Go Sox!

Rob McNeil

June 2026

With ‘The Curse’ long since lifted, these days the only thing that this Red Sox fan needs to get excited for another opening day is a warm spring day and a challenging woodturning project!  Staying curious and pushing myself to try new things with wood has richly rewarded me with many amazing experiences and equally amazing people over the years.   Over this past winter I spent some time chatting with longtime local woodturner and artist Art Jalbert in Orleans, MA about breaking down challenging projects into manageable pieces using a systems approach.  I read articles and watched videos to learn about and prepare for my next project which was going to really challenge me.  And then in March 2026, fellow Cape Cod Woodturners (CCW) member Clarke Buchanan graciously loaned me his homemade lighted jam chuck, and donated a freshly cut chunk of silver maple, to get me going on the wild ride of turning my first baseball hat on my lathe!

Having completed many green wood turnings over the years I was hopeful that I could somehow deftly cut a wearable hat from this gorgeous specimen.  Experience with free water releasing from a large spinning block of fresh wood has taught me that it is important to trim the log on the bandsaw into a more manageable blank.  At just over 9-inches tall and with a varying diameter of approximately 14-inches, the rough blank was heavy and took some effort getting between centers.

Initially, since the log was quite unbalanced, and with the speed down low, I used a Lyle Jamieson 5/8" Bowl Gouge with 16-inch Thompson handle with short peeling cuts to produce a round balanced cylinder.  My goal was to establish a refined outside profile shape first which I could then flip around and hollow out while remaining perfectly centered.  To do that, I established tenons on both ends and secured the refined piece using a One-Way Stronghold Chuck with #3 profiled jaw set on each end. 

Once secured in chucks and now in round I safely raised the speed for the subsequent steps.  For this project I donned my 3M half-face respirator with particle pre-filters over organic vapors cartridges, noise reducing headphones, safety glasses, and face shield.  Being comfortable wearing appropriately fitted personal protective equipment for long periods of time is important to my health.  I recommend taking the time to invest in a healthy you for your long-term enjoyment of woodturning.   [Safety note: Keeping the lathe on/off switch nearby is important as well, so I always locate the magnetic control box within my immediate reach.]

For this project I focused on developing the final outside shape for the hat based on measurements from my favorite fitting snapback (e.g. brim length and width, as well as angles and radii from center) and some confirmatory head measurements taken with a flexible ruler.  Basically, I took the average of the length and width of my head plus a bit more to account for the thickness of the wood to establish the hat’s outside profile.  The novel part of turning a hat is that you take advantage of the wood’s natural tendency to shrink differently across the grain versus along the grain as it loses both free and bound moisture content and dries. 

Establishing the final outside shape including sanding (up to 500-grit) (and except for the very top section still secure in the chuck) is critical as changing the outside shape is not easy or recommended once you start hollowing because you are dealing with very thin tolerances.

Once I flipped the hat around and checked that it was perfectly centered and spinning true, I created the brim, removed the live center and hollowed the inside of the hat.  While the speed of the lathe is up pretty high, progress is slow as I methodically make short push cuts with the flute closed.  This technique prevents catches, reduces tool marks, and ensures a safe, shearing bevel-riding cut, particularly on challenging rim cuts.

I stop the lathe often and use calipers to check thickness.  For the brim, I am trying for a fat sixteenth (+1/16”) which is what caused my heart to race for the first time on this project.  I then use an inertial sander that I made on an earlier project to sand the underside of the brim (up to 500-grit) before hollowing the inside of the hat.  [Safety note: Your lathe’s auxiliary light can also offer an opinion as to the thickness of your piece while the wood is still wet.]  With the light directed behind the piece, as I continue to cut, I watch the color of the wood change from red to orange to yellow and stop and check before it is white!  Once I established the brim including sanding, I stretched clear packing tape across the end grain areas of the brim to help prevent cracks as very thin wet wood can start to shrink and warp (and potentially crack) while still spinning on the lathe.  On other thin projects like this one I have had good success preventing cracks and excessive warping by keeping the piece wet and spraying water onto it every time I stop the lathe to check the width.

