how to cut 3d wood tumbling bowls what size are the blocks

After looking through some other blogs here on LJ and watching some Youtube videos I thought that the tumbling block cutting board was something that looked challenging, cool and something I wanted to try. I learned some good ideas from these other blogs and wanted to share some of my experiences having now made three of these, my setbacks and discoveries to improve produce these tumbling cake patterns.

I purchased a Wixey digital angle guess as it looked like y'all really needed to be accurate with cutting. I kickoff started off checking that my table saw blade was 90 degrees to the table with a machinist'due south foursquare. I then prepare the Wixey gauge to zero so 30 degrees.

I made a 30 caste tabular array sled to safely and accurately cutting the wood strips. The jig outset started off 30" long with three toggle hold downward clamps…that would change as my procedures evolved. One time again, information technology is imperative that the sloped edge is exactly 30 degrees to the table.

After making the sled I tested information technology out on a small pieces and measured them and they looked great. I tested them further past cut one long plank each of the iii different woods (cherry, maple and black walnut) and checked how they fit together and it was a dainty tight fit. I saved those examination pieces and went out to purchase enough of the three wood colors for a cutting board.

I so got in "production" mode to cutting all of the blanks and got devil-may-care. The first affair I did was to thickness airplane each plank to the same thickness, so I know they'll all be consistent. I cut the blanks 30" long and I wasn't paying too much attending to how the blank was seated in the sled. As a result of this, I wound up with pieces that weren't all 30 degrees and they were basically firewood! You tin see how they didn't fit and I before long after adamant that the blanks were non seated properly in the sled. I needed to move the clench contact with the blank further abroad from the slope to put pressure level straight downwards where the gradient bending wouldn't compression and skew the bare abroad of 30 degree gradient. Past simply making that adjustment and by reducing the length of the jig to xx" with 2 toggle hold downs I was able to cut these accurately and repeatable for a larger quantity.

So with simply 1 ready of accurate cuts that I made for the examination cuts, I redesigned the cut board and made a coaster set until I came back from vacation and could purchase more than wood. I previously posted this project:
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/91088

Now that I had the technique to accurately cut the blanks, I went out again to purchase more woods and I was ready to roll once once again. Every bit before, I thickness planed each plank to the same thickness, so they would all be consistent.

The cut went well and I had 17 blanks of each wood color.

With all of the blanks cut I started checking the thickness measurements. In order to become perfect looking cubes, each side of the diamond shaped blanks had to exist equal measurements. Then with my digital calipers, I measured the various edges.

I noticed that there were some small variances on them. I numbered the edges so I could go on things straight as I started the sanding process of over fifty blanks. I setup my pulsate sander to get each aeroplane thickness to exist identical in length. Non only within each blank is this necessary to go the perfect 30 caste diamond shape, but for all of the blanks to be the same exact measurements to each other . It is of import to run ALL of the pieces through the sander on the appropriately numbered edge Before adjusting the drum sander thickness or switching to the other plane. (border 1 and 3 are on the same plane the border 2 and 4 are on the same plane) Again, consistency betwixt each blank is critical for accurate fitting on later.

I then painstakingly taped each outside exposed edge with painters tape (2 out of the four sides) so that no glue would squeeze out onto them….that's over 100 edges.

The reason for this was that I took such care to make certain each edge and plane was symmetrical in the diamond shape that I didn't want to have to scrape or sand any gum that squeezed out during the clamping process onto a live edge which could slightly change those dimensions or angles when removing the gum.

Afterward all of the blanks were taped on two sides I began the glueup process. I used Titebond III which seems to be the glue of choice hither on LJ for cutting boards because of its waterproof properties. I used some thick safety bands I bought at an office shop to serve every bit clamps and provide even pressure all the way around the logs. I doubled upwards on each rubber band to make sure they were extra tight. This wound up working out great.

When the mucilage had dried I removed the glued upwards rubber bands and cleaned the bands upward from the excess glue squeeze out that caked on them pretty good so I could use them again on the rest of log glueups. Removing the tape from the glued up logs revealed a very clean log ready to slice into cube looking pieces.

