Woodturned Basket
Page 2
by Andrew Hilton
(Hi Jennifer!)
Handle Form and Bowl Hollowing
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OK. All hollowed out. I don't make it very thin at
all. You want some thickness left in the handles area so you can
form the handles and not break them all to pieces. I also didn't do
a whole lot of hollowing in the base of the basket. I'll get to that
later.
Here you can see where I've drawn some rough lines where the handles will go. On this particular piece, there were some cracks present near the hollowing hole so I had to work around those. I'll just cut them out and form the handles around them! |
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The other side. |
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Here is what I'm using for these small baskets. For the larger ones, you can use a jigsaw or handsaws such as a coping saw, etc. This is a carbide side-cutting bit that fits into my Dremel tool w/ flexshaft. |
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Cut in and move it around. Just go slow and keep your hands out of the way in case you slip or the wood comes off too fast. |
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The handles cut out. Really rough here. |
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Inside view. Before going any further, and risking damaging the handles after then get thin later, I now finish hollowing the bowl portion. |
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Go easy here! Don't touch those handles. They're
thick but not enough to not snap if touched. Just hollow out as you
were before. Actually, it's easier now that you can see your tool as it
passes through those cut-out handles.
Here, I'm using a thick and long hex key wrench that I've ground a scraper tip on. |
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Hollowing all done. I'm going to completely finish sand the bowl portion now. Once those handles are carved and done, you don't want to risk breaking them by putting a tool down there afterward. I'm using the Dremel again but now it has a flat rubber mandrel on it that I've glued some closed-cell foam onto and then a leather pad on top of that. The sandpaper is spray-glued to that. |
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Sanding ... sanding ... and sanding .... *cough* cough * cough* |
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