Lid from the Lathe

Yesterday I went into my shop and stayed there until I got a result that pleased me.

  This is a lid for one of the cute little bottles, turned on the lathe from elm and finished with bee's wax polish.  The lid fits tight enough that is  won't fall out if the bottle is turned upside down, but not so tight that you have to worry about breaking the bottle when prying it off.

  The road to that lid was multi-staged.

  First I needed to figure out how to hold the wood without a multi-jaw chuck. I have used false face plates before with the work piece glued to paper and then to the face plate.  I wasn't comfortable with that method this time because there would be very little surface area for the glue. The inside tenon is only 1 3/4 inches in diameter. My solution was to make a 'screw chuck'.

  Making this chuck wasn't difficult, but it did involve several steps. I worked slowly and carefully so that everything would line up and the face plates would run smoothly.

  I screwed the 3/4 plywood onto the face plate and rounded it and squared the face. Then I brought the tail stock down and used it to accurately find the centre of the plywood.

  Next I drilled an access hole into the plywood, exactly in the centre, based on where the tail stock aligned.

  That hole will give me access to the head of the screw which comes through the second section of the face plate.  I glued and screwed another, smaller piece of wood to the face plate.  I drilled a small hole through the second piece of wood and inserted a screw through from the back.  The screw is aligned dead centre and I threaded the piece of elm onto the screw to hold it while I turned it to shape.  As you can see I needed to do this because the work piece is so small, turning it on the standard face plate would have been possible,but awkward.

  At the roughing stage I had the tail stock support the work piece in case I gouged the piece and split it away from the face plate. While the piece was mounted like this I also cut the tenon on the small end.

  Once the lid was round and running smoothly I moved the tail stock out of the way and finished the piece. I cut a shallow bowl into the centre of the lid to clear away any evidence of the tail stock.

  I am pleased with the end result and will now make two more, same size, different woods.

cheers, ianw