Polychromatic Ornament

[dry heat]

Polychromatic Ornament
In the current issue of woodcraft magazine Don Russell has an article on turning a Polychromatic Christmas tree ornament. In this article he describes cutting the wedges shaped segments on his radial-arm saw. I have a RAS but it’s an older Makita and don’t feel comfortable using his described method for cutting the segments. I have a right tilting Delta Unisaw and a good router table one of which I want to use to cut these segments. I’ve come up with a couple of methods for cutting them. The router will require a specific bit of the correct angle and making the second cut will be on a thin strip of wood. I think using the table saw will mean making a fence cut to match the first angle cut which also means working with thin wood strips. I believe it would be best to cut longer strips and then cut to final length for glue up. Any thoughts on how to make these strips in an easy and safe way?
Ed

[theeviltwinn]

Many ways to cut thin strips. Probably the safest is to use the off fall from a wide board. The only problem is to move the fence the exact same amount every time. But there are ways around this. For the Christmas ornament, I would use a board long enough to get all the segments out of one cut.

Twinn

[Angus]

without seeing the article it hard to know what the final ornament should look like so it's hard to suggest an easy way. With that said, from your description I would make a sled for the TS. For thin strips say 1/8 or less thick I would make a sandwich of scrap or mdf for the outsides with the project wood on the insides and saw them as needed. hot glue or even double sided tape would work. You would have to joint then rip the sandwich to width,

[Woodshop]

here he is holding the ornament
they are small segments. be careful.

[Gary G™]

Given the pic, I'd make an angled sled for the tablesaw like one might use to keep the blade at 90 degrees and cut raised panels.
The Sled rides in the miter slot and tilts the material.
I use one for mitered boxes.

[Arlin Eastman]

The first guy I seen do that is Ron Brown in his DVDs 4 years ago and I sure would like to learn how but it seems I never have the time anymore.

Arlin

[ihmserv]

I did a search for the article, it didn't show me the article but it did show the ornament.

it looks like the ornament has 20 segments of two colors of wood with a veneer in between each.
if this is so you saw tilt would be 360 degrees divided by 20 divided by 2. or 9 degrees.
cut strips aprox. 24 inches long, then run them thru the blade, flip the board and run thru again to get the segments. use the fence to make sure that all the segment strips are the same.
cut the segments to length so you have 10 of each, cut veneer pieces to match the size.
put the segments together to form a cylinder and hold together with rubber bands or hose clamps. check to see that you joints all line up. if they don't insert a small dowel between two opposing joints and all the rest will line up.
now take this group apart and add glue to the joints and insert the veneer. if using the dowels put tape on these surfaces to keep the glue off.
reclamp these pieces together.
once dry take the clamps and tape off sand the two surfaces and glue the two halves together, don't forget the veneer.

once dry, trim the ends and turn to final size and shape.

IAN

[pvwoodcrafts]

I cut the stakes for Judy's basket on the table saw all the time, some as thin as .056. Just have to make sure that your not standing behind the strip in case it wants to shoot out from a pinched blade. If saw is set up square it shouldn't be a problem but I always stand clear

[AHill]

Is there a pic somewhere of a finished ornament?

[dry heat]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I’ll try to be more specific in my request. This is a segmented ornament made somewhat along the line of a segmented bowl and just so I’m clear I have very little experience in turning segmented projects but the ornament this time of year intrigued me. If you have access to vol. 12/ Dec/Jan 16 issue of Woodcraft magazine it’s on page 22. I have a bit of experience turning and consider myself an intermediate woodworker. I have cut many thin strips for plywood edging and such but never something that had to be wedge shaped such as the segments for this ornament. Don Russell does have one picture of the wedges being cut on his RAW but I’m not sure that my saw, which is a Makita chop saw and is at least 20 years old is accurate enough to do this but I may have to give it a try just to see. These segments are thin at the narrow side of the wedge and I’m dubious of just running them through the table saw with a blade tilt and then turning the piece around and running it through again as the narrow edge resting on the saw table wouldn’t be very stable. The best method I’ve been able to develop is to cut enough strips for the project, at the right angle, making them long and a bit extra wide. Then make a shim for the table saw fence out of one piece of these strips and cutting the second edge at the same angle. This is similar (pix on page 23) to what Don did with his RAS. Also, I also think I might be able do this by using the miter guide, tilting the blade and cutting the segments off by flipping the board over each successive cut. Alan, if you go to woodcraftmagazine.com Dec/Jan 2016 you can find a picture of the ornament and get a better idea of all this. Thanks again everyone.
Ed