Most of our segmented turning projects only use a small amount of fluid , therefore this much fluid in a two ounce syringe lasts for quite awhile, is very convenient and keeps air away from the liquid.

With the sanding sealer I use to put on a pair of disposable gloves and apply the sanding sealer with a paper towel. This used about 4 or 5 times more sanding sealer than I needed and I had saturated paper towels to dispose of, which are loaded with fumes and a potential fire hazard and shop. With a syringe applicator I put on the gloves and apply the sanding sealer to the spinning piece. I only need my glove to apply the sealer and no brushes or paper towels to deal with.

Leftover segments?

Segments left over? Combine them with shop scraps and make trivets or cup holders. Turn them round on the lathe or use the router to give them a fancy edge.

Great gifts from the shop!

This center hole will help when you reverse the piece to work on the bottom. The center hole will locate the center of the piece for the live center of the tail stock.

The centering fixture shown uses a screw with the head cut off and then sharpened. When you insert this through the face plate and into the center hole, the face plate will be centered in your work piece.

Here’s some information from Colin:

All my adult life I have enjoyed working with wood and have built a wide range of things from cottages, to furniture to toys. I get great satisfaction in taking the raw trees trunks and branches and using them to create various things of beauty. What I like about woodturning is it gives me the opportunity to transform these local woods into unique works of art thereby recycled the wood and bringing new life to it. My segmented works open up even more opportunities to express myself by combining different woods to create interesting patterns to compliment my vessel shapes. Being a self taught woodturner I continue to explore new techniques to enhance and improve my work and have recently added metal spinning to my bag of tricks.

OPEN SEGMENTED TURNING

In open segmented turning, there are gaps left between each segment. This technique leaves many small holes or “windows” in the final form. There many tricks for open segmented turning and lots of specialized jigs and tools to help. If you are interested trying open segmented turning, I highly suggest you take a look at the book Segmented Wood Turning by William Smith for lots of great information on turning open segmented projects.

Colin Delory was born in England and emigrating to Canada as a pre-teen. He was educated in Winnipeg and spent 38 years as a project engineer and engineering manager in the telephone industry in both Manitoba and BC. On retiring in 1997, Colin took up woodturning and is currently a member of the American Association of Woodturners, the Fraser Valley Woodturners Guild and the Greater Vancouver Woodturners Guild.

Digital Angle Gauge
Read precise angles in seconds! Built-in super strong magnets securely attach the gauge to a saw blade so you can quickly and easily set the bevel angle to 0.1° resolution. Works great for miter saws and table saws, plus set the angle of jointer fences and band saw tables. Zero button calibrates the gauge to any reference surface. Range is +/- 150°. Includes 3.0V battery. Digital Angle Gauge

Stock Center Finder Works quickly and accurately… Stock Center Finder

Segmented Peppermills by Dick Fuller

Here’s Dick’s Bio from his website:

My name is Dick Fuller and I live in North Augusta, SC. I retired from the Air Force in 1974 and the Federal Aviation Administration in 1990. I built my woodworking shop in 1984 when I moved to this location. I have been interested in woodworking since I took a class in junior high school. In the past few years my interest has turned to woodturning. I am a member of the American Association of Woodturners and the Palmetto Woodturners of South Carolina. My wife, Nancy, is very supportive of my hobby as it is very expensive and takes up a lot of my free time. It seems every time I see a new tool I have to have it. I love to design and turn segmented bowls and vases. Of course I turn other things as well, such as peppermills, pens, Christmas ornaments and various things. I get great enjoyment gluing small pieces of wood together and turning them into pieces of art. I give the Lord all the glory for the talents he has given me and the ability to use them.

TheSegmentedTurner has yet to turn a pepper mill. The ones that Dick turned, pictured the left, are definitely an inspiration! I have added a few links to peppermill kits that I think we are going to try!

All of Dick’s pieces are for sale. If you see something you like and it has been sold, he would be glad to turn another one for you as close to the original as possible. Of course, as you know, each piece is different because wood grains, etc., are never the same.

