A neibour gave me a tree trunk last autumn,and asked if I`d make them a Japanese style totem pole,was putting it off,and was getting nagged about it,so finally made a start about 2 1/2 weeks ago,had a mishap with the skew,(see other topic about that),so this week had another go at it after looking up Japanese totm poles on Google,was surprised to find lots of pics of them all brightly coloured.This is my interpretation of one of these,neibour is over the moon with it.I cut the trunk into 35" sections,as I have a jet 3520B lathe,but it isn`t 35" between centres with the live talstockthingy(names gone completely out of my head,must be going senile),with the headstock and tailstock at the stops,theres about 32-33" between centres,so had to drill holes in the ends of the wood till it fitted (had to remove tailstock put wood in then put it back again),there were 4 35" sections and a 24"(or so) at the pinnacle,about 2"(or so) was lost at each joint,the base piece was plain turned with a couple of rings at the top,the next was turned with a couple of rings at the bottom then a fish a bear and an owl,next section was a Japanese type figure,he lost his arms as that was where the dig in was,next was a smaller Japanese figure with an eagle above,the top section is just sort of flagpoly,heres the pic,cheers,Eric.
