From burn pile offcut to pretty bangle

I pulled this offcut of roughsawn maple out of the burn pile the other night.

It's about an inch thick, and big enough for a bangle.

So far, the most efficient way I've found to do this is to drill through the centre with a 1/4 inch bit, then drill partly through from each side with a hole saw sized for the bore. In this case, I used a 2.25 inch hole saw. The goal is to clearly establish the groove as a guide from both sides without going too deep and weakening the workpiece.

Then, I cut the blank free with a larger hole saw, 3 inches for this bangle.

The screw chuck I use with my lathe needs an 11/16 clearance hole, so I enlarged the central hole with twist drills and mounted it on the lathe. (A screw chuck lets you just thread the piece onto the drive screw, which is very convenient for bowl and other face work.)

I used a bowl gouge to true the blank, and then roll over the edges. The curve on the bangle is idiomatic to the gouge -- it wants to make that shape.

After a bit of sanding on the lathe, I unscrewed the bangle from the chuck and finished boring it out with the smaller hole saw.

The hole saw leaves a rough finish, so I mounted a rubber spindle sanding attachment to my drill press and worked through a few grits to clean it up, and then hand-sanded the whole bangle.

Finally, it got a rubbed coat of walnut oil and a light rubbed beeswax finish. Here it is, available in my shop: