper face of the lid that would transition into the handle via a bead at
the junction of the dome and the handle. The handle section was attractively
curved with a shallow cove above the bead flowing into a broad convex curve at
the upper half of the handle. The handle section was roughed out using peeling
cuts with the skew to reduce the diameter of the stock. Final profiling was
done with the spindle gouge and planing cuts from the skew. At this point the
handle section was still mounted in the chuck and the bell was still supported
by the tail center. With this support Kip was able to make decorative burn
lines with burning wires to accent the groove above the bead at the bottom of
the bell, the junction between the bell and the lid, the base of the bead at
the bottom of the handle and two pairs of grooves cut in the convex curve
section of the handle. The entire exterior of the bell and handle were then
sanded to finish and finished with the paste wax. At this point, the bell was
parted off from the tail center below the clapper bead and final sanding and
waxing of that tip completed. The bell was then be removed from the handle/lid
and set aside.
Kip then parted off the handle section from the chuck leaving enough waste
material in the chuck to serve as a jam chuck for the spigot at the bottom of
the lid. The face of the waste material was faced off and a cylindrical recess
hollowed out to create a friction fit with the spigot. With the spigot held in
this jam chuck, Kip refined and sanded the parting cut at the tip of the handle
and then drilled a hole in that tip suitable to receive an eyelet for hanging
the finished ornament.
Kip demonstrated how to make your own eyelets. He had driven a nail of suitable
diameter into the edge of a block of wood and then ground the head off the
nail. With the block held in a vise, he looped a section of wire around the
back of the nail and then twisted the ends of the wire together tightly
creating a circular eye. The twisted wire was then slid off the nail and the
ends snipped to the length desired to complete the eyelet.
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