Napkin rings, Plate XVII. To bring into use built-up work, and at the same time to make the napkin ring more ornamental, it is a good idea to glue up all stock for this problem, Fig. 31. The best woods to use are those which are hard and have a fairly close grain, such as rosewood, ebony, cocobolo, East India mahogany, etc. The utmost care must be taken in planing up the stock, to get each piece absolutely parallel, and where a symmetrical design is used, pieces of the same size should be exactly the same in thickness. Again, when starting to turn, the exact center must be located, otherwise the work will come out uneven.

Plate XVII.

Fig. 45.

Fig. 46.

Fig. 45 illustrates the turning of a napkin ring on an arbor. (a) Bore a 7/8" hole all the way thru the blank, and at right angles with the stock, (b) Turn a separate piece of wood between centers and about 5" long, to fit this hole snugly, having a very slight taper at the live center end. (c) Force the blank over this arbor and turn the design, (d) Sandpaper and finish. This will leave entirely too much wood around the hole. To cut this to the desired thickness, (e) a chuck must be turned to fit the outside of the napkin ring very tightly, and should set in about 1/4", Fig. 46. (f) Cut one end, (g) sandpaper and polish; then (h) rechuck the other end and finish.

When starting a napkin ring on a screw chuck, (a) bore a hole in the wood a little smaller than the screw, so that when the chuck is screwed in place, the wood will not split, Fig. 47. (b) Turn the blank to the design, (c) clean out one end and rechuck the same as above.

Fig. 47

Fig. 48. Face Plate - Bell Chuck - Screw Chuck.

In some schools, napkin rings are turned on a bell chuck, Fig. 48. The wood is first turned between centers to a diameter so that one end can be driven into the chuck. Held by this tight fit, the design is turned and one end hollowed out (as with the screw chuck), sandpapered and polished. The wood, in this case, must be long enough so that after cutting off the napkin ring, about 3/4" will remain for rechucking. It will be seen that in this case the rechucking is done from the inside, instead of the outside as with the other two methods. The greatest care must be taken to turn the chuck to fit the inside of the ring tight enough so that it will take hold, and yet not be a hair's breadth too large, otherwise the napkin ring will be split apart when forced in place. This method is not recommended by the author, as too often a napkin ring is split; besides it taking about 50% more valuable wood, whereas in the other cases, whitewood or common pine is used for a chuck, and the same chuck, if made out of thick stock and fairly large in diameter, can be used many times for various problems.

Plate XVIII.

Plate XIX.

Plate XX.