Turning Wood.: A Special Easter Project

So Easter is coming, the time of Hot-Cross buns and chocolate eggs and bunnies. Nothing is nicer than biting off the ears of a chocolate bunny, and if this bunny lives in a wooden egg until Easter morning then what could be better? This project took about 5 days to complete, mainly working only a few hours each night. The wood came from a vendor in Indiana, and was very dry, this makes for very dusty turning.

So first get a nice piece of spalted Ambrosia Maple and mount between centers.

Then while it’s still between centers I roughed out the shape of the complete egg. At this point I discovered little worm holes running right through the center of the block right at the top of the egg. So this meant I had to shorten the pointy bit of the egg a lot more than I would have liked.

Also the rest of the turning is done in a chuck so it’s important to turn the recesses for the chuck to hold now on both sides while it’s still between centers.

OK, so then after it’s separated and mounted in the chuck, if it’s done right then the egg should turn true. Normally it (for me at least) it’s not quite true and needs a bit of centering.

While it’s still one piece I got he the final shape of the outside of the egg, and did some sanding down to 400 grit sand paper. It’s much easier to make sure the outsides will match if you can as much as possible to them before separating.

Now we have two parts of the egg and it’s time to clean out the insides, this is just like making a bowl, so nothing special there. Each part is mounted in the chuck and hollowed out.

Even though the parting tool used to split the egg was quite narrow, only about 1/8” , it still caused the outsides of the egg to not match exactly. So while the parts still have the chuck recesses on them we mount the two parts together, one in the chuck and the other held against it using a live center in the tail stock.

You can just make out the line in the following picture. While it’s held like this I sanded down the outside again ensuring the edges matched.

Next is to separate the egg from the chuck, doing this its almost impossible to get a good clean cut on the very point of the egg. The tools are working a long way from the rest and right close to the chuck and at right angles to the grain, all things that mean the cut will not be clean.

To fix the tops of the eggs we have to make a “Jam Chuck” out of some old scrap wood. I like to use some soft Sugar Maple for this because the wood is very some and you can really “Jam” the piece on to it without much fear of it damaging the piece.

Then once it’s firmly held in place, if it’s done correctly, the egg should turn true. In this case I was glad to turn the lathe on and feel the piece running smoothly under my fingers. So on to some final shaping of the profile and then sanding down to 600 grit paper and some buffing. It needed a simple stand so I quickly turned one out of some left over cherry. Here is the finished egg hot off the lathe.