When I first got my sprayer, I used to improvise, propping up pieces to be finished on all sorts of boxes, horses, and such. Recently I decided to bite the bullet and build a proper turntable. I’m not sure why I waited so long; it has made spraying much less onerous. My rig is based on a 12" lazy susan bearing sandwiched between two scraps of OSB. I made the bottom one square for stability, while rounding the top one to keep the corners from catching the hose as I spin the table. The overhang on this disk serves two purposes: it protects the bearing from overspray, and it allows me to rotate the table with my foot leaving my hands free to manipulate the gun and wrangle the hose. The table surface is another piece of OSB. It is connected to the base via two matching 3" PVC toilet flanges and a length of 3" PVC drainpipe. The pipe is just friction fit into the flanges so the height of the turntable can be easily adjusted by keeping a few different length pipes on hand. 

Chris Wand
Lafayette, Colorado

X-ray vision for turners

One of the challenges of turning hollow pieces is that you can’t see where the tip of the tool is as it is concealed inside the workpiece. To help me keep track of this, I mark my hollowing tools in two places with a Sharpie. First, I put a line at the top dead center (TDC) of the ferrule that helps me keep the tip from rotating out of the proper cutting position. Second, I put depth marks on the tool’s shank that let me know how deep I am in the piece. These are simply lines of alternating colors spaced every half inch. Before I start to hollow, I hold the shank beside the piece to give me an idea of how deep I want to cut. Then I monitor the depth by looking at the lines as I work.
Jim Kelly
Trappe, Pennsylvania