Next comes the actual hollowing of the inside of the hat and establishing the final inside profile.  Again, the speed of the lathe is up pretty high, and progress is slow as I methodically make short push cuts and stop the lathe often and use calipers to check the thickness.  For the hat itself, I am trying for an eighth (1/8”) which will allow me a bit of wiggle room when I need to remove the hat from the chuck and complete the outside shape of the top.  Stopping to check your thickness also provides time to clear any accumulated wet wood shavings, and for this piece there were a lot of shavings.  This project, for instance, created wood shavings that almost filled an entire 30-gallon trash barrel! 

Once I completed the inside hollowing and sanded (up to 500-grit) it is time to remove the piece from the chuck and mount it onto a custom homemade lighted jam chuck.  Basically, you secure a tapered (to accommodate various size hats) painter’s tape covered wooden jam chuck that is held with your regular chuck jaws which is also setup with a 100-watt lightbulb mount (to rotate freely inside the jam chuck).  You guessed it, the power cord runs through the lathe’s spindle!  Pretty slick setup.  The purpose of the light inside the jam chuck is to provide you with the color indicator of the thickness of your wood hat as you sneak up on the final outside profile for the area on top of the hat which had been initially held in the chuck. 

At this point, I had completed the turning, and the real nerve-wracking work could begin. To remove the majority of the brim before the drying process I used the band saw.  Since the outer rim is uniform, the hat sits solidly on the bandsaw table and remains surprisingly stable while cutting it.  The entry and exit for each cut were equally stable due to the packing tape (I think).  I left the front and back brims on to provide some uniformity during the drying and shaping step that comes next.

Extra Innings

The drying and shaping begins immediately after reducing the brim on the band saw.  This is done with another homemade hat press contraption that I made out of hard maple, some heavy-duty elastics, some curved brim blocks, small hand clamps, and a plywood oval disk in the shape of your head (previously measured with the flexible ruler).   The newly turned wood hat is thin and wet enough to bend without breaking and it will hold its new position after it dries with little rebound.  The plywood oval disk allows the hat to shrink and warp to your preferred head shape (at least in theory).

Based on the experience of other makers who I have read online, I applied eight (8) full turns to the turnbuckle on the hat press once the jaws made solid contact, inserted the oval plywood piece, then held the body of the hat down and began curving the rear brim using the heavy-duty elastics.  The front brim is squeezed into form using precut and sanded (to the brim shape that you prefer) curved maple blocks and some clamps.  I left the whole assembly to sit overnight in a warm utility room and then tightened everything up again (another nerve-wracking effort) in the morning.  After another day I added a 100-watt light bulb under the clamped assembly to accelerate the drying and to bake-in the shape.

Once fully dry I removed the hat from the clamps and tried it on.  The moment of truth.  It fit!  I was very excited at this point in the project but still had some finishing to do.  I contemplated many options including keeping a natural woodgrain look.  In the end I decided to go all in with a custom Green Monster motif that befit the name of the project, Go Sox!  Once I removed the rear brim and gave the final shape to the brim, I used the jam chuck again and the indexing feature of my lathe to mark the vertical lines, snapback, and vent hole locations, then drilled them out and detailed the snapback using a Dremel tool.  I then used the Razertip Wood Burning System to burn in the stitching around the vent holes, brim, vertical lines, snapback and to sign the piece.  I painted the outside with Benjamin Moore SC-12 Green Monster exterior soft gloss, and One Shot red and white enamel sign paint.  I sprayed the inside with Minwax Helmsman clear semi-gloss spar urethane which allows the natural wood grain to be seen.  And yes, I wear it in the rain!

As the calendar now turns from spring to summer, I encourage you to try something new and swing for the Green Monster!  Making connections with other woodworkers is a rewarding experience.  Support the home team!  Reach out to a club member or a member of another club for inspiration or to discuss how to complete a project that you’ve always wanted to try.  And appreciate the wisdom shared by others.  Thank you, Art and Clarke!