Multicenter Lathe Statue: A Experimental Test Project

Some time ago I decided to try Multicenter Wood Turning or as some write Multi-Center Turning. I'm not good with hyphens... I think If I ever get around to blogging about English Grammer it would definaiely be
filed in complaints. Anyway I wanted to try multicenter turning because it looked like a fun thing to do and figuring out how to turn something on a lathe using multiple set ups so the axis of rotation changes with each set up seemed fun. Especially considering that the work is off balance the entire time. Another thing I like to do is not spend money so rather than buying a nice big piece of wood that didn't have any knots I cut op various pieces of scrap and glued them together to make a bigger piece. I use this lamination technique often because it tends to create interesting patterns in the wood. So I glued it all up into a relatively flat piece then cut that piece at odd angles, drilled holes into the lamination and inserted wood dowel pins with more glue.

After letting it dry overnight I mounted it onto my home made lathe mandrel. I thought that the piece was a little short so I glued a couple more pieces of scrap wood on the end (right side in picture). The wood is a mix of redwood from a deck my neighbor cut up and shipping pallets from work. I had no particular shape in mind when cutting the wood and gluing it up because I wasn't even sure that this was going to work. Sometimes when you try to make something look a particular way it becomes obvious that you have produced a crappy piece of work when it doesn't look right. If you start out with the intention of creating 'beautiful free form art' you can end up with pure crap when you are done but it's 'art' so no matter how crappy it is that's OK - takes the pressure off!