How to Make a Bud Vase From Two-By-Fours

 

What Are Bud Vases?

I discovered turning bud vases by watching other woodturners online. They are used as small decorative pieces that can have flowers, weeds, and even twigs stuck in them. Whatever you fancy fits your decor. The techniques I use in this article were first applied to turning small candlesticks. My first bud vases were actually turned from sections of thick branches I'd scavenged. Combining the two came quite naturally, and the results are pleasing. If you want to practice woodturning, they are a terrific item to make. They are small, and the amount of wood used is minimal. You can scavenge enough material from a two-by-four cutoff scrap pile to keep yourself busy for a while. They do not require that you hollow out the vase. All they require is a three-eighths-inch hole drilled down into them (Other diameters can be used depending on the size of the item turned). Not only that, but any turnable chunk of a thick branch can provide a great deal of additional material. Below is a quick slideshow of items I've turned out of two-by-four materials using the same techniques I use for turning bud vases.

Please note that you shouldn't put any water in your bud vase unless you give it a waterproof finish first.

How To Prepare The Blank

The blank for this project is simply two two-by-fours glued face-to-face. However, there are several considerations that will give you better results.

• For starters, select clean two-by-fours. Gluing dirty or weathered material will yield a much poorer glue joint, and your glue line will be dark and noticeable in the finished project.
• Secondly, take a look at the end of your material. Grain pattern can be important, especially if you live in a very humid environment. Try not to select boards cut from the middle of the tree trunk. If it is, you will see the circular pattern on the end of the board. I find these boards will expand in the middle as they take moisture from the air, and this could cause the edges of your glue joints to open up over time.
• Finally, most boards naturally cup even if it is only slightly. When you glue your pieces together, face the cupped faces toward each other. That will give you your best glue joint. If the sections were cut from the same two-by-four, you will have a more or less symmetrical grain pattern on your finished project as well.
• As always with two-by-four material, I recommend cutting off the corners of your blanks to save wear and tear on your lathe chisels.

How To Mount The Blank To Your Lathe

For safety and stability, I always turn my blanks in two steps. In the initial step, I will mount the blank between centers. With a roughing gouge, I will turn the entire blank round, smooth the surface with my large skew, and then cut a tenon so that it can be mounted to my chuck. While it is possible to turn bud vases without a chuck, it would be difficult. I highly recommend purchasing one if you don't already own one. Adding a chuck to your equipment will open a lot of possibilities for your woodturning. I purchased mine on Amazon. It was the least expensive I could find at the time that was suitable for my purposes. It might not be the best quality one they offer, but I've been quite happy with mine. I've already done a considerable amount of work with it.

This is my shop-made drill bit tool. You do not have to have an extra-long drill bit.

Turning Your Blank Into a Bud Vase

I start by roughing out the general shape that I want. The possibilities here are virtually endless. Because you are working with Spruce, which is prone to chipping and tearing out. I would keep your design simple. It will need sanding, so keep that in mind as well. The biggest challenge is making the hole for whatever you plan to put in your little vase. If you have a Jacobs chuck for your tailstock, that won't be a big deal. I didn't have one at the time I wrote this. Instead, I made a tool that is basically a drill bit mounted into a handle. I purchased an extra-long drill bit from the dollar store and turned a handle for it on the lathe. Drilled the necessary hole to accept the drill bit shank and epoxied it all together. To use the drill bit tool, I cut a deep dimple into my blank where I want the hole with my lathe skew, making sure that the point of the dimple is well centered. Then I push the tool by hand into the work while the lathe is turning. Using this technique, I've had very little trouble with the hole getting off-center. Of course, now I just use my Jacobs chuck to mount a drill bit.

The finished bud vase made for this article

It is sometimes helpful to watch the process on video. Take the time to watch the video below. It may help to explain the process better.

Taking It To Another Level

Practicing woodturning by making bud vases like the candy bowl from my previous article is a stepping stone to bigger and better things. The spindle turning techniques that I use here have been used by me to make bedposts, candlesticks, oversized chessmen, and a number of other items.

