How to \'de grain\' wood???

[Shawn R. L.]

I might be doing some large cannon barrels and am considering doing them on a lathe with some kind of tight grained hardwood. I\'ve considered sanding, painting, sanding and painting or putting a thin coat of Magic Sculpt on the whole thing and sanding that smooth in order to remove the grain from showing.

Any good ideas on getting a smooth finish (I don\'t want/need glossy either) that aren\'t too hard?

 

[Undave]

If you\'re sticking them on a lathe you might be able to get the same shape using plastic instead of wood. Never having done it myself I\'m not sure how well it works and what type of plastic would be best to use. I hazily remember someone in my class lathing some PVC way back when I was doing my GCSE woodwork lessons. If it did work there would be no grain to worry about.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

I could do it in plastic but I wanted to avoid the fumes, toxic dust and cost.

 

[mattsterbenz]

You could try a lump of baked Sculpey.

Aside from that, maybe just make the piece on the lathe with wood, apply several thick coats of varnish, and then place back on the lathe and sand all the varnish off (leaving some varnish in all the cracks, making them smooth).

-Matt

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
I could do it in plastic but I wanted to avoid the fumes, toxic dust and cost.

And wood won\'t provide these? I made myself ill for a few days turning Laburnum. Didn\'t realise that the wood (and therefore sawdust) was as toxic as the flowers and fruit pods. (Serious Dumbass moment there. :redface

To be honest Shawn all wood will provide some grain when turned. The finest \"Grain Free\" turnings are achieved by hard sanding via Sanding Sealer and ultra hard finishes such as Friction Polish/Lacquer.

You can turn plastic ( I have) and it does make a mess, but you can achieve better results for smoothness of finish on this kind of material than you would for using wood. The only proviso I would make is that due to the more softer nature of the material the tools need to be sharper than normal otherwise it just becomes a Bl**dy scratchy mess.

I\'ve realised that I\'m talking about using my wood lathe here and have been assuming that you are intending to use the same. I do know that there are several small Machinists Lathes capable of turning very fine Aluminium gun barrels as just like This One.

 

[rextalon]

What\'s wrong with gesso?

It\'s pretty much MADE to do what you\'re wanting to do.

 

[diddy lemon1]

couldnt you use some form of plastic tube?

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
I could do it in plastic but I wanted to avoid the fumes, toxic dust and cost.

And wood won\'t provide these? I made myself ill for a few days turning Laburnum. Didn\'t realise that the wood (and therefore sawdust) was as toxic as the flowers and fruit pods. (Serious Dumbass moment there. :redface


Wasn\'t aware of toxic wood. Good to know. I know pressure treated wood is bad but this stuff you talked about I\'ve never heard of.

To be honest Shawn all wood will provide some grain when turned. The finest \"Grain Free\" turnings are achieved by hard sanding via Sanding Sealer and ultra hard finishes such as Friction Polish/Lacquer.

You can turn plastic ( I have) and it does make a mess, but you can achieve better results for smoothness of finish on this kind of material than you would for using wood. The only proviso I would make is that due to the more softer nature of the material the tools need to be sharper than normal otherwise it just becomes a Bl**dy scratchy mess.

I\'ve realised that I\'m talking about using my wood lathe here and have been assuming that you are intending to use the same. I do know that there are several small Machinists Lathes capable of turning very fine Aluminium gun barrels as just like This One.

I\'m thinking I will look for some plastic to do it with. I have a very small machine lathe (God bless my dear ol dad!!) and I\'m about to do a serious horsepower upgrade so I can turn metal easier. My brother has a wood lathe and a bunch of hardwood. The initial turning on the wood lathe makes it appealing but now on reflection, the work to fill in and degrain it could outweigh the benifits.

Here\'s a pic of the little lathe my dad sprung on me - \"hey son, c\'mon over, I got something for you\" I thought it was a book or something, he was so casual about how he worded it. It\'s about 35 years old and when he got it, right prior to giving it to me, it still was covered in that black wax stuff. I WAS SPEECHLESS!! It\'s a bit under powered but is real fun to use.

 

[squidders]

Many woods have nasty effects when worked, some make you ill, some give you cancer and some worse.

I would get some perspex and turn that, at worst you\'re going to just get some curly bits of perspex swarf to deal with.

 

[DocTommyG]

Just an idea

Why don’t you carve one cannon barrel out of wood and use that to make a silicon mold to form the cannon’s out of resin or some other material. I have a friend who makes models for Bandai and he carves shapes out of wood all the time to create shapes he needs and then makes molds out of the shapes. Just a thought and a way to avoid all of the toxic fumes and dust .

 

[Obar]

You can go to home depot and get some wood bondo. slather a thin coat of that on then turn it on your lathe with some sandpaper to smooth it out. I think it\'d be fairly quick and easy. Even if you turn plastic you\'re still going to have to sand it smooth to get all the tool marks out of it.

any bondo will do the trick but I know I\'ve seen some labeled specifically for wood at HD
BONDO

 

[airhead]

Shawn, turn the wood. Then soak it in thin superglue while turning slowly. Then sand with some very fine papers (400 wet & dry).

If you still see some grain, apply a small dab of wood putty/sanding sealier. Re-sand.

After you prime that, it should look very smooth and grain free.

***

Some woods are very toxic. We\'ve had surveyors get sick from hacking through oleander bushes to set a point. Just a scratch from one of the cut branche is enough to leave a large red whelt and can make you ill.

***

Nice little lathe. I believe that was designed for the custom wooden pen makers? Got a Woodcraft store nearby? Great place to get pen blanks, etc. Fake marble (plastic of some sort) should make a nice grain-free cannon.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

You\'all are the greatest. Thanx for the info. I\'ll show you the Uber results when they are done. Armorcast has a Mega Cannon and it will soon be an Uber Mega Cannon!!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by airhead
Nice little lathe. I believe that was designed for the custom wooden pen makers?.

Hmmn I think that\'s more of a Machinists/Metal lathe rather than a Wood lathe.
The fine control wheeland style of the cutting tool is more suggestive of that style of use.

Wooden pen Blanks generally get turned on a \"normal\" sized wood lathe with sepcific mandrels and chucks.
But what Kevin said about Resin/Synthetic blanks could be just what you are looking for Shawn. And what makes them easier to use is that you can polish the surface of the turned resin with \"Brasso\" to get the finish perfect.
I\'ve seen a magazine article where the turned turned Clear Perspex on a lathe , causing white scratch marks and used \"Brasso\" to return the perspex back to perfect clarity. Impressed the blazes out of me.

 

[Einion]

We used to use Brasso in plastics class back in school to help polish Perspex and cast resin DR, ah, memories!

Far as I know though it\'s not available in the US. But nearly any kind of cream polish can be used to polish things - stainless steel polish and rubbing compound will polish nearly anything that\'ll take a shine (including paints that dry hard). And for that final shine if you want to go that far you can move up to automotive glass polish, which has a very hard, very fine abrasive (good for finishing steel tools).

Many materials can also be polished just by using friction - denim is a very good polisher for hardened epoxy putty and superglue for example - and on a lathe cloth buffing can produce a great shine.

Einion