Since getting my lathe three years ago I’ve started a tradition of turning an ornament using the trunk of our family Christmas tree. Year one was a pretty but simple blobby thing. Year two was a bell, complete with a second little brass bell hanging inside. This year I wanted to try “inside-out” turning, a new technique I saw (of course) on the web. I quite like the way it came out, and the steps were interesting enough to warrant a quick post.
Christmas tree wood is pretty wet even after a month of sitting in the house, so I typically cut a few pieces and let them dry in the garage into the Fall at least. This is one of the hazards of being a collector of natural wood — my garage is packed so full of drying driftwood and winterfall that you can barely walk around in there.
Milling the blank
Anyways, step one was to mill out a rectangular blank just over 2×2” and long enough to give me plenty of room to work. It’s harder than you’d think to mill logs and branches into square lumber, because there’s no first straight edge to work from.
When the piece is small enough, my approach is to secure the piece to a straight board lengthwise with an edge sticking out, like the diagram here (looking end-on to the log). After getting a clean first cut I remove the screws, rotate the log so the flat part sits against the board, and do it again to end up with two flat edges in a right angle. At this point we’re golden and can just ride the existing straight edges to create square, parallel cuts. This all gets much harder when the piece doesn’t fit into my modest band saw, but that’s not an issue for a Christmas tree trunk, even a Grizwold-sized one.
First glue-up
I marked the blank end in four equal segments, adding notations so I could remember how they fit together. Then I cut the segments lengthwise on the table saw, and glued them back together with single ply of newspaper along the joints. This is a neat trick — after the first turning step we’ll have to break these glue joints apart. They have to be strong enough to hold firm during turning, but weak enough that they separate cleanly when we’re done. The layer of newspaper absorbs some of the wood glue and tears apart when we need it to.
It’s pretty important to do this glue-up accurately — the four pieces need to come together to a perfect point in the middle, or the edges won’t match up when you put them back together. You seriously can’t have too many clamps in a shop for this kind of job! Subtle hint: clamps make great stocking stuffers.
Turning the inside
Finally I was read to actually turn something! In this first step you’re hollowing out what will become the inside of the ornament, so it’s a bit of a mind-twist to visualize the right shape. I was trying for a pretty simple teardrop, so not too bad. The cuts can get pretty close to the middle, just leave enough meat that the piece isn’t unstable when reassembled.
Any finishing on the inside has to happen during this stage as well, because the surfaces will be pretty inaccessible once you flip them around. These ornaments are meant to help us remember past Christmas trees, so I like to leave at least some of the pine surface relatively natural. I sanded down to about 600 grit, did a bit of polishing with Yorkshire paste (love this stuff), and we were ready for the next step.
Second glue-up and turning the outside
OK, after breaking the sections apart with a wide chisel, I flipped them all around and re-glued them (no newspaper this time, it’s for keeps!) and clamped them up. Precision was even more important this time; I unfortunately had one edge slip and gap a bit — sawdust and glue and the final stain covered it up ok, but super-annoying nonetheless.
Back in the lathe, things went pretty well, shaping the outside to line up with the inside. I was a little worried there wouldn’t be enough space for the bottom taper I wanted, but as you can see below I just barely made it! (Another wood turning lesson — you never can have too much extra material.) I did this work at pretty high speed (about 1300rpm) to keep the open edges from catching and ripping; even so I had to be pretty light with the cuts to keep it all together.
Finishing, a near disaster, but then not
I really wanted a contrasting inside/outside for this piece, and thought a dark stain would look nice. Unfortunately, I chose walnut after looking at samples online — big, big mistake. Apparently “walnut” in this context means “clearly poop.” Such a bummer when things go south at the very last minute.
But it was OK. Took awhile, but I was able to sand off the ugly finish and redo it with my ever-trusty Unicorn Spit (check out their story, so awesome) and a few coats of spray enamel — a nice blue color that lets the grain come through in the sunlight. Woo hoo! The final result looks great on the Whidbey tree, and now I just have to figure out what to do next year. A fun tradition, although it might be a bit difficult to maintain if we follow through on the annual threat of a fake tree to save our allergies … we will see!
