Building An Inexpensive Finishing Jig

 

This jig will hold multiple pieces like these hair

 sticks securely so that you can paint them one

 end at a time and have them dry before reversing

 them in the jig to do the second end.

Finish Small Items More Easily

This article provides step-by-step instructions for creating your own jig to finish your small items. You will be able to hold small items like crochet hooks and hair sticks while you apply finishes. The jig will then hold them securely while the finish cures.

Equipment & Supplies

• box cutter
• corrugated cardboard
• rubber bands

Everything you need

Before You Begin

The items being finished with the jig in the photos vary from six to ten inches in length. If you intend to finish longer or heavier items, you will need to increase the width of the cardboard strips to provide better support.

Also, the jig illustrated is made to finish eight pairs of hair sticks at a time. If you don't need that kind of capacity, don't make it that big. Make it fill your own needs.

Selecting Your Materials

A package of cheap rubber bands should be available at any store that carries even a moderate selection of office supplies. You might even have a package at home already as we did. They just need to be strong enough to wrap tightly around the cardboard strips.

Clean, dry corrugated cardboard should be even easier to obtain. I get mine from the nearest fast-food restaurant. They get supplies trucked in twice a week; most of it is in boxes that will be discarded as soon as they are empty. My potential supply of cardboard is effectively unlimited.

When selecting the cardboard you are going to use, keep in mind that the corrugations need to run from side to side on your cardboard strips. Running them the length of the project might still work if you get the rubber bands really tight, but the jig will be easier to make and use if they are oriented correctly.

Tip: I wrestled the first jig I made together without any outside help. Having a third hand (belonging to my wife) really made making the second one a lot easier.

Carefully cutting the cardboard into strips using the box cutter

Step One

With your box cutter, carefully cut two strips of cardboard. I cut mine about an inch and a quarter wide and as long as the box top I was cutting from.

In the video, I just eyeballed them, and they were close enough. I would recommend measuring and using a straightedge as a guide. If you are cutting flat on a table or other surface, keep in mind that the box cutter will cut through the cardboard and into whatever is underneath.

Make sure you use something to protect your work surfaces. More cardboard is not a bad option. If cutting on your lap, you could cut into your pants or even your leg. That may sound like a stupid thing to do, but it has happened.

Strips ready to be bound together

Step Two

Take your two strips of cardboard and lay them one on top of the other. Take your first rubber band and wrap it tightly around the cardboard close to one of the ends of the strips (this is where that extra hand starts to make a big difference).

Getting a helping hand

Spacing out the rubber bands using the second method

Step Three

There are two ways to proceed at this point. The first is to tightly wrap rubber bands around the cardboard with approximately a one-inch gap in between them. The other way is to use the item to be painted as a spacer each time you add another rubber band, snugging them up as you go. The end result will be similar.

It is very important that the rubber bands be wound tight enough. If they are not, the work will not be secure. Test it out before you use it. If your work slips around easily, the rubber bands are not tight enough. Not easy to fix without starting all over again, but at least you'll know what is wrong.

Turning the pieces around in the jig for painting the second end

Finished and Ready For Use

At this point, your jig is ready to be loaded up, hung up, and put to use.

To load the jig, wedge one end of each piece to be painted between the rubber bands. You should be able to position the pieces so they are not touching each other. They should be held firmly enough so that they are not easily knocked out of position while you are applying the finish. Only put the finish on the end that is not held by the jig.

Once the first end is dry, you can pull the pieces out and put them back in the other way around so that the finish can be applied to that end as well. If multiple coats are needed, sand the pieces and repeat the process for each additional coat.

That's all there is to it. Simple to make and easy to use. We hang ours from an indoor clothesline while we are using them. The choice of where you suspend yours is up to you.

Watch the Author Build This Jig

After building the first jig like this, I felt that it might be useful to my viewers and readers. In the video, I quickly make a second jig demonstrating how it is done. While I'm confident that the jig can be constructed easily from the article here, I find it helpful to see someone else actually make one.

Gouge-Turning Practice With 5 Bud Vases

 

The gouge practice bud vases in a line

Turning Bud Vases

Bud vases are little vases meant for a single flower or a small, simple flower arrangement. They typically have a small opening at the top, which helps support whatever you choose to put in them. Generally, they are inexpensive and exceptionally versatile.

They range from very simple to elegant, but always small. On one end of the scale, you might take a small section of a branch, drill a hole in the top, and call it a bud vase, or something very complex and refined on the other end.

