Turn a wood Christmas tree ornament

A turned Christmas ornament is a spindle-grain blank, usually 1 inch to 3 inches in diameter, shaped on the lathe between centers or in a chuck and drilled for a metal hook at one end. The three patterns turners sell at craft fairs every December are the icicle (a single long finial), the hollow globe with a finial bottom, and the inside-outside ornament made from four glued-up segments. Each one comes off the lathe in under an hour once you have the dimensions worked out.

Most ornament tutorials online show a single design, usually an icicle, and stop. This guide covers all three in the order I learned them, with the exact blank sizes, RPM ranges, hook hole specs, and species recommendations that make the difference between an ornament that survives twenty Christmases and one that splits in storage. The icicle is a one-evening project for anyone who has turned a spindle. The hollow globe takes a hollowing tool and a chuck. The inside-outside ornament is a Bonnie Klein-style technique that requires glue clamps and patience.

The Three Designs at a Glance

Pick the design that matches your skill and equipment, not the one that looks coolest on Instagram.

The icicle costs nothing to attempt, any 1 inch square scrap of dense hardwood works. The hollow globe needs a four-jaw chuck and a hollowing tool, which puts the project out of reach until you have the gear. The inside-outside ornament is the most rewarding but the least forgiving, one bad glue joint and the four-segment blank explodes off the lathe.

Design 1: The Classic Icicle

The icicle is a 5 to 6 inch finial turned between centers from a 1 inch square blank, with a hook hole drilled into the top before parting off. It is the project I teach first because every cut is a spindle cut, the failure modes are obvious, and a sharp skew can finish the whole thing in under thirty minutes.

The whole sequence, before the detail:

1. Mount and round a 1x1x6 inch hardwood blank to a 7/8 inch cylinder at 1,500 RPM.
2. Mark three reference lines: cap, widest body point, finial tip.
3. Shape the body downhill at 2,500 RPM with a 3/8 inch spindle gouge.
4. Drill the hook hole first, before shaping the cap end.
5. Refine the taper with the skew, then part off at both ends.
6. Hand-sand the nubs and finish.

Blank and Setup

Use a 1 inch by 1 inch by 6 inch blank of straight-grained hardwood. Hard maple, cherry, dogwood, and holly are the species I keep on the shelf in this size for exactly this purpose. Mount between a small drive spur and a live center, then turn the blank to a 7/8 inch cylinder at 1,500 RPM.

Once round, draw three reference lines down the cylinder with a pencil:

• 1/2 inch from the headstock end (this becomes the cap with the hook hole)
• 1-1/2 inches from the headstock (the widest part of the body, around 7/8 inch)
• 5 inches from the headstock (the tip of the finial)

The waste between the 5-inch line and the tail center will be parted off at the very end.

Turning the Body

Step the speed up to 2,500 RPM. Use a 3/8 inch spindle gouge to shape the body between the 1-1/2 inch reference line and the 5-inch tip. The classic icicle profile has a small ball at the body (about 7/8 inch diameter), a cove that drops to roughly 3/8 inch, a bead, and then a long tapered finial that thins to 1/16 inch at the tip.

Cut downhill on every pass, from larger diameter to smaller. The skew used flat on its side will refine the long taper of the finial without the tearout a gouge leaves on a 1/16 inch point.

Drilling the Hook Hole

Stop the lathe. Bring up a Jacobs chuck in the tailstock loaded with a 1/16 inch bit. Restart at 1,500 RPM and drill 3/8 inch deep into the cap end of the ornament before you do any further shaping at that end.

Drilling first is the rule. If you turn the cap to its final shape and then try to drill, the bit wanders on the round surface and splits the cap. Standard ornament cap hooks are 18-gauge wire, around 0.041 inch in diameter, which fits a 1/16 inch hole snugly. Heavier 16-gauge S-hooks need 5/64 inch.

Parting Off

With the hook hole drilled, shape the cap and the tip. Use a 1/16 inch thin parting tool to part the cap free at the headstock end, leaving a 1/8 inch nub of waste, and a long cut with the skew toe to part the finial tip cleanly. Sand the nub away by hand off the lathe.

Design 2: The Hollow Globe With Finial

A hollow globe with a hanging finial is the ornament you see in craft fair photographs, a thin-walled sphere about 2 inches across with a 3 inch finial drop. It takes a four-jaw chuck, a hollowing tool, and a willingness to part with the occasional blow-through.

Three-Part Construction

The globe is one piece. The cap (with the hook hole) is a second piece. The hanging finial is a third piece. All three are turned separately, glued together, and the joinery is hidden under a small bead or cove at each junction.

