Holiday ornaments are the kind of treasures that continue to bring smiles, long after you bestow them on family and friends. In fact, I’ll bet that every year when the decorations come out, hand-turned tree ornaments trigger fond memories, like little gifts that get opened over and over again!
Thanks to some new hardware kits from Rockler, you now can create festive baubles for a Christmas tree that will rival any you can buy, next page) can be used in tandem with any showy or exotic scrap wood you have on hand to create your little masterpieces. But I think it’s also the perfect complement to Rockler’s line of Acrylester 1½" x 1½" x 6" handle blanks, which come in a variety of vibrant colors and patterns. Because if you’re going to turn holiday ornaments, why not make them really dazzle on the tree, right? While two of the three kits shown above will require that you use a pen-turning mandrel to mount the turning blank between centers, the photo series on this and the next two pages will show you how to turn a simple orb-shaped ornament with a brass cap. That option doesn’t require a special pen mandrel, just the drive and live centers that already come with your lathe.