As a woodturning artist, this gives me a wide range of expression and latitude for practicing techniques. It doesn’t cost me very much for wood because of the vases' small size. They’re also popular as gifts. I find them to be a great project to make me a better woodturner.

Practicing Using the Gouge

The collection in this article was designed specifically to focus on practicing using the gouge. All the details turned on these five bud vases were all turned using the gouge. The only turning I did with another chisel in their making was when I used the parting tool to separate the finished bud vase from the excess stock. In the future, I intend to do another set of five to practice using the skew in the same manner.

In this article, I hope to inspire you to turn bud vases. Explore your artistic side.

Spalted grey birch bud vase

Tools and Equipment

1. Wood lathe
2. Wood lathe chuck
3. Jacob’s chuck or a 3/8-inch drill bit mounted in a handle
4. 3/8-inch drill bit
5. Turning gouges and a parting tool
6. Sandpaper

Riding the bevel.

Important Term Before You Start

"Riding the bevel" is a term woodturners will use over and over. We all know what it means. If you want to get into woodturning, it's important to know and practice. So what is the bevel, and how do you ride it?

The bevel is the part of the chisel that angles up to the cutting edge. When sharpening a chisel, the bevel is the part where you grind material away to make the cutting edge sharp.

Riding the bevel is where you place the bevel of the tool flat against the rotating workpiece. Tilting the tool toward the cutting edge slightly will cause the tool to begin cutting. In this position, the bevel part of the tool is just skimming the freshly cut surface of the wood. This will give a cleaner cut with less chance of digging uncontrolled into the wood and possibly ruining your work.

Rough section of Grey Birch mounted between centers.

Preparing the Blank

1. Mount your piece of wood between centers and turn it round. All the bud vases in this article were turned from branches of Grey Alder or Grey Birch. These are easy for me to get. They are also very resistant to cracking, as they dry without a lot of special effort. You could start with a chunk or block of wood.
2. If needed, square up the ends and turn a tenon for the lathe chuck to hold on to.
3. Mount your work in your wood lathe chuck on the headstock, and a 3/8-inch drill bit into your Jacobs chuck mounted in the tailstock. Drill your hole to the desired depth. If you don't have a Jacobs chuck, this hole could be made with the drill bit mounted in a handle.

After this, the work can be all your imagination. The five bud vases in this article were all created at the lathe. I just went with whatever I thought would look nice with the wood I was working with.

Turning the blank round.

Spalted blank ready to mount into the lathe chuck.

Preparing to drill out the hole in the top of the bud vase blank

Drilling to depth. Ready for sculpting the bud vase.

Finished Spalted Grey Birch bud vase #1

Bud Vase #1

As soon as I turned the blank for this round, I could see spectacular spalting. For me, that means that I have to keep the turning simple for two reasons. The wood might be punky and not hold detail very well, and Mother Nature is a better artist than I am. The idea was to highlight what was there, not distract from it.

Long gentle curves are an easy place to start practicing using your turning gouges. Nothing about this shape is difficult. Practicing the long concave and convex curves is a great place to start.

Hollowing out the flared mouth of the vase is the only hollowing work needed on this bud vase. I used a small gouge and used pull cuts to transition from the 3/8 inch hole to the wider mouth. I chose to cut a forty-five-degree bevel on the rim because I thought it would look good.

Once I was satisfied with the shape, I sanded it to 240 grit and parted it off from the waste with a parting tool. I sanded the bottom smooth, signed and dated it, and then finished it with polyurethane.

Grey Alder bud vase (#2) with just a fleck of bark inclusion.

Bud Vase #2

Inside ninety-degree turns are worth practicing with the gouge, which is why I chose this particular bud vase as my second project. The round base uses this kind of inside angle to transition into the neck and then again to transition from the neck into the rounded lip around the mouth.

To make this cut, you have to twist the tool outward almost onto its side, rolling into the cut. This allows you to get the nose of the tool cleanly into the corner you're cutting. If your spindle gouge is properly ground, you should be able to cut the turn even sharper than ninety degrees. It's important to learn how to do this and get good at it because the technique will allow you to make even more interesting cuts with your gouge in the future.

The mouth of this vase is simpler than Bud Vase #1 in that the corners are just rounded instead of hollowed out. The parting off, sanding, and finishing operations were just a repeat of the previous vase.

