How to make a DIY jump rope - woodturner's maintenance

Tools and materials I propose:

Lathe

Wood turning tools set

Sanding adapter

Chuck kit

Table saw

Bandsaw

Caliper set

Rotary tool

The most precious tool you got, is your body and mind. So let's make a jump rope to keep ourselves fit. I made mine out of mulberry wood. 

First of all I made a rough template out of plywood. I then shaped the template on the bandsaw. I cleaned the saw marks with my rotary tool and a drum sanding bit.

I cut my wood into blanks on my table saw. For the cross cuts I used my cross cut sled. 

I then marked the centres of my blanks. I tilted the blade of my table saw at 45 degrees. I then removed the corners of my blanks on the saw. This saved me some time on the table saw. 

I then mounted the blank between centres on the lathe and used a roughing gouge to turn it true. With my skew chisel I created a dovetailed tenon to fit my chuck jaws. 

Next I stated taking measurements from my template using a pair of callipers. I used a flat chisel, a skew and a spindle gouge to shape my handle. 

At this point I decided to put the template aside and just go for a shape that felt nice in the palm of my hand. 

I sanded the handle with 100, 220 and 320 grit sandpaper. 

Then I used a skew chisel to create some grooves. These grooves helped my wire burning tool to stay in position. I then burned those marks with the wire. Besides being decorative these grooves give the sweat from your hands a way out. 

Finally I decreased the speed of my lathe and added a drill bit on my tailstock. I then drilled the rope hole. 

I finished the piece with some polishing paste. This polished the piece and also gave it a natural finish by poping the grain patterns of the wood out. 

I parted the handle of the lathe using a knife parting too. I then Used a sanding adapter on my lathe to sand the bottom of the handle. 

I used some nylon rope for my jump rope. You can experiment with different lengths of the rope and see what suits you best.

But anyway I hope you liked this one because that was it. See you soon with a new project video. 

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Wood and transparent epoxy resin, spinning top

Tools and materials I propose:

Lathe

Wood turning tools set

Vacuum chamber kit

Sanding adapter

Micro mesh sanding pads

Buffing kit

Chuck kit

Resin

Resin colors

Forstner bit set

Round headed nails

In this video I make a unique top out of resin and a piece of spruce.

A long time ago I found a spruce door casing in the garbage. 

I turned a piece true on the lathe using my roughing gouge. With a straight chisel I created a dovetailed tenon on one end so I could mount the blank on my chuck. 

I then set my lathe at low speed and begun hollowing the blank. I begun with a drill and moved on to forstner bits. I finished hollowing the end grain with my hook tool. 

I wanted the wood itself to act as a mold for the resin. 

I mixed my resin and de gassed it in my vacuum chamber. I coloured parts of my resin with blue and green dyes. I then used a bamboo kebab stick to try and add some texture in my resin. 

Once the resin was fully cured I begun turning the blank on the lathe.

As I was turning I discovered a huge gap in my resin. Probably caused by trapped air. It was impossible to save it, so I cut the resin off. I then I reversed the resin. I flattened both the wood and the resin and glued them together with 5 minute epoxy. 

I then used my round scraper and a spindle gouge to shape my top. 

I also carefully marked the diameter of the nail’s head. 

On the drill press I drilled the hole for the nail which I add in the bottoms of all my tops. 

I then sanded the top with 100, 220 and 320 grit sand paper. I begun wet sanding with soap water at 400. I moved on to 600, 800 and 1000 grit. Then I moved on to my micro mesh pads.

At this point I parted the top off the lathe and sanded the handle.

Then I buffed it with my buffing wheel system.

Finally I glued the nail in the bottom of my top with 5 minute epoxy!

Although the texture I wanted to achieve didn’t really came out as I wanted, I think my top is really nice and beautiful.

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

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

How to make a wooden toy car - Woodturning

Tools and materials I propose:

Lathe

Wood turning tools set

Sanding adapter

Chuck kit

Sandpaper cleaner

Speed square

Table saw

Bandsaw

Drill press

Forstner bit set

Jointer planer

Caliper set

In this video I make a minimalistic toy car, out of iroko and basswood.  This is a cool example of using the woodworking lathe to make toys. 

I begun with a square piece of iroko wood, on which I marked a few guide lines. I then moved on to the drill press and drilled the holes for the wheels. I used a forstner bit to create the seat for the driver. It was much easier to make the holes on square stock. After turning it would have beed much more difficult. 

I then roughed turned the stock with a roughing gouge. I created a dovetailed tenon with a skew chisel to fit my chuck. I then finished shaping the piece with the skew. I sanded the piece and finished it with polishing paste. I cleaned the back using a sanding adapter on the lathe. 

I then cut a piece of basswood to create the driver. I used the skew to shape him. Basswood and iroko create a nice contrast with each other. I then glued the driver in place.

To make the wheels I used my callipers to make my marks, so I can make them all the same. I used the skew and sand paper to shape them. I then I added a drill chuck on my tailstock and drilled the holes. I used the knife parting tool to cut them off and then sanded them. 

But I had a problem. The wheels were to small and the belly of the car touched the ground. I decided to make the back wheels a bit larger to solve the problem. But I did not have so thick material. So I turned the back wheels side grain. This created a bit of visual difference between the front and back wheels, but I was ok with that.  

The axles of my car are just 10mm dowels. The holes on the body of the car are 12mm. I glued the axles in place, trimmed them with a saw and sanded them flush.

I finished the car with mineral oil. 

My little car came out awesome. I hope you liked this one, because that was it, see you soon with a new project video!

