Making a chess set part 2 – The Bishop

Feeling good about how the king had gone, I set to work on the bishops.
I decided that the thing to do would be to turn 2 head-to-head in a single length of wood. This would mean I only pay the ‘cost’ of work holding once for two pieces.
As with the king, and all the pieces, this was simple between centres turning. No special chucks, I didn’t even need to engage the prongs on the 4 prong drive centre, the force of just the point and a live centre at the tailstock was sufficient to do all the primary turning. Though I did use a 4 jaw chuck to finish some pieces.

Turning head-to-head meant that whenever I set the calipers for a measurement I would be able to make it on both pieces, and save time.

Fairly quickly things looked like this

I was cautious about not making things too thin until I had to.
In particular doing the heavy wood removal to get things down to rough diameters before going too thin anywhere.

This was a balance of how close to complete I wanted to get them before I applied the finish, and how much would be left to refinish once actually split into separate pieces.

I decided to blend the heads into each other, to ensure that the top diameters would be the same

Once I finished and split the two pieces, I left them intending to finish them at home with a sander, and possibly my small chuck to help the process

What I realised was that the match wasn’t as close as I’d have liked, it wasn’t bad, but the thing that made it easier to get the kings matching was the ability to hold one up against the other.

I realised that I’d be better off turning different pieces in a single length. E.g. a bishop and a knight. That way I’d either be turning something for the first time, or I’d be able to compare to one already made.

So the next day when I went to turn a bishop in ebony, I actually combined it with turning a knight and a pawn. I did worry that the overall spindle might become too long, and vibrate too much. But the pawn being fairly small only added a little more.

In practice I did struggle a lot with bounce of the tool, due to the spindle flexing and vibrating under cutting. But mostly I was able to use very light cuts to diminish it, and sand away what was left.

Here we see the very early stages of setting out the pieces in a length of ebony.

You can see how I first went down the length marking and parting in to show the boundaries of the different body parts. One thing I did hit here is that you need to take your time. Once during the week I turned to take a measurement, turned back and started parting away material, only to realise too late I was one section further over than I should have been. All those sections can look very similar in the early stages. Lesson learned…take your time.

Here we can see how the bishop is exactly the same in this design to the knight, up to the head.

You can also see that the pawn was being turned on the end.

Again I worked through each piece forming the basic shape, working down to making the thinner sections. Rather than do one piece and then move to the next. Partly because I didn’t want a thin neck section already turned when I was taking heavy cuts on the next piece. Also because, being a set, they have elements which match, and so the measuring is common, at least for the base of each piece.

It was about this time that I hit a dilemma for my bishop. I made a shaping cut on the head of the black bishop. And found that I’d hit upon a shape and size which was bigger than the ones I’d already turned, which I preferred.
So I had to decide, do I carry on and turn it down to match the ones already done. Or decide to discard those two as practice and stick with the new shape.

Well since I’d not been terribly happy with how they’d gone, I decided I’d only regret it if I stuck with that shape. So I left the black bishop as the new template for the bishops.

Here we can see me turning another white bishop to match it, again I was turning a bishop head-to-head with a knight.

All the bishops I left with waste wood at the base, rather than completing them, since I knew I’d need to form the cut in the heads. And I’d probably need that waste wood to hold them firm. Not having any appropriate tools to do the job in France. I left them to finish at home.

My plan is to practice on the bishops that I turned first. To figure out what tool will work. Possibly a coping saw, making a fine cut. Or maybe a rotary tool, though I’m wary that rotary tools can easily skip away from where you want to carve.

I’ll update this page once I’ve completed the bishops to show the finished pieces. For now here are the ones I’ve done in their mostly finished state

Most improved novice

At this months HWA meeting we had the AGM. And I got a bit of a surprise.

It was the AGM containing all the normal business as usual things you have to cover at an AGM. Such as approving the financial records of the previous year, voting on proposed amendments to things like subscription costs.
After this though they had a series of presentations to do. To thank those that had spent the last year supporting the club through various activities. But the first award was for ‘most improved novice’ and it was given to me!!

It’s amazing just how good I feel about being given this cup. I’ve been going to the club for a little under a year now. Which means I’ve been wood turning seriously for about a year also. It’s nice to find I’m not the only one who thinks I’ve improved.

Co-incidentally, or perhaps not. This was the first month I had been convinced to put my turnings on the main gallery table, rather than just hiding them away in the corner for some advice and critque.

The award itself:

It is perhaps a little odd that a novice award for woodturning is a metal cup. Maybe someday it should be replaced by something appropriate in wood. However that does not diminish the fact that it is a cup with my name on it! The first I’ve ever had.

I really like the sentiment behind this award. It says nothing about anyones work being better than anyone elses. The only thing that matters is how you compare to yourself 1 year ago. It also does not mean you’re no longer a novice. I, like most of the people at the club, will have a hard time ever believing myself anything but a novice.