Lightly spalted Grey Birch genie bottle bud vase (#3)

Bud Vase #3

This bud vase was inspired by a genie bottle. There are no new techniques explored that weren't already covered in my first two examples. I made the mouth to remind people of a wine bottle. The inside angle on the base is a carryover from the previous example as well.

Part of me hates making the same thing over and over again. I hope this illustrates the use of my imagination. If you choose to make bud vases after reading this article, I hope that you at least try to turn your own artistry loose.

Bud vase #3: Beginning to narrow down the neck of the bud vase.

Grey Birch bud vase (#4)

Bud Vase #4

Making beads is an element that you can make on your projects. This bud vase introduces that to define the base. If I'm making a simple bead like this example, I'll use either a gouge or a skew depending on which one I have in my hands at the time. If the project I'm working on has a lot of them, I will pick up a skew instead because I find it easier to make them consistently the same size with that tool.

The other element in this bud vase that interests me is the angled base. That angle continues an imaginary line that matches the outside diameter of the flared mouth. I like how it visually ties the whole thing together.

Hollowing out the neck to transition into the vase hole.

Grey Birch lightly spalted bud vase (#5).

Bud Vase #5

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I came up with this design. The wood came from the same spalted branch as Bud Vase #3, and it ended up chipping out a little, so I didn't end up with exactly what I wanted. This is the beauty of improvising your design as you go. The base ended up more rounded toward the bead on the bottom, but I still ended up with a very attractive piece.

The challenging element was making a bead to transition from the body of the vase into the neck.

Cutting the finished bud vase free of the waste.

Practice Makes Perfect

There are lots of small projects that you can make to practice your turning. Bud vases are one of my favorites. I could come up with five completely new models in an afternoon. If interest is high, I will try to produce another article with five models designed for practicing using the skew in fairly short order. It'll take me longer to make the article and the video than it will to make and finish all five new vases.

I hope this article will inspire you to come up with your designs. I'd love to see what others do with this.

If you would like to see the contents of this article on YouTube, watch the video below. Some people do better if they see the work in action. This video will cover everything covered in this article.

Woodturning With Swamp or Speckled Alder

 

End-grain boxes. The three with the finials are

 Swamp Alder, the other two were made from two-by-fours.

Woodturning With Swamp Alder

Swamp Alder is by far the most underrated and unappreciated wood I have ever mounted on my lathe. Most people in my area scrape it into a pile and torch it. I know one person who uses it for cheap firewood—it burns fast and hot.

As hardwoods go, it isn’t weak but isn’t very strong either. The tree books say it doesn’t grow much bigger than three inches in diameter, although I have gotten chunks that were close to six. On the surface, it doesn’t look like it’s good for anything.

I have access to square miles of the stuff, so it was only a matter of time before I tried turning some of it on my lathe. I was in for a very pleasant surprise.

What Is Swamp Alder?

Swamp Alder or Speckled Alder is a subspecies of Grey Alder (Alnus incana), which in other parts of the world grows into an actual tree. It is related to Birch. This particular subspecies is one of the first trees to colonize swampy ground that is close to waterways or on poorly drained land.

It grows in tangled clumps through a large portion of North America. It only grows about fifteen to maybe twenty feet high. The trunks normally get to a little more than three inches in diameter. The wood contains a lot of water when green, but has very small tubules that bring air to the roots so that it can grow where most trees would drown.

When green, the wood is exceptionally flexible. One of its unique attributes is that it does not rot when submerged in water.

General Turning

My first attempt at turning with this alder wood did not go well. I mounted a very green piece between centers and went to work.

Beware of Green Alder

The shavings coming off and hitting me were very wet. The spur center carved a hole in the end of the piece, and I turned off the machine just in time to avoid having the piece fly across the shop. Some woods can be turned green, but this isn’t one of them.

Drawer Pulls

My next turning was a set of drawer pulls. At that point, the wood I was using was classified as FOG wood (Found On Ground). It was very dry, and all things considered, turned that little project with no issues. It wasn’t until after turning more pieces that I figured out that this was a chunk of Swamp Alder.

Chess Pieces

The door was thrown open the next time around, though. I had made some giant chess pieces out of two-by-four cutoffs and wanted to scale them down to a size where I could make a whole set that fit on a regular chessboard. No matter how carefully I worked, most of the pieces lost chunks of detail.

I didn’t think the Swamp Alder would be any better, but I had a dry piece handy and gave it a try. I had to be careful but succeeded on my first try. I made a handful of pawns and didn’t fail on a single one. This maligned wood was better for turning than construction lumber cut-offs. From then on, I turned Swamp Alder regularly.