The first 30 degree rip cut yous make on a starting plank of forest is basically scrap, because the initial border is xc degrees, only it does serve a purpose; that of an angled back back up extension of my miter judge. I didn't take any live pictures of the slicing, only this after shot gives your the idea. I cut these on my bandsaw which has a smaller kerf than my tabular array saw and I was concerned about getting the well-nigh pieces out of each log trying to make 3 complete cutting boards.

I also numbered each slice from each of the 17 logs, so if there were some colour variations between the various pieces of wood within the same species, I could identify that and group them together to expect visually appropriately.

After all of the slices were cut, I hand sanded each edge to remove the fuzzies and tearout from the cutting process. Practice this lightly and only to remove the fuzzies, you don't want to get aggressive with this and alter the integrity of the angle or 90 degree edges. In one case that was washed, I had to tackle the bodily board glueup.

On the first lath, I wasn't quite certain of the glueup method. Having some experience with intarsia, I used a similar blazon of procedure. I beginning dry fit the entire board, making certain the colour variations were laid out in a sensible style. I then taped the top side joints together to encounter how the fit was. It fit pretty expert, only not dead on perfect.

So I started gluing the pieces from one corner gluing a few blocks at a fourth dimension across until I had two full length rows. I noticed a slight bow to the initial 2 rows, but it wasn't likewise major so I continued on.

I then used these outset two rows as a clench support to gum in more pieces at a time and rubber bands to hold downward the terminal row.

I wound up using a clamp for each piece (I just have half dozen of them) and once the glueup became larger than 12" I ran out of hand grip clamps to practise the chore, then I had to utilise very large Bessey clamps and/or oversized rubber bands I bought at a big box office store.

The trouble with this method was that I didn't use a straight or square reference for the first pieces and they were slightly off which exponentially increased with each successive layer. Then, even though the initial first row was but off less than ane/xvi", by the time all 8 rows in the height were glued up, they were off well-nigh 3/16". As well because of this, some of the joints weren't perfect due to the fact that the first row was out of perfect alignment and I took most of the pieces in the successive rows to my disk sander on my sanding station and changing the angles slightly to fit slice past piece…this was painful and unnecessary looking back at it. The alignment issue became apparent when I cut the board to a rectangle and the pattern which should have been parallel and perpendicular along with the tumbling cake pattern, merely it had deviated about three/16" over the xiii" or and so height of the rectangle. The board too had some small gaps that I filled up with glue. Filling those and sanding them down was too very fourth dimension consuming. This method besides required a lot of clamps and I could only gum up 6 pieces at at time which took a lot of fourth dimension.

Still being said, the board looked cracking, the average person looking at it wouldn't have even noticed these issues, just I strive for perfection and I had some ideas afterward lath #i glueup which I'll depict below after I walkthrough completing this kickoff board.

I purchased a magnificent slice of Cocobolo to use for the border/gravy moat. It was 12×24×1.75. Information technology was nearly an inch likewise brusque in the 24" to use solid bordered pieces and miter them together…a big mistake. So I wound upwardly cutting the Cocobolo into small blocks to emulate the width of the cubes in the tumbling block pattern design. I also kept the end grain orientation on the borders pieces as well. I glued those up into 4 strips, mitered them to a perfect fit and then glued them to the board. I did wipe down each Cocobolo glued edge with acetone as I read it helped to create a ameliorate glue bond with the oily characteristics of Cocobolo.

I didn't take any pictures of milling the borders, but here'due south what I did and why. I fully intend on using this any other cutting board I brand and I don't empathise why people would want a board without a gravy moat…cut any meats/poultries on it would brand a huge mess otherwise.

