Wood Scrap Challenge - Due May 20th

Hey all!

The last two scrap challenges were great successes for reminders, here they are!

First one:

Second one:

We’ve now had two donations of high-quality scraps; the first is from www.westcoastwoodslabs.com and the most recent one is from a member: @Hekseskudd. Westcoast Woodslabs gave us a bunch of Walnut, and @Hekseskudd gave us Walnut and Oak pieces. Additionally,

I challenge you to use the woodscraps we’ve been given to make something. It can be decorative, useful, both, etc. While the judging will be entirely up to the membership, I recommend the following to be considered:

Use of the ‘least useful’ scraps is encouraged. If you can use all the tiny little bits that nobody will have use for, that’s amazing! However, you can use any of the available woodscraps. Making use of any interesting ‘found’ shapes is also super-cool. The use of existing curves likely led to @hughl87 winning the last wood scrap challenge (plus it was pretty and functional).

Woodturning is a great way to utilize some of the scraps, if you do, consider going to the turning guild meeting and showing it off too! You can check them out at www.gvwg.ca

The available wood scraps are currently on the cart near the entrance to the shop, as well as on the shelf in the back behind the back wall of the shop. I’ll be consolidating all of them to the shelf behind the back wall soon. More high-quality wood scraps may become available soon; if they do; I’ll be sure to post here.

Let’s see what you can come up with! Give us a shout if you need ideas! Feel free to submit as a response to this post, or if you want to keep a build log, create your own topic and add a link to your topic here when you submit. Keeping a build log helps inspire others to join in!

Good Luck!

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I recommend making laminations, irregular and multi colored strips look great together when joined into a board. Second chance to make something out of, or just have pressure free prototyping. There will be more to come in the future, so use them up!

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Hey all, while you are down at open night, be sure to pick up your scrap for this challenge!

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Just to stir this one a bit so others get inspired. I laminated a bunch of pieces together. Some of those pieces work well if you spend some time to glue them up.

I might be making a small hallway table out of these, but if my other half decides on a different treatment, at least I’ll have good pieces to make something else for this challenge.

Anyone else working on something?

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I have something in the works, at this point it could end up being a few different things depending on how much I mess up while turning.

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I am working on something. I need to apply finishing before I photograph and post pics. Looking forward to seeing what everyone is making.

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I got a couple glue-ups with the scrap wood! I hope to have mine ready for the 20th!

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I recently picked up a book on making Wooden Puzzles by Brian Menold from Lee Valley so this challenge seemed like it was tailor made for me :slight_smile:

I used mostly red oak (the light coloured wood), Ash and Walnut for these. There is one puzzle which is 1/2 Paduak wood which was not from the scrap challenge pile

There are three Little Kenny puzzles and two 5 piece solid block puzzles.

The two 5 piece solid block puzzle were made using Ash (light coloured) and Walnut

The walnut disassembled.

The three Little Kenny puzzles were made with Walnut and Red Oak. (One made with Padauk)

The Little Kenny puzzles are sliding locking puzzles which are really hard to solve. It took me a while to make these as I discovered that cube dimensional tolerances have to be much tighter. So my first three attempts I had to break apart with screwdriver and shave cubes an with an exacto knife and reglue the puzzles.

Another step of “solving”

Yet another step of “solving”

The four parts of the Little Kenny

The complete puzzle

Approximately one red oak piece (center) is used in each puzzle and of course lots of walnut too.

Some work in progress shots
Measuring tools.

cubes setup for 2nd crack at kenny (Busted one in the back)

Corner Gluing Jig

Some more cubes

Mini crosscut sled I made to cut cubes with. Great finger saver :slight_smile:

The improved version with a mini clamp screwed to the bed

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@Majicj Wow, awesome work

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Wow, I think I am equally in love with the product, and the tool to make the product. Nice work @Majicj

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Amazing @Majicj!!!

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Here is my submission for the Wood Scrap Challenge. It is a dish turned from a walnut blank 6" x 8" x 1.75" that I got from @mike.