The moisture content of this kind of wood makes a big difference. Very green is unturnable. Very dry, on the other hand, will turn reasonably well, but it won’t make real shavings. The wood will scrape off in the form of splintery sawdust, and it will need more sanding before finishing.

The ideal moisture content is somewhere before it is completely dried out. I don’t have a moisture meter, but I know when I’m in that sweet spot because I’ll cut long ribbons of shavings off.

Turned Swamp Alder ornament

Three Projects

I will sometimes make a project that includes every aspect of turning for these reviews, but because Swamp Alder is only available in small chunks, I decided to make three separate small pieces:

• Chess pawn
• Wooden wine goblet
• Small bowl

1. Chess Pawn

I chose to make another chess pawn like the one I made as an experiment because it demonstrates the level of fine detail I can achieve with this wood. It will chip or tear out if you aren’t careful, aren’t very skilled, or your tools are not sharp. On the other hand, it is possible to get good results.

There are limits to the level of detail, and this piece is a good example of what can be consistently turned. At some point, when I have enough time, I will turn an entire set of pieces out of Swamp Alder. I don’t expect to sell them, however, because the work is time-consuming, and I don’t have a hope of competing with repeating lathe equipment—I would have to charge too much. Making your own set would be a cool project, though.

Wine Goblets turned in Swamp Alder.

2. Wine Goblet

I intentionally pushed the limits of my skills with this project. This goblet stands a full eight inches high. No supports were used when hollowing out the cup portion of the goblet. I carefully hollowed it out with gouges while my inexpensive lathe chuck held the blank firmly. I used tailstock support to do the spindle work for the outside of the cup, stem, and base. I was very pleased with the results. It sold very quickly.

Swamp Alder Bowl

3. Small Bowl

Making a blank big enough to turn a bowl required a bit of work with the table saw. I was able to laminate enough stock together to turn an eight-inch shallow bowl. I turned the outside first on a faceplate and then reversed it onto my lathe chuck to turn the inside. I used my gouge to hollow it out with a supported shearing cut riding the bevel of the tool.

A word of caution: I had to be careful not to tear out the grain. I had the moisture content almost perfect and a very sharp tool. Like the goblet, it turned out beautifully and sold quite quickly.

To date, I have not done a lot of bowl turning with Swamp Alder, but that is only because it takes quite a bit of effort to make a bowl blank, and there are so many small items that it is perfect for.

Final Assessment: Swamp Alder

In my opinion, Swamp Alder scores four and a half stars.

It is not excellent, but it is better than just good. With sharp tools and good turning skills, you can turn just about whatever you want out of it. That doesn’t make it ideal or appropriate for every project. Other factors come into play. Generally, I make my finials and very small items out of readily available wood that rates five stars for turnability.

It does have other redeeming qualities that do not affect turnability.

Color

For one, it has a nice reddish color, which is not far off the color of cherry before it darkens with age. The open-grain patterns can be quite attractive. If part of the tree dies and dries out without rotting, a very interesting two-tone color can appear. It’s rare, but two of the items I made from it sold very fast.

Laminating

It glues together really well, so if you want, you can laminate it together to make larger projects. I will be exploring this more in future projects.

Stainability

It takes a stain well. I make hair sticks and sell them on Etsy. The walnut-stained sticks could pass for walnut. I offer several other colors as well. I do not misrepresent the wood. I prefer wood in its natural color, but I can see where I would stain part or a whole project, especially if a customer requested it.

Drying

Finally, Swamp Alder is not very prone to cracking while it dries. I routinely set branches and larger pieces by the wood stove to dry sufficiently for turning, and they rarely crack. Most of the other hardwoods in the bush where I live will crack, starting at the pith, if I do that. For that reason, Swamp Alder has become one of my go-to choices for small projects.

Swamp Alder crab mallet

Final Note

This review is my opinion based on my experience. There are a lot of factors that can affect results, including how well I sharpen my tools, the speed at which I turn, and the moisture content of the wood. I have done my best to base my opinion on the results and make this as useful as I can to any of my readers.

With all my wood reviews, I try to be as complete as possible. I usually turn three items so that I can evaluate spindle turning, face turning (bowls), and end grain turning. I try to do projects that will show the grain and others that demonstrate the level of detail that can be achieved.

I value respectful comments on my work here and additional information or experience. It may even lead to me making adjustments to this written article.