CrushGrind Mill Mechanisms

Add a dash of spice to your turning with these innovative mill mechanisms! These innovative salt, pepper and spice mill mechanisms allow you to turn your own mill on the lathe! Each mill features a ceramic grinding mechanism and bottom-mounted locking grind adjustment knob. Snap-in fittings do not require the use of metal fasteners. Wooden turning blank not included. The Shaft 260 CrushGrind Mill Mechanism and Wood CrushGrind Mill Mechanism shown on left in photo above. The Wood CrushGrind Mill Mechanism only is shown in photo on right. CrushGrind Mill Mechanisms

Making a Peppermill - Focus on Design, DVD This DVD is a complete course on peppermill turning, with a strong emphasis on visual design elements. Ted Sokolowski takes you through the process, from template design and construction, to shaping, .. Making a Peppermill - Focus on Design, DVD

Salt Shaker and Peppermill Hardware Turn your own salt and pepper shakers and then install this hardware. Set includes stainless steel grinding mechanism and shaker top plus a rubber stopper. Grinder may be adjusted for coarse or fine p.. Salt Shaker and Peppermill Hardware

Stair Step by George Tamlin

I started turning bowls about two years ago. This past fall I felt that i would like to try segmented bowls. So I bought a book on open segmenting and learned what angles you need to cut. From there it was just doing. Being self taught I started with a bigger one. It is made from Walnut, Maple and a Cherry base.

The following pictures show how I do a bowl.

Step 1. I cut the pieces for the bowl.
Step 2. This is my first glue-up of pieces.
Step 3. Brings them together more.
Step 4. Brings the circles full circle and they are now ready to be put together and turned.
Step 5. They are all glued together and ready to turn.

The finished bowl is a piece I call Stair Step. I love turning wood because it is such a beautiful medium.

-George Tamlin

The bowl that was designed in the “Designing a Bowl” and “Designing a Bowl Using a PC” webpages is shown here. This project is intended for the beginning segmented woodturner.

I have attempted to show the photographic sequence of bowl construction steps with descriptions. There are many different techniques for constructing and turning a segmented bowl. This page shows the way I decided to make this bowl, but I might make the next one totally differently.

An inside view of the new bowl. It was completely finished on the inside.

This is the newly completed segmented bowl. It was made from maple and purpleheart with holly and blackwood veneer details. It was constructed from 12-sided frame-mitered rings, except for the base, which was a solid disk.

CUTTING SEGMENTS:

These nine maple and purpleheart boards were cut using the filled-out “Segmented Bowl Design sheet” from my “Designing a Basic Segmented Bowl Using a No Math Method” webpage (click here). Since maple is cheap, I decided to save time by cutting all the maple boards the same 22″ length, so there will be some maple scrap left. If I made the bowl entirely from expensive exotic wood, I would have cut the board length for each ring as per the Design sheet plus 1″.

This is the frame-miter table saw sled I used to cut all the segments for this bowl. The sled plans are found on another page on this website (click here). Before making any saw cuts I made sure that my table saw blade was perfectly vertical, which is very important.

Using the #2 ring segment board as an example, the first step construction step is to pencil mark one board face (as in the above photo) so the segmented ring can be assembled with each segment’s grain oriented in the same direction. Before cutting segments, I fully raise my table saw blade to keep from excessively cutting into the fence. The next step is to cut off the end of the segment board using the miter sled. Then, flip the segment board edge-for-edge for the next cut (and for each successive cut). Note that during a cut, there is a tendency for the saw blade to push the segment board to the left, making a wavy cut. Gluing a strip of fine sandpaper to the fence edge helps hold the board in place.

Using the Design sheet outer segment width for ring #2, mark the 1-3/8″ width dimension on the #2 ring segment board, as in the above photo. Align the mark with the fence sawcut. Butt the stop board against the segment board and clamp the stop board tight. Make sure there’s no chips or sawdust between the segment board and the stop board or fence. All 12 segments can now be cut. During the cut, the cutoff segment must be held tight against the fence and stop board. To prevent possible kickback, hold the cutoff segment tight until the saw blade has been fully withdrawn from the cut. Check for chips and sawdust after every cut. If holddowns are used, they should be used on both the segment board and cutoff segment.

This photo shows how the the 12 segments have been sequentially cut from the #2 ring segment board. This is not a normal construction step. Normally, I just cut each segment board and put the segments into individual piles. All the segment boards should be cut at this time.

All the segments boards have been cut into segments. I have loosely arranged each stack of segments into rings held with a rubber band. This is not a normal construction step. Note that the pencil marks on each segment are facing the same way (either up or down). I normally start gluing the segments as soon as I finish cutting them.

To show what all the segment rings look like at this stage, I have rubber-banded all the cut segments together and stacked the rings like they will look when glued. This is not a normal construction step. Note that each ring is turned 1/2 segment from the ring below it.

