Making some pendant lampshades

I’ve been commissioned to turn a set of ash pendant lampshades and thought I’d post some photo’s of them being made. I've not tried anything like this before and they proved to be a very interesting project indeed.

I started the process a few months ago, by roughing out some sections of green ash. The final measurement of each pendant would need to be 20 x 30 cm, so they were quite heavy at this stage. After rough turning, I used a long auger bit to drill a hole right through the center of each blank. This would help the air to circulate and speed up the drying.

A piece of green ash rounded to the required shape...

The blanks prepared and drying, ready for the next stage...

When dry enough for finishing, they were mounted back on the lathe, but this time gripped by a chuck, from their base (or top, when hung from the ceiling). I would now have access to the open end and hollow out the wood from inside. I used a bowl gouge to do this and my Rolly Munro hollower for the areas that were difficult to reach.

Back on the lathe, ready for hollowing...

A central hole was drilled when they were rough turned - this helped to speed up the drying...

Making a start on the outside, having hollowed out the inside...

The final design required a 40 mm hole to pass right through the center of each pendant. Being so deep, I could not reach this with my tools, so had to use the drill press instead...

The final pendants after being coated with mineral oil – they are, of course upside down!

The same customer required a batch of 40 chair spindles. They started off as square sections of kiln dried sycamore mounted between centers on the lathe...

Turned to the required dimensions...

The completed order...