As for placing my items on the offical gallery table. It was interesting to see a wider group of people observing and commenting on them. Most people seemed to like my trapped ebony heart. And one of the main questions was ‘what inspired you?’ It’s so important a question that it is on the form you write to put next to your pieces. And whilst my tear drop on wood piece was most clearly inspired by a piece in woodturning magazine. My trapped ebony heart is something that simply arose from an idea to try and have a turning within another.
Also whilst to me the join in the outer shell is clear as day, those that commented felt that the grain match was very good and at first were not sure how I had achieved the final result.

Of course as ever, there were FAR better peices on the gallery. And the most impressive was a wooden flower. A wooden pot with several stems coming out at angles. Each with dozens of perfect wooden leaves. Ending in flower petals, bells and stamen. Even including a little bee in one of the flowers. A truely amazing piece of craftsmanship which apparently took 3 months to achieve (I can believe it).
This picture doesn’t do it justice:

Finally, I decided it was time I step up to provide some support to the club, and it seems the best way to do that is to help with the website. I am awaiting details of how to access what’s there at the moment. And then I will look at options. I think that it might be good to do a complete overhaul, to make it easier for the club to post content. Since most are not web designers, I think the current model is not that good for them. I’m seriously considering a wordpress setup, to make it easier for anyone to add articles and pictures to the site. However I shall need to get some opinions first.

Watch this space.

Artistic aspirations…take 2

Recently I wrote about a challenge I’d been set to let go of the idea that my wood turnings should be ‘things’ with purpose, such as bottle stops, lidded boxes, bowls etc etc. And instead simply make something that looks interesting. My first attempt went ok, but it was alwasys just one of 2 ideas I’d had. The second idea was somewhat more ambitous.

The main thing I wanted to achieve was to have one colour of wood turning trapped inside a second contrasting color.
Initially I had a thought that the shape of the trapped piece should be interesting and multi-faced. So I attempted it by making a 3 sided piece, then taking that and mounting it at 90 degrees, using some specialy cut blocks to hold the uneven sides. I had originally intended to then turn it 3 sided the other way. This really did not go according to plan. It was very dificult to stay accurate and even once turning at 90 degrees to an already odd shape. The resulting lump of wood was uninspiring and not at all what I’d hoped for. Whilst it is a little frustrating to spend time on something only to discard it. I guess that is what experimentation is all about.

My second idea for the trapped piece was considerably more simple. I just took a small length of ebony, and shapped it into a shape a little like a spinning top, a point at one end, and rounded at the other.

Having made this piece I then roughed an oak log down to cylinder. I wasn’t initially sure how big I was going to make the outside profile so I left it pretty much as big as I could. With a tenon cut on each end. Then cut it in 2 about 2/3rds the way along. This allowed me to then mount each piece and hollow a recess big enough for the ebony piece to fit inside. At this point I decided that I’d make it relatively tight, such that the ebony piece would be unable to rotate on end inside. Looking back I think maybe it would of been better to cut a bigger recess. More on that later.

As is so commonly the way, at least for me, I spot things that might be a problem just that little bit too late to do much about it.
Having left the oak cylinder quite wide, and the recess now relatively small it left me with quite a large surface area that needed to fit perfectly together. I suspect that had I left much less waste wood, it would of been easier to achieve a nice tight join.

I wrapped the ebony piece in kitchen roll and inserted it into the recess ready for being sealed in. At this point I realised that any little inaccuracy of turning the recesses, would mean the interior recess might not line up that well. When I ultimately pierce through to show the ebony trapped inside, there might be a step. Again this might of been easier to gauge with less surface area to join, and possibly if I’d cut straighter edges on the recess I could have done something to help alignment… still too late now so plunging onwards…

Once it was glued and dried, I remounted on the lathe and prepared to shape the exterior profile. My vision was of a cage atop a wineglass like stem.
The first thing I did was figure out how thick I really wanted the walls of the cage. I really should of decided this before I started.
I decided 5mm might be about right. And I figured out what diameter I needed to rough down to and set to it.
This was where I really appreciated how much I’d wasted by using the whole chunk of oak because I hadn’t really fixed my sizes before I started. So whilst I was working to a plan in terms of shape, I really should of thought through the sizes too. I know, it’s obvious when you put it like that, but again, sometimes it is easier to make these descisions as you see it coming together as a real 3d object.

I shaped and finished the outside profile of my cage. Without starting to turn the stem. I didn’t want to weaken the structure and introduce wobble until I was ready. The next thing to do was use my new indexing rig to allow me to mark out even spacing around the edge for cutting through the shell.
For it’s part the indexing worked well. My newly created fixed point did the job and seemed to allow me to repeatably go to and from specific points accurately. Initially I marked out 6 slightly spiraling windows to cut through.
So then I set to work with my rotary tool and a carbide cutter.

This is where things become difficult to control. It is very easy to slip with a rotary tool and gouge accross the surface rather than in the area you’re cutting. It’s also difficult to be precise with lines. However I cut through the first window without too much trauma.

