Very Thin Ambrosia Maple Plate

I had one last piece of Ambrosia Maple from Kentucky.  It was only about 2 inches thick to begin with and it had warped, limiting the final size that was possible for the finished piece.  I was able to mount the face plate on the convex side of the blank and proceeded to round the edges and then flatten the bottom of the piece to create the divot for reverse chucking the blank.

Once the piece was flat the available material was considerably diminished, which was fine, because I intended from the start for the final piece to be quite thin.  The turned down the outermost edges to only .11″ thick and the thickest piece of the plate, at the bottom, is less than .45″ thick.

Ambrosia Maple Plate Front

Ambrosia Maple Plate Front

Maple is an excellent choice for making extremely thin pieces in my experience as the wood is strong and stable enough to maintain structural integrity even when very thin.  The only problem I encountered with this piece was that once the out edges were very thin they tend to vibrate from centrifugal forces and this creates “chatter tool marks” that are very difficult to clean up.  Even attempts at extremely light passes with a very small tool still tend to create chatter due to the vibration that cannot be overcome even at very slow speeds.  The only way to finish the piece was to invest a bit more time in finish sanding the outermost edges to achieve a smooth finish on the extremely thin final piece.

Ambrosia Maple Plate Reverse

Ambrosia Maple Plate Reverse

As usual, my Easy Wood Tools, Nova Chucks, and Hi-Per Green Wave sandpapers all performed their usual excellent job in preparing the piece for final finish with my standby product, Shellawax.

I hope all viewers enjoy this piece of thin-work done in Ambrosia Maple.