You could expand out into making table lamps, wooden goblets, and a host of other practical and decorative items. It really is up to you what you do with this from here. I will continue to make more articles in this series. Stay tuned. I will try to have something new every week until I start running out of time and/or ideas.

My wife picked some quick wild flowers to show off our work

How to Turn a Bowl From Two-By-Fours

 

How I Got Started

How I got the idea to make this is a bit of a long story. If you're only interested in knowing how to make them, feel free to skip down to the section "How to Prepare the Candy Bowl Blank".

It started with a chocolate bar selling fundraiser my kids put together to try and raise money to buy an educational CD for their homeschooling. They really wanted it, but we couldn't really justify buying it. They found a company that would provide the chocolate bars and worked very hard selling them door to door in our rural community. The excess stock was returned as per the supplier's policies. When all was said and done, they made very little for an impressive effort. We bought them the CD anyway, but couldn't help thinking there had to be a better way.

I came up with the idea of turning small six-inch shallow bowls from our two-by-four cutoff scrap pile, having my wife make homemade candy, wrapping them in cellophane with a bow, and then selling them on the corner of my desk at work. They sold far better than I expected, and soon I was selling them on consignment through a local hair salon. They sold so well leading up to Christmas that my scrap pile ran out, and I had to start buying material to fill the demand. Sales continued into January the following year and then slowly dried up. Considering that my market was a rural hick village, the results were impressive.

How to Prepare the Candy Bowl Blank

Step One

Cut two six-inch pieces of two by four. Split those two pieces down the middle lengthwise, making four pieces roughly six inches long, one and three-quarters inches wide, and one and a half inches high.

Step Two

Take two pieces cut from the same section and place them side by side with the saw cut side down. Then place the other two pieces on either side of them in the same orientation. Glue and clamp them in this configuration, trying to keep the blank as square and flat as possible.

Step Three

Once the glue has cured, you can take your blank out of the clamps. At this point, I will mark an x on my work with a pencil from corner to corner. If you have a faceplate with four or eight screw holes, this is the best way to center your faceplate on the blank.

Before screwing my faceplate into place, I will cut off the corners of my blank, giving it an octagonal shape in the name of saving wear and tear on my lathe chisels.

If you only have a faceplate and no chuck, attach it to the flat side of your blank. All your turning will be done in that orientation.

I have a chuck, so I start out with the opposite face of the blank attached to the faceplate. I will turn the bottom of the bowl first, take off the faceplate, flip the blank around, mount it in the chuck, and turn the inside of the bowl.

Turning the Candy Bowl

Make sure your tools are sharp before beginning. Spruce two-by-fours are prone to chips and tear-out. How you design it is entirely up to you. My only recommendation is that you keep your design fairly simple, keeping the limitations of this kind of wood in mind.

Take a look at the short gallery below showing some of the bowls and bowl-style candle holders that I have turned from these blanks.

More Turning Ideas

For me, a six by six by one and three-quarter inch wooden bowl blank will always be called a candy bowl blank. From a woodturning perspective, though, this is only a beginning point. Sure, you can turn a virtually unlimited number of different little bowls out of it, but there are so many other things that you can make.

Very early on, someone suggested I start making the same sort of thing into candle holders. I embraced the suggestion and made a line of candle holders, which customers did buy. Then I turned one into an egg cup with a wide brim just for fun. I really like it. I have a spot to put my eggshells without putting them on the table or the plate I'm eating off of. I've also turned these same blanks into bases for low pedestal display plates and platters. How many different things do you think can be turned from this one bowl blank?

If you can see beyond the size limitations and realize that you can then make larger and/or thicker, you may start to glimpse how far this can take your woodturning.

All I can say is take this and run with it. It is my intention to do additional articles on pieces that can be turned expanding on the work in this article. If you elect to make stuff based on this article, I'd love to see it or even just hear about it.

Turning a Small Bowl