At this point I realised that my wall thickeness was still way too thick. I’d been slightly worried about going to far so was on the conservative side of 5mm thickness. And it was just way too thick, particularly for the size of window. I Realised that I needed to go thinner on the shell. Before making any more windows.

I also realised the size of window was just too narrow, given the relatively small interior space, compared to the size of the ebony piece. I wanted to let more light in, and be able to see more of what was inside. So I dropped the windows from 6 to 4 and made them nearly twice as wide.

It is very difficult to get nice clean cuts with a rotary tool. It is then very hard to sand the irregular sides of the windows. It also, became apparent that it was hard to control at the point I broke through into the inside. Whilst the ebony piece was wrapped in kitchen roll, it took some damage whilst I was working. This is not good since there is nothing I can now do to repair it. If I were to attempt this again I’d make the interior space at least 50 percent bigger and provide more wadding to protect the trapped piece.

Once I was fairly happy with the cage section I moved on to shaping the stem and base. Sadly at this point disaster struck…. I had a heavy catch at the thinnest point of the stem and it simply snapped. Oh bother. I thought. What a nuicsance.

I decided to finish off the cage section as an egg shape, and perhaps make a separate base for it to sit on. I remounted it the other way round. And rounded off what was supposed to be the bottom into what is now the top.
I then realised I did have enough wood left to make an integral stand, just a little smaller than I had intended.

Once again the finished result is as much a factor of how I compensated for mistakes as it is faithful to the original intent. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing.

Using an indexing ring

Back when I started wood turning, one of the first things I invested in was a 4 jaw self-centering chuck. One of the feature of the chuck is an ‘indexing ring’, which I quickly disovered is not much use to you without a fixed point to lock into the notches.

I’ve been meaning to get around to making something that I can use as a fixed point, to allow me to make proper use of the indexing ring, and this week I finally decided it was required to help me finish a piece I’m working on.

As I noted at the time, I should probably of made it before I tried to use the indexing ring ‘by-eye’ on my wine bottle coaster.

I decided to see what I could achieve with the most rapid construction idea I had. Whilst I considered some complex arrangements, I figured first just try something simple. So I cut a piece of wood the right hight to reach from the shelf beneath my lathe to the indexing ring. I also cut a small ‘foot’ section for it to be glued to with a simple join. The idea is simply to clamp the foot to the shelf holding it in position when required.

To locate in the indexing ring I took a bolt, and ground the end down to fit the holes. I drilled a hole in wooden upright. Then used a spring and a nut to provide some pressure to keep the bolt in place, but simple to pull back to locate in a different hole.

The whole assembly looks like this:

And it took about 15 minutes to make, minus the time it took the glue to dry in the joint.
I’ll find out how effective it is as I complete my next project.

Gravelling the garden

Last year, my girlfriend and I spent 3 days building decking in our garden which I blogged about at the time: The great decking project & Decking finished. It was always the intention to cover the rest of the garden with gravel to match some already there. Unfortunately we didn’t get much summer last year and that combined with me being disorganised meant that the garden remained unfinished for about 9 months.

Finally, as the weather starts to pick up for spring, I got around to arranging delivery of 2 tonnes of gravel.

I paid extra for morning delivery, but hadn’t quiet expected it to be 8.15am on a Saturday. But I guess it was good to get an early start.
I roped in a friend to come help as we had just buckets to ferry the gravel through the garage and out onto the garden. WIth 3 of us it took relatively little time to shift it all. Just a couple of hours, including stopping to have pate on toast for breakfast .

Kat and I got about this far before Steve arrived

And it didn’t really take much longer to complete the job

It makes a big difference to the look of the garden to finally have this finished. Given that we finished pretty early we decided to go out and get some pots and plants. The plan is that we only have plants that either smell nice, or produce something. So herbs, veg, fruit. Plants in our garden have to earn their keep.
We also decided to get our selves a chimnea. I have a hopeful notion of being able to use it to deliver some nice heat over the decking area to help us make use of it later into the evening. Time will tell how effective that proves to be for the moment I have a few ‘curing steps’ to go through before I can try to get a full blown fire going.

The reault of our efforts and shopping spree look pretty good

I really like the effect of lots of different sizes/types/colours of pots. We realised that if we attempted to have any common theme, chances are if we wanted to add to it in the future we’d struggle to match something. This way we plan from the outset that the theme is mistmatched.

I’d like to say that the garden is now finished. But we still have a few things to do, clean up along the other side of the path, get a few more pots and plants. But it does at least now look presentable, so we will have to arrange to have people over.

The cost of all this has not escaped my attention, Even doing the decking ourselves I think we’re looking at about 900 pounds so far. That’s actually not that bad for what we’ve achieved, and spreading out the activity helps spread the cost. From here on we have no single big expenses required though, just a pot+plant here and there, some accessories like seating cushions.

Overall I’m very happy with the results of our labour, now I just have to hope that this year we get a reasonable summer with which to enjoy it.