Holy wooden projects, Batman!

Yeah, I've been lazy. I've got bowls done that just need to be photographed, and then posted about. All except for this one, which I hurried up and took pictures of before I gave it away to my roomie's parents... which was before Christmas... yeah, I've been lazy.

This is a bowl turned from a clear pine board, cut into squares and laminated before turning. It was an experiment, as I've been wanting to do some taller turnings, and this is the first one I've done. I don't remember the actual size, but it was between 4 and 5 inches tall, and roughly 7 inches in diameter. Finished with my usual combination of natural Danish Oil and polyurethane. If I had known it would turn out so light in color, I would have tried staining it, but as it is, it looks nice:


Next up is a project I became involved in at work. My boss brought in a chess table with a big nasty ugly crack right down the middle of the tabletop. My task was to fix it. I don't have any before pictures of it, but imagine a crack nearly 1/4 inch wide running with the grain along the entire width of the table, with evidence of glue having been poured into it in an effort to keep it from worsening, which failed.

I ultimately ended up disassembling the table completely, and finished the job that the table was trying to accomplish in the first place, splitting the table completely in half along the crack. I had to carve out all the old glue, sand down the joining areas, and save as many of the small chips of wood along the upper finished edge of the crack as I could. After all this, I put it on the press and joined the two halves together with generous amounts of Gorilla Glue.

Due to the different expansion rates of the wood in the center of the table versus the wood used for the border, the crack in the border did not close completely, though it was less than half the width it was. The crack across the chessboard portion closed up nicely, in comparison. I ended up puttying the cracks in the border, and staining the putty with a custom mixed stain to match the wood. After all this, I sanded the entire table top with 600 grit paper, and lacquered it.

Drying in the spray booth at work between coats.

Now, because the table was now over 1/8 of an inch smaller in one direction, none of the screw holes on one side were going to line up. And with age, all the holes had opened up to the point that if I had put the screws back in, the holes would strip as I tightened them down. So, I used a hardwood dowel to fill the holes, basically giving me a brand new spot for each screw.

In the end, I think my efforts paid off:
I'm happy with it, as it turned out better than I had hoped it would. It was also a learning experience for me, as well as a refresher for some techniques I haven't used since high school. Hopefully my repair will last another 50 years.