Turning a Sphere into an Octahedron

Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers
Ninth New England Woodturning Symposium

Saturday May 12, 2018
Pinkerton Academy in Derry, NH

Mike Foster
Turning a Sphere into an Octahedron

I will show how to turn a sphere using the shadow method.  I will cover a bit of the basic math used mark out the blank to quickly get the wood to a shape near round, then turn the result using cup centers on the headstock and tailstock to create a sphere using the shadow method without a jig.

The resulting sphere will be marked for 8 centers that will then be used to turn the sphere between centers to create an octahedron.  During the demo I will explain how I expand on the technique to create a number of geometric forms and show some examples of the results.