This is the trick that high-end ornament turners use to get globes that look perfect, turning the finial as a separate piece means you can keep the globe blank short in the chuck, which is the only way to hollow a 2 inch sphere with reasonable wall thickness.

Turning the Globe

Start with a 2-1/2 inch by 2-1/2 inch by 3 inch blank. Mount in a chuck with a tenon at one end and turn to a 2-1/4 inch cylinder at 2,000 RPM. Shape the outside of the sphere first, the curve from the chuck face out to the maximum diameter, then back in to a 1/2 inch top tenon that will receive the cap.

Drill a 1/2 inch starter hole 1-1/2 inches deep with a Forstner bit in the tailstock at 800 RPM. This gives the hollowing tool a place to start.

Hollow with a small ring tool or a captive hollowing system. Aim for a wall thickness of 1/8 inch on a 2 inch sphere, thicker is fine, thinner is a flex. Check thickness frequently with double-ended calipers. Internal lighting in LED-lit ornaments needs 3/32 inch walls on figured species, but expect a 20 percent failure rate at that thickness.

Once hollowed, refine the outside, sand through the grits, and apply the finish on the lathe. Then part off the bottom tenon and reverse-mount in a jam chuck to clean up the parting nub.

The Cap and Finial

Turn the cap from a short piece of the same species. The cap is a 1/2 inch tall cylinder with a tenon that matches the 1/2 inch hole left at the top of the globe. Drill the hook hole through the top of the cap before parting it off, 1/16 inch for standard hooks, 3/8 inch deep.

Turn the finial as a long icicle (see Design 1) with a tenon at the top that matches a 1/4 inch hole drilled into the bottom of the globe. Glue all three pieces together with thick CA, alignment-checking under a magnifier, any glue squeeze-out at a joint will read as a flaw under shellac.

Design 3: The Inside-Outside Ornament

The inside-outside ornament is four pieces of contrasting wood glued into a square blank, with the corners exposing the contrasting wood on the inside of the hollowed shape. Bonnie Klein covered the original technique in Fine Woodworking #78 in 1989, and it remains the most striking ornament a hobbyist can turn.

The blank starts as four 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch by 6 inch sticks, typically two of a dark species (walnut, ebony) and two of a light species (maple, holly). Tape them together with masking tape on all four faces to form a 1-1/2 inch square blank with a cross-section of four colors meeting at the center.

Turn the outside of the blank to the rough ornament shape at 2,000 RPM, then carefully remove the tape and separate the four sticks. Each stick now has a quarter-round profile carved into one corner. Glue the four sticks back together, but this time rotate each one 180 degrees so the carved face points inward. The result is a hollow ornament where the contrasting wood shows through the four oval openings.

The glue-up is the hard part. Use slow-set wood glue, not CA, you need open time to align the four sticks, and CA grabs before you can shift them. Clamp with rubber bands and tape, and let the assembly cure for 24 hours before remounting on the lathe.

Final turning is done at 1,500 RPM with light cuts. The blank now has four open windows, so the cutting edge is interrupted four times per revolution. Anything heavier than a 1/16 inch cut will catch and shatter the assembly.

Wood Selection for Ornaments

Ornament-grade turning wood needs to be dense, fine-grained, and free of internal stress. The species in the table below are the ones I have on the shelf for ornament work.

Avoid open-pored species (oak, ash, mahogany) for ornaments. The pores telegraph through a high-gloss finish and the wood does not hold a 1/16 inch point. Avoid figured wood for the finial. Burl and curly maple look striking in the body of a hollow ornament but fail at the tip.

If you want broader guidance on which species cut cleanly on a lathe, the best wood for woodturning guide goes deeper on grain, density, and shop sourcing.

Speed Reference for Ornament Turning

Lathe speed for ornaments is a function of diameter, not project type. Use this as a default and adjust by feel.

Run slower on out-of-balance blanks or anything with a knot. Run faster on the very last finishing cuts to leave the cleanest surface for sanding.

The Hook Hole. Specs and Drilling

The single most common failure point on a turned ornament is a poorly drilled hook hole that splits the cap. Two specs prevent this.

Drill diameter: 1/16 inch for standard 18-gauge ornament cap hooks (0.041 inch wire). Use 5/64 inch for the heavier 16-gauge S-hooks. Use 3/32 inch only if you are using an eye screw with a threaded shank, that needs the larger hole to start the threads without splitting.