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Making a cone out of apricot wood and resin - woodturning

Tools and materials I propose:

Lathe

Wood turning tools set

Vacuum chamber kit

Sanding adapter

Micro mesh sanding pads

Buffing kit

Axe

Chuck kit

Resin

Resin colors

Sandpaper cleaner

In this video a make this decorative basic form out of epoxy resin and  apricot wood. 

As a mold for my casting I used a plastic biscuit box. 

I used my axe to split and shape a piece of apricot wood. 

Then I secured the wood into the mold, so it could not float in resin.

I then mixed my resin. I also coloured my resin with a tiny bit of red and green resin dye. It was still transparent but with a kind of pinkish colour. 

I then degassed the rein in the vacuum chamber. I poured the resin into the mold, and then I degassed it again. 

When the resin was fully cured, I cleared one edge of the blank on the table saw and mounted it on the lathe with a screw chuck. Before that I drilled a pilot hole on my drill press.

I turned the piece true with a scraper and then used a flat chisel to create a tenon for my chuck. I then mounted the cone on the chuck and finished shaping with a round scraper and a flat chisel. I then used the knife tool to establish the bottom of my cone. 

I sanded the cone with 100, 220 and 320 grit. At 400 grit I started wet sanding until 1000 grit. I then used my micro mesh sanding pads. Finally I used my buffing wheels to polish the cone. 

I then cut the piece off the chuck. Using a sanding adapter I sanded the bottom. I used a sandpaper cleaner to keep my sandpaper dust free. Then I polished the bottom as well.

My cone came out great and I was really happy with the colour I got in the end.

Anyway, I hope you liked this project because that was it. See you soon with a new project video.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

See you in september!

Hello people! This is the last video of the season! A big thank you from me and Scrapy for being here, another year. See you again in September with more woodworking videos! Until then enjoy the rest of the summer! :)

Green jewel scarab beetle in epoxy resin

Tools and materials I propose:

Lathe

Wood turning tools set

Vacuum chamber kit

Sanding adapter

Hot glue gun

Micro mesh sanding pads

Buffing kit

I found this beetle dead on the street. It kind of inspired me to dip it in resin and make something with it on the woodturning lathe. So, I glued it with epoxy on a scrap piece of beech with some wood savings. This kept it from floating in the resin. I enjoyed this project so much, that I think I am gonna make a series of similar projects with different insect species!

The scrap beech piece was from another woodturning project, so it already fitted my chuck jaws. I cut the plastic from an old bottle and wrapped it around my piece with transparent tape. I sealed it with hot glue. And my mold was ready.

Next I mixed some slow setting clear resin and casted it into the mold. I degassed the resin in my vacuum chamber a few times, to remove as many bubbles as I could. 

And after about three days, my blank was ready. Resin seems to turn really nicely with scrapers. So I did most of my shaping with my round scraper. To shape the wooden part I used a spindle gouge, a skew chisel and my knife shaped parting tool.

I sanded the piece beginning with 100grit. At 500 I started wet sanding with water until 1000grit. I then moved to polishing with my micro mesh sanding pads. 

I parted the piece off the lathe and sanded the bottom using a sanding adapter on the lathe. 

I then buffed the piece using my polishing wheels. I used the two finer wheels, because micro mesh had created a really clear surface. 

And my little beetle was ready! I really enjoyed this project although it was relatively simple! Anyway I hope you liked it because that was it, see you soon with a new project video!

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Making a birdhouse on the lathe - Woodturning

Tools and materials I propose:

Lathe

Wood turning tools set

Forstner bit set

Caliper set

Cordless drill

Chuck kit

Heat gun

To make this birdhouse I used olive wood and apricot wood. I also used my hook tool for the first time, in order to hollow the endgrain core of the house.

First of all I used my electric chainsaw to cut an olive wood log to rough size. I then mounted it on the lathe between centers and trued it up with a roughing gouge. The lathe was set at it’s lowest speed to reduce the vibrations of the unbalanced piece. 

I filled the cracks with wood glue and wood chips.

Using a flat beading tool and my skew chisel I created a dovetailed tenon to fit my chuck’s jaws. 

I then chucked the blank and shaped the exterior using a spindle gouge. 

To hollow the interior I again lowered the speed of the lathe. I used a forstner bit to remove material from the core. This was engrain hollowing and olive wood is pretty hard. So I tried a new tool for this job. It’s called hook tool. It’s is a pretty dangerous tool so I took it really slow to try to find the sweet spots on which the tool cut. This worked out nicely but slowly. Every now and then I came back with the forstner bit to remove material. When I finished with the hook, I cleaned the cut marks with a round side scraper. 

Back on the exterior again I used a skew to even things up. I also drilled the entrance hole with a forstner bit. Finally I parted the piece off using a spindle gouge, the skew and a handsaw. 

I flipped the piece over and chucked it with my bowl bottom jaws. I used a spindle gouge to clean the bottom of my birdhouse. I also drilled the hole for the dowel on which the bird stands.

The roof of my house is made out of apricot wood. I used a bowl gouge, a skew and a beading tool to shape it. Basically the roof has a male tenon which is glued on the body. It also has a small hanger from which you can hang the birdhouse. 

Again using apricot I made the small dowel on which the bird rests. I mostly used the skew to shape it. I glued the dowel in place. 

I finished my house with three coats of clear, water based, satin varnish. I sanded between coats with 220grit. I used my heat gun to speed up the drying process. 

My little birdhouse came out nice. I hope you’ve enjoyed this project, because that was it, see you soon with a new project video.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, that at no cost to you, I get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.