banana

[willstewart]

Not original or that remarkable but a bit of fun for a club (Tudor Rose) competition for 'a piece of fruit' (it did win a prize!).

For anyone who has not seen this the process is to turn a toroid (from beech in this case) with the appropriate cross section which is then cut radially into 3, of which this is one segment.  Then use a jig to hold the piece on a chuck to turn the ends.  This gives tapered but round cross section ends (unlike an actual banana where the 4/5 sided section persists towards the ends) so some further shaping is needed - in my case using a small diameter (50mm) drum sander mounted on the lathe.  Note that the drum sander is also useful to smooth the inevitable rough inner edge on the detached toroid.

[Bill21]

Nice job. I’ve seen a yellow wood species somewhere that would be ideal for Bananas.

[willstewart]

Thanks!  And mulberry wood is bright yellow and I do have some from a tree cut by a family  neighbour, albeit not enough for bananas I think.  And the yellow colour darkens fairly quickly to orange on exposure (which I suppose bananas do too!).