Drill depth: 3/8 inch minimum. The wire needs enough purchase to resist a child pulling on the ornament and the entire weight swinging on the hook through a holiday season. Anything shallower than 1/4 inch will pull out.

Drill direction: Always into end grain. The top of an ornament is end grain by default if you have mounted the blank correctly between centers. Drilling into face grain (on a cross-grain bowl-style ornament) requires the hole to be sleeved with a brass insert.

When to drill: Before parting off, while the blank is still on the lathe. Use a Jacobs chuck in the tailstock at 1,200 RPM. Drilling off the lathe almost always splits a thin cap.

Finishing

The finish that reads as "Christmas ornament" under tree lights is high gloss. Two finishes give you that look:

Friction polish (shellac-based): Mylands High-Build Friction Polish or Behlen Wool Lube Stick. Apply at 1,500 RPM with the lathe running, rubbing the polish onto the surface with a soft cotton rag until friction heats the shellac and it flashes off as a high-gloss film. Two coats is the standard, with light sanding between coats using 0000 steel wool.

Spray lacquer: Deft Clear Wood Finish in gloss. Three light coats off the lathe, 20 minutes between coats, sanded between coats with 600 grit. Gives a tougher finish than friction polish but takes longer.

Skip oil finishes for ornaments. Linseed and walnut oil look great when fresh but go dull within twelve months in storage, and a dull ornament looks tired on the tree.

For finial-heavy ornaments where the body is decorative, painting with India ink or alcohol-based aniline dye gives the deep-color look that contrasts with metal hooks. Apply the dye before the friction polish so the polish locks the color in.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

• Finial breaks during turning. Almost always caused by tail-center pressure that is too high, combined with a tool catch on a thin section. Back off the tailstock by a quarter turn once the blank is fully shaped. Support thin finials with one finger behind the work, opposite the cutting tool.
• Hook hole splits the cap. You drilled after shaping the cap or drilled too deep into thin material. Drill before you shape the cap and keep the depth to 3/8 inch.
• Hollow globe blows out. Wall thickness is uneven. Use double-ended calipers every five minutes during hollowing, not once at the end.
• Glue joints show on inside-outside. You used yellow glue and squeeze-out clogged the joint. Use thin CA only on the second glue-up, and wipe excess with acetone before clamping.
• Finish goes cloudy. You applied friction polish over a wet surface or with humidity above 70 percent. Let the ornament sit overnight in the shop after sanding, then apply finish in dry conditions.

Safety

Thin finials and hollow ornaments concentrate every catch hazard on a lathe into a small space. The rules below apply to every ornament I turn.

• Wear a full face shield, not just safety glasses. A blown-out hollow globe at 2,000 RPM throws fragments at face level.
• Spin the blank by hand before starting the lathe. Check that the tailstock is engaged and the drive center is seated.
• Start at 1,000 RPM on a new square blank, then ramp up after truing.
• Do not wear loose clothing, gloves, or jewelry near a spinning lathe. Long sleeves should be rolled to the elbow.
• Keep the tool rest within 1/8 inch of the workpiece, and re-adjust it as the diameter decreases.
• Boxwood and ebony are sensitizers. Wear a respirator when sanding either species, especially during long ornament-making sessions.
• Friction-polish rags are not a fire hazard the way oil rags are, but lacquer thinner-soaked rags can self-ignite. Store used rags in a sealed metal can.

Tools and Lathe for Ornament Work

A mini lathe with a 12 inch swing handles every ornament in this guide. The best mini wood lathe breakdown covers which models have the variable-speed control and tailstock alignment needed for the hook-drilling step.

For tooling, an ornament kit looks like this:

• 3/8 inch spindle gouge
• 1/2 inch skew chisel
• 1/16 inch thin parting tool
• 3/16 inch beading tool (optional but useful)
• Small ring tool or captive hollowing system (for Design 2)
• Jacobs chuck with 1/16, 5/64, 3/32, 1/4, and 1/2 inch bits

The best woodturning tools guide goes deeper on brands and steel choices. For ornaments, M2 high-speed steel is fine, the cuts are short and the wood is small, so wear rates are negligible.

If finial work catches your interest, the finial box project uses the same skills at a larger scale. A turned toy soldier ornament is a character-driven variation that uses the icicle technique with carved details.

FAQ

Already answered above in the FAQ block at the top. Scroll to the top of the page or use the on-page navigation to jump to specific questions.

Sources

See the sources block at the top of this article for full citations of Fine Woodworking issues #78, #156, and #189, plus AAW guidance and Wood Database hardness data.