2 Ways to Turn a Sphere

On the surface, turning a sphere appears to be straightforward. After all, lathes make things round, right? Well, turning a perfect sphere can be a tricky endeavour. When I was asked to turn the sphere for the weathervane on page 28, I thought it would be fun to try a couple of different techniques.

SHADOW TURNING

The technique I used is called shadow turning. And while it sounds like I may be using some long-lost Kung-Fu woodturning technique, it’s really quite simple.

The shadow turning process requires a little set up. In short, you suspend a powerful light above your lathe, and use it to create a shadow of your workpiece on a platen. On the platen, you print out a “target” of what you want to turn. In this case, that’s a perfect