The turning club I'm a member of, Silicone Valley Woodturners, has what
is called The President's Challenge. Each month, participants must
bring
a piece they turned that month which has the first letter of that month
somehow associated with it. The association can be quite obvious, or
quite obscure - the latter sometimes stretched to the limits of
credulity. The rule of thumb seems to be that if you can state the
connection - with a straight face, no smiles or outright laughter
permitted, the piece is accepted as meeting the criteria, though
groans and guffaws from the judges is allowed.

So - for July I got the idea to turn not just one Jug - the obvious
idea, but a group of jugs, out of walnut, clara walnut which happens
to have the scientific name Juglans californica. That got me to
two Js. I prefer odd numbers. So - having previously made a forray
into adding actual movement to a turned piece, using articulated
joints (ball and socket) and springy piano wire of different sizes,
I decided to try adding Jiggling.

The jugs are obviously of walnut, the "corks" are actually olive.
The real challenge was to drill holes in the top of each "cork"
and in the bottom of each jug for the piano wire - the largest
diameter being just under 0.06", the smallest something around
0.02"

Now my drill press chuck won't go down that small, nor with my
tale stock jacobs chuck or even my flex shaft chuck. Fortunately
the hand cranked drill I picked up at an estate sale, got close
enough. I've got a jeweler's pin vise around somewhere that'll
go that fine easily - but finding it would've take way too much
time.

Attached is a still photo of Jiggling Juglans Jugs. Not the most
aesthetic forms, certainly not turned to perfection or finished
to a fair thee well - but they'll get me one step closer to meeting
the year long President's Challenge.

Anyone in a club with a monthly challenge? If so care to describe
it and show a pic of your favorite?

charlie b

Though I turned seven jugs for this piece, I could only get 5
to work in a semi stabile way. But a little shake of the middle
jig sets the column jiggling nicely. The "corks" are slightly
tapered, allowing for some adjustment for centering the column.
THAT was merely a coincidence, and a very handy coincidence
at that. Hand drilling straight and square no two axis is not
trivial to do.