This is the waste wood left over from cutting the segments. Since maple is cheap, I had cut all the maple segment boards the same length of 22″. If I had made the bowl from exotic wood, such as cocobolo, I would have cut all the segment boards 1″ longer than the calculated Design sheet length.

This is part 1 of a multi-part tutorial on Turning a Segmented Bowl by Kevin Neelley. For more great information, visit Kevin’s Turned Wood site.

Segmented cherry vase number one

Segmented cherry vase number two

Segmented cherry vase number three

In this article we will show how to turn a segmented vase made of cherry wood. The three vases shown here were all constructed using the following segmented turning techniques.

Start with boards of the type of wood you would like to use. For these vases, we chose cherry. Of course you can mix and match different varieties wood and make patterns that range from very simple to extremely complex. For these examples we went with all cherry.

Before starting, lets’ establish some very important points-

Boards must be kiln dried and properly stored. Green wood is NOT a good idea. Becoming good friends with your local hardwood merchant is a VERY good idea.
The first step is to rip your boards to the proper thickness, width and length required by your plan.

Always cut the lengths longer then called out. You will need the extra length to cut out knots, blemishes, etc. It is also a good idea to have extra length boards for each of the species and for each of the board widths. This way if any of the segments are cut wrong or you find a blemish in one or more of them, you will then have extra board length already prepared to cut the extra needed segments.

Cut the width and thickness of the boards slightly oversize and then plane or preferably drum sand the boards to the precise dimensions of the plan.

In order for the segments to make up a perfect ring (no light showing thru the joints when dry fitted) it is absolutely required that the boards are perfectly straight, smooth and correctly proportioned.

When you are satisfied that your boards are ready it’s time to cut them into segments. In our experience, the table saw is the best tool for this job although we know others that use a chop saw. Whichever method you choose, setting the correct angles and keeping them consistent through the entire process is critical. Remember, even a small vase with

After careful preparation, boards are ready to cut into segments

10 rings and 12 segments per ring requires over a 120 highly accurate cuts! In order to build flat rings without voids at the joints, the segment angles need to be precise and the cuts must be 90 degrees to the top and bottom of each segment.

When you’ve finished your cuts, check the segments and remove any saw fuzz or splinters from the saw. Often the saw is not sufficiently precise and it is best to use a sanding disk and guide fixture to tweak the segments.

Cut segments ready to be assembled into rings

The ring should sit flat on a flat surface. If the ring is slightly conical (the center is higher or lower than the edges) then your saw or sander needs to be adjusted so that the cut edges are 90 degrees to the top and bottom surfaces of the segment. After the glue is dried the ring needs to be cleaned up and at least one side flattened.

Segments glued and clamped

Segmented rings glued to each other

The sequence of pictures to the left shows the process of gluing the disks together prior to mounting on the lathe, and also gluing additional disks onto the stack of disks already mounted on the lathe. Because this series is a composite of three different vases, the pictures show a couple of different methods of attaching the pieces to the lathe.

In some of the pictures a waste block is glued onto the bottom of the piece and the waste block is held by the chuck. The other method uses a homemade face plate glued onto a waste block and threaded onto the lathe.

Segmented rings attached to lathe

The first vase pictured at the top of the series is an experiment that has worked out nicely, so far. There is no glue holding the segments together in the individual rings. I clamped each ring solidly and checked to make sure that I could not see light through any of the joints.

Then I flattened one face on each ring and glued two rings together on the bench while they were still tightly clamped. Because the end grain joints in the two rings are offset from each other there is a considerable amount of side grain glue joints. After two rings are glued together and the glue is dry, the clamps can be removed and the set can be glued onto the piece.

When a ring is captured between two other rings there should be more than enough long grain glue joints to hold the piece together. In the top and bottom rings all of the segments are glued together, I feel this is necessary because the top and bottom glue rings are only glued to another ring on one side.

Your comments and questions are welcome!

Looking for a bigger challenge?

Segmented Turning might be your new love! But we won’t kid you, segmented wood turning requires a whole different level of patience, precision and time. Cutting and assembling the segments is extremely precise work and to achieve the best results it cannot be rushed.

For those of you ready to dive in, we have lots of information on this site to help you!

If you are just starting out, you may want to try our Segmented Turning Kits! We hope to have kits for sale very soon. In addition to complete project kits, we will have pre-assembled rings of different sizes that you can mix and match to create your own unique works of art.

We need your help! Please leave a comment and let us know what type of kits you would like us to make available.