Wallhanging Tips

Background

I am fortunate to have a great friend who is also a machinist. When I mentioned I wanted to try my hand at turning a wallhanging from a badly uneven cut Red River Gum Burl Slab, he made an 18" faceplate for me and gave me some really fantastic commercial grade 1" thick plywood. The video below shows the that slab spinning after I did the hard part of rough turning a 37" slab that was more than 1-1/2" thicker on one side than the other. Unfortunately, not knowing whether the end result would be successful at the time, I did not have the foresight to chronicle the entire process. Suffice it to say, the roughing process was interesting.

Process

Unfortunately, when I started this project in 2010, the quality of my iPhone camera and video resolution were significantly less than my current iPhone 7 +. Nor was GoPro quality as good as it is now or even in my arsenal of tools at the time. So I think I will have to do another video chronicling the process from start to finish.

Being my first wallhanging project (and the slab VERY unbalanced), I did everything I could think of to secure the slab to the commercial grade plywood affixed to the 18" faceplate. I used double-sided tape and a heck of a lot of 1-1/4" and 1-1/2" screws. Trouble was, I was not sure whether that would leave me sufficient material in the end as one side of the slab was barely over 1/2" thick when I started. The opposite side was more than 2-1/4" thick. For what they're worth here are the few videos I took. Today, I would have my son video with his GoPro and Karma grip while I turn to show just how nerve wracking this piece was for a first-time project. It was a great learning experience.