From Steve Promo:
They [boxes in photo below] are boxes turned by Mark Smithee of Englewood Florida after we had a session on turning boxes with layered colored woods added to the foot and lid landing areas. Mark is a quick study and did a fine job on these. He started wood turning about a year ago. The woods are Texas Mesquite and Wenge.
Mark does not have a chuck yet, so everything was done with glue blocks and a single face plate. Bravo
Note from Archie: Well done Mark. Since I did not know what Wenge wood was I looked it up.
From the Wood Database (https://www.wood-database.com/wenge/)
Wenge Wood
Color/Appearance: Heartwood is medium brown, sometimes with a reddish or yellowish hue, with nearly black streaks. Upon application of a wood finish (particularly an oil finish) the wood can become nearly black. However, unlike most other dark hardwoods, the heartwood of Wenge can lighten (rather than darken) when exposed to sunlight.
Grain/Texture: Grain is straight, with a very coarse texture. Low natural luster.
Rot Resistance: Very durable; good termite resistance.
Workability: Can be difficult to work with hand and machine tools. Blunts tool edges. Sands unevenly due to differences in density between light and dark areas. Very splintery—care must be used when handling unfinished wood with bare hands as splinters can be very large and have an increased risk of infection. Very large pores can be difficult to fill if a perfectly smooth/level finish is desired.
Odor: Wenge has a faint, slightly bitter scent when being worked.
I have three chucks and each has more than one set of jaws. I had the jaws stored in a wooden box but decided that having them on a shelf would be better and keep the jaws together. I bought the top chuck form Tom Cadwalder and it had one set of jaws. None of the other jaws would fit the chuck. I was looking thru the Grizzly catalog and spotted a chuck and jaws that looked like this one. I contacted Grizzly and they measured the spacing of the screws and raised flut on the back and it matched the chuck. I ordered the jaws and they work fine.
To turned the 4-inch recess for the jaws to set in I used a set jaws with rubber coated pegs to hold the work in place off setting the work to one end so the recess, shown in pencil, can be cut. With pins on all four sides secured the wood in place so the wood could be turned and the recess cut safely. The dark rubber coated pins came with the jaws and the ones on the left I made using a dowel with a rubber hose over the outside for better grip and appropriate sized screws thru the center that screw into the jaw plate.
Some years ago I started to make some candle sticks out of birds eye maple and then put the wood away. I dug it out and finished the project. First, I drew a sketch of what I wanted for the candle constructions.
Once I had the concept down I used my computer to refine the drawing.
In both the sketch and the drawing the sections are held in place by plugs which can be of almost any wood. I choose oak I turned from a piece of scrap cut from a log. The section thru the napkin ring is wide enough to ring slides on the wood snugly.
In the picture above you can see I used a screw chuck to turn the bases. These are the ones that I put aside for several years. At the time I did not have any other chucks and had not gotten into gluing mounting blocks on the wood which would have prevented the holes in the bottom.
After turning the base I bored a hole for the mounting plug. You can see the plug material in the background. On the right in back is the material I used to make the two sections and is made by gluing three curly maple boards together.
Some assembly required at this point. The napkin ring fits snug over the center plug section. The tolerance for the holes on the first one was off a little so for a fit test I used blue masking tape. I made two of these and put them together and finished on the lathe. For the final assembly I mixed ground shavings with glue to ensure a tight fit for the holes that did not have a tight fit. The first one I made the hole tolerance was off but the second one I drilled the hole and then turned the end to fit tight.