The first thing I did was layout the diameter of the dish on the blank and cut it out on the bandsaw.

Then I mounted it on the lathe by pressing it against the chuck jaws with the tailstock. This is not a very secure mounting so full face shield and light cuts were in order.

I cut a mortise for the chuck in what would become the top of the dish.

Next I turned the blank around and mounted it securely in the chuck.

Then I turned another mortise for the chuck in what would become the base of the dish. Pictured is a gauge that I made to determine maximum and minimum mortises or tenons for the 2" chuck jaws.

6%20-%20Chuck%20Gauge

The mortises on the top and base were given a dovetail edge using a homemade dovetail scraper to give the chuck jaws a more secure hold.

7%20-%20Dovetail%20Scraper

Next I laid out guidelines for the foot and the outside rim.

8%20-%20Foot%20Layout

Here is the bottom half of the dish turned and sanded to 400 grit.

I reversed the dish on the chuck and defined the edge of the dish bowl.

Here is the top half of the dish turned and sanded to 400 grit.

Before starting to hollow the dish, I mounted a drill chuck in the tailstock and drilled a hole to the depth I wanted to hollow to. This helps prevent making funnels.


Here is the dish hollowed out and sanded to 400 grit.

To finish the base I put a Cole Jaw chuck with soft plastic jaws on the lathe to grip the edge of the dish since there was no longer anything on the topside I could use to hold the dish on the lathe using a conventional chuck of jamb chuck.

Here is the bottom after the mortise was enlarged to the diameter of the base and the hard edges removed. I added a few decorative rings. This is an ego thing that turners do to show off to other turners that they took the time to clean up and finish the bottom. Non-turners generally don’t notice or care if the base chuck mortise is left as-is. :sunglasses:

Here are photos of the completed dish off the lathe prior to applying a finish.


I applied a couple coats of Red Mahogany Danish Oil. I generally prefer ‘Natural’ Danish Oil but I ran out and had this stuff sitting around. It gave the walnut a nice tint and I kind of like the shade.



I left the bottom unsigned as I will laser engrave my signature on the bottom during a laser engraving demo I’m giving at the Greater Vancouver Woodturners Guild meeting next week.

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Wow that is just gorgeous @Stevemopolis

Beautiful work @Stevemopolis!

Wow amazing work both of you guys! Very impressive.

All very nice work.!

Well, I have to say I failed this challenge. I was going to make either a table or a travel ukulele out of black walnut.

The table I was going to make, I got the word that it should be painted white. I couldn’t in good conscience paint black walnut white, so I ended up using plywood for that.

The ukulele I started to do, but a really silly CAM mistake caused it to drive the bit right through the side wall of the ukulele. You can find my failure redeposited in the scraps. I learned quite a bit setting this up.

After utterly failing with Black Walnut, I fixed up the CAM, calibrated the machine, and went at it again.

While I don’t think this can be included in the scrap challenge, since this uses material I purchased awhile ago for the purpose of making instruments, I did want to share where my failures led me. I love these challenges. For those who put effort into finishing their projects, thank you; they are absolutely inspirational. I’m sorry I failed to finish a scrap challenge in time, but I do still think I got a lot out of it.

For those who have projects for the scrap challenge, even if unfinished, please post them here, it is great to see what you all have done.

-Mike

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Just a few more hours to go. If you’ve got a project, put it up here to be eligible for this challenge’s prize!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the 2nd piece of Gary Oak is up for grabs on this one! I’ll open the polls tomorrow for voting!

If you want to know what Gary Oak looks like with a nice finish; check out the table from my last posting :wink:

Cool to see what you were working on there Mike!

In the spirit of documenting failed projects I tried to do a quick and dirty glider using a couple of the thin pieces of walnut. Needless to say it did not fly well. It did manage to get airborne for a bit (10 ft’) but definitely not a gliding motion. On researching balsa wood gliders it was apparent that I needed a different geometry but there wasn’t time to redo this.

Mark

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