Making a resin and olive wood box on the lathe

Tools and materials I propose: Resin Lathe Wood turning tools set

Bandsaw Forstner bit set

Hot glue gun

Angle grinder

Mineral oil

Buffing kit

I made a resin and olive scrap wood blank. I have also added a few drops of transparent yellow dye in the resin.

I cut one edge of the blank on the bandsaw and flattened it on a sanding block. I then hot glued the blank on my lathe. I just used a face plate and a wood block.

The round scraper does a really good job when it comes at resin turning. I made a finishing cut with a flat chisel and I used the parting tool, to cut a piece off.

To hollow the interior of the box, I first reduced the speed of the lathe at minimum. I then used forstner bits to remove most of the material. I finished hollowing with a spindle gouge.

I started sanding at 100 grit and moved through the grits. At 500 grit I started wet sanding with mineral oil.  At 1000 I added abrasive paste and used a paper towel to polish the piece.

I parted the piece off and buffed it on my polishing wheels.

At this point I realized I had an awful scratch in the interior of the box. I used a piece of leather, to remount the box on my chuck without scratching it. I then made a small side scraper from an old chisel. I did most of the shaping of the tool with the angle grinder. Next I sharpened it on my grinding station.

Then I gently cleaned the interior of the box and sanded it. 

This worked out nicely.

I then made a cap out of a scrap olive wood piece. I did most of the shaping with the spindle gouge and a skew chisel. Olive wood is pretty hard and dense, so it can be polished really nicely.

At some point I wanted to do a bit more polishing on the box. But the polishing wheel made it fly off of my hands. So I had a few more scratches to deal with.

I turned a spindle on which the box  fitted snuggly. Then I resanded and polished it.

Although the box still had some imperfections, I decided to stop here. Overall it came out nice.

It was a really interesting and challenging project. All the disasters happened during the build were a good chance for me to demonstrate a few interesting techniques.

Experimenting with wood and resin is something I really enjoy this period.

But that was it, see you soon with a new project video!

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