The Woodworker & Woodturner – August 2019

TURNING

60 The Woodworker & Good Woodworking August 2019 http://www.getwoodworking.com

The Engineer’s Workshop – candlesticks

You won’t recognise Dave Roberts’ style at

first, but the engineer’s enjoying a change

T

he first thing you’ll notice about these

candlesticks is that, though they’re

turned, there isn’t a single curve in

their profile. Almost all the work that

I do for other people has bumps and curves in it,

so I thought it was time to challenge myself to

try something different: candlesitcks, I decided,

with straight lines and nothing but.

That was all well and good, of course, but

the hard part was making it look right: I drew

and changed the design many times before

I was happy. When I came to turn them, the

design changed yet again in response to the

timber and grain. But then, that’s what this

is all about – learning as we go.

Choosing & preparing the timber

Choosing the timber isn’t difficult – you just go

for what you feel is right, whether it’s light or

dark, home-grown or exotic. As you can see

from the photos, I chose dark timbers: wenge

and the darkest African paduak I’ve ever seen,

TALL DARK

STRANGERS

both of which were sourced from Yandle & Sons

Ltd. Finding a piece of paduak of sufficient size

to make the base, however, was difficult, and

the only answer was to build it up by gluing

separate pieces together. To make a feature

of this necessity, I interleaved the paduak

with black veneer from Craft Supplies.

Starting with two pieces of timber, I planed

up one side on each piece to get two flat surfaces;

you can’t rely on a sawn face to provide a good

gluing surface. A surface planer makes this job

easy, though in the past I’ve used a hand-held

electric planer. The veneer I used was only 0.7mm

thick, so I used two leaves to create a definite

line between the two pieces of paduak when

they were glued together. When the glue had

set, I planed one surface of the paduak, then cut

the whole block in half, slotted more veneer in

between the two pieces, then glued and clamped

them together to create a quartered effect.

Once cured, I cut the paduak in half to produce

two pieces large enough to make the bases.

Turning the base...

Mount the blank between centres and set the

lathe to around 800rpm, which is fast enough

to turn something of this size. It’s never worth

the risk of putting the lathe on a high speed:

the timber won’t thank you for it, and you won’t

thank the timber if it comes off and hits you!

Use the spindle roughing gouge to turn the timber

down to a cylinder, then use a parting tool to turn

a large diameter spigot on both ends, which will

each locate in the adjacent pieces of wenge.

Turning the base’s taper is straightforward:

keep the bevel rubbing and you’ll get a good finish,

and a good finish with the tools means less work

with abrasives. Keep checking the diameter both

ends with Vernier callipers, and use a steel rule

to check the base is flat. The easiest way is to

place a light behind the rule; if you can see the

light it will need a little tweaking. To keep things

flat when sanding, use a cork block with abrasive

wrapped around it. I start with 180 grit and work

up to at least 400 before stopping the lathe and