(Adan) More playing with the lathe: I went down this morning and made a quick little cup out of the stump left over from the second top I made (day before yesterday). These tops and cups are fun and simple. My turning skills are pitiful at best, but hey: good enough for these little joys!
The turning process is pretty basic. At the moment I'm trying to just get the feel of things without going crazy and trying all the tools. As such, I'm using only a parting tool, skew, and scraper. Any self-respecting turner is groaning in pain upon reading that, I'm sure... but it's a start. I'll learn, just need a little time.
One first: this time, before boring out the hollow of the cup, I used a drill to cut a 1/2" hole in the middle. This makes the boring much easier, since you're not messing around with the zero-velocity nibs in the middle. This was previously impossible, though, as we had no tailstock chuck. Yesterday, however, I purchased a MT2 (Morse Taper #2) compatible keyless chuck... and then today, impatient for that to arrive, I researched and found our drillpress already has an MT2 taper on its chuck! So I knocked the chuck out of the drillpress and slapped it onto the lathe. Happy times ensued. There's something truly fascinating about watching a non-rotating drillbit draw curly chips out of a spinning workpiece.
So that was a little video showing the newer of the two tops spinning in its cup. The cup really isn't an ideal place for the top, but it does make some interesting wobble patterns! What do you think?