I built a set of plywood guides (both the inner perimeter and outer perimeter leaving a .75" gap for the router bit) to router out the gravy moat accurately with a dish etching bit. I attached the inner perimeter guide to the cutting board with double sided tape. I built up with some scraps on an outer shelf equal to the exact height of the cut board to deed as a back up extension around the outer perimeter of the cutting board to and so attach the outer perimeter router guide pieces of bit forest. If I didn't do this I would only have about .375" to attach the outer perimeter guide onto the board and it would failed and moved.

I then routered out some finger holds on each side border with the aforementioned dish carving flake. I had to exist conscientious to establish a safe depth of cut not to interruption through the gravy moat which was .25" deep. I then knocked off all of the hard edges with a standard roundover fleck. I sanded up to 220 being certain to not close up the terminate grain pores going finer. I wiped on quite a few coats of mineral oil and then attached some rubber feet with some stainless steel screws and I was prepared for the large Thanksgiving meal.

Later on cutting 40 lbs. of turkey and 12 lbs of tenderloin over an 60 minutes and 15 minutes, I gave this lath a thorough workout and it was soaked corner to corner and all through the moat. Y'all tin see the afterward shot when all of the carving was complete.

I soonafter began to find that Cocobolo border was cracking in several of the joints where glued to each other…not where glued to the tumbling block rectangle.

Unfortunately, to save the board I cutting off the borders and substituted a solid walnut edge. I milled it in the same manner as earlier with the gravy moat, finger holds and eased edges and I also added a multi-laminated spline using my new spline cutting jig.

I notwithstanding have to exam the new edge with a thorough soaking of meat juices. After I practise this, I'll follow upward to this web log.

However, afterwards the first board glueups, I desire to make certain I walk through the meliorate method I developed while going up the learning curve. I didn't accept whatsoever pictures while doing this live, only I did take some shots with some scrap leftovers to illustrate the technique. I was able to keep the deviation to about a 1/32" over the 13" summit, which I'1000 very happy about.

The key here is to commencement off with a perfect straight edge to clamp against on two sides and clamp an unabridged row at a fourth dimension. The initial row is of grade the most important to setup correctly. One time that is done accurately, the successive rows just kind of fit into identify like a puzzle…in other words, you don't have to exercise that much extra work if it starts off accurate in the initial row.

When clamping the initial row between the two straight edges I used 3 Bessey clamps being sure to evenly apply the clamping pressure and used straight edge materials where the Titebond III glue wouldn't stick to. You lot want the force per unit area plenty to crusade the glue to squeeze out, but not too tight to bow up the pieces. I besides used a mitt squeeze clamp to apply slight pressure beyond the row. Information technology is important not to brand this clench too tight in that excessive pressure level could buckle the row up in the z axis. The pieces need to stay flat on the bottom surface. I likewise put a sheet of wax paper underneath the glueup for easy removal between layers. Of note here was I simply needed the same four clamps to mucilage upwardly the entire board, not the mess of clamps used with my initial method. The clamps also stayed in the exact aforementioned position, only opening upwards larger to accommodate each new row.

Also a very of import detail is to carefully and fully scrape out the glue squeeze out in all of the joints in one row before laying in the next row. If any dried up glue is leftover in the exposed articulation, it could touch the accuracy of the side by side piece to fit into that infinite. I happened to take a 30 degree angled insert that fit into my scraper and I too use a flat edge scraper to accomplish this.

I promise this helps accept out some of the mystery of how to make these tumbling block boards. I learned a lot in making these three boards and hopefully I can accept success with the borders. I know that the wood moves when taking on wet and getting thoroughly soaked after usage, but I still similar the idea of a dissever looking border/gravy moat. If this proves to be a problem on my gear up, my futurity cut boards volition but exist larger in both dimensions with the cake design and I'll skip the different border birthday and merely rout a moat in through the cake pattern itself.

A few more of the finished pictures are on my project page:
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/95455

Thanks for making it through this long winded blog and I hope this inspires others to give information technology a attempt!

-- ---Joel; Central MD...rookie empter nester and getting back into woodworking!

pridhampationol.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.lumberjocks.com/jfk4032/blog/39386

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