A Little Upcycle

A week later than planned, due to the car radiator letting go on the way home from work one evening. Bearing in mind my car is a grey import, and parts are sometimes difficult to get or expensive, I was very surprised. Import Car Parts supplied the radiator, ordered Tuesday – delivered Thursday – for £79. I have dealt with this company before, and have always had great prices and service. A friend had a bill to the tune of £220 for a Vauxhall Astra radiator recently, so I think I got off lucky.

Anyway, back to the turning. A book I have called “Woodturning: A Foundation Course” by Keith Rowley advises practice with cheap DIY store pine. The premise is, if you can get a good finish straight off’f the tools with pine you can turn pretty much any wood.
I find this to be pretty accurate, and have turned many things from pine. As a bit of a challenge, I decided to push myself and turn something from a broken scaffold board I have had sitting around for ages.

This was ripped down one side, to provide a stem, then cut into 6″ squares. I cut the corners off to bring it closer to round, before mounting it on the lathe.

The stem part was turned between centres. This part was turned almost excluseively with the skew chisel. I didn’t measure anything, other than the tenons on the end where it would connect to the base and crown. The rest was estimated and done by eye.

There was a nasty knot in one end, but I managed to turn that away. Some sanding sealer and a couple of coats of wipe-on polyeurethane lacquer sealed it, before some wax and a polish.
The base is around 5¼” in diameter, and had a really nasty crack along the grain.

This was filled with copper powder and CA glue before being sanded, sealed, lacquered and polished.
Likewise, the crown was turned to around 5¼” in diameter. This piece had some nasty cracks too. Some were glued, and the worst were filled with copper powder and CA glue. I also turned it away underneath to keep it light, in order to balance the weight when in use. We don’t want it to be top-heavy.

I did not photograph the underside however. You will just have to take my word for it.
Finally the entire piece was assembled. A wig stand.

Despite being a wee baldy bugger, I don’t have a wig to try it out.
The finished item will be parcelled up and sent to a fellow turner, who will be staging a sale in aid of a charity supporting breast cancer.
Once I find out when the sale is, I will let my faithfull reader-ship know. You can then all contact the seller if you see anything you like. It’s for a great cause.