Is the need for serious sanding a mark of poor craftmanship, or just a part of life?
My tools seem to be sharp. I can turn the work by hand and remove wood smoothly while holding a tool one-handed.
I'm finding I get a get a rough surface no matter what I do, and I have to hit everything with a good shot of sandpaper to produce a smooth surface. Since I'm sanding across the grain (spindle work) this somehow feels wrong.
I can't complain much about the final results. Maple comes out very smooth after this treatment, and I'm getting close to being ready to attempt to make something interesting. Oak is still a bit splintery in parts of the open-pore portion of the grain, but I'm going to guess this is why so few turners like to turn oak.
get yourself a chunk of fresh cut sweet gum. the greener the better. its good to learn on cause it is soft and dont cost nuthin round here. put on your raincoat!!!!!! eye protection is also a must with wet wood. learning on green wood teaches you how to present the tools to get the longest shavings possible. hope this helps. i got some short video's that i downloaded someplace. if ya want em i'll email em. skeez
Yes. No. It depends. Some woods and some pieces of wood just are more difficult to get a good tool-finish than others. If you want to be sure, take a piece of wood to an experienced (and accomplished ... they're not the same ) turner and make the same cuts. Compare the results. It's not that big of a deal. You'll get better with practice.
"SEEM" .... they're not sharp enough regardless. I can push a Formula 1 racecar around the course (actually, I might be able to ... they're not like a '74 cadillac you know!) too but it doesn't mean I can do it at full speed. Seriously, though, "sharp" is a degree of dullness. Sharpen (that doesn't mean simply grinding it ... you can grind a tool to a nice dullness too) and maybe change the profile a little and give it another try with 2 hands this time.
As I said in another thread, technique is everything. Sharpness only goes so far. Alter your angle of attack a little. Adjust the toolrest. Raise or lower the speed. Do all kinds of things and keep making shavings. You'll eventually notice that you're using less sandpaper. It just takes practice and it also helps to have someone show you firsthand if possible.
Some oaks are good. Most oaks are terrible. Don't mess with an oak until it tells you it's name (ok, I've got to go to bed now ... too many CA fumes today).
This is the absolute best advice I've seen about turning oak ever. I like turning oak, and often get reasonable results but always wait until the blank or log is 'ready to be turned'.
I made a couple of mallets out of a 5x5 piece of red oak dunnage I've had laying around outside for months. Other than the bug tunnel full of soaking wet sawdust running up the middle of both of them, they came out really well. I'm totally happy with them, considering all I've turned until now have been small pieces of green maple, and I've only been a member of the ranks of wood turnerdom since Tuesday last.
Had to really sand on them though. Had to start at 60 grit just to make a difference.
OK, here goes , in spite of the danger. The way you present the tool means more than how fine the scratch pattern is on the edge.
Concentrate on tool presentation. It's a lot easier to show than do, but the mantra I teach kids is to catch and follow a curl. Think whittling, where you begin with a cut and follow with a shave. Make your initial presentation as if you were going to cut a groove, tool firmly on the rest (I like below centerline), presenting as narrow an aspect as possible, bottom skewed slightly in the direction of the cut. Now catch your curl by moving the tool handle closer to the work while moving in direction of the cut. This is a hand move, to get proper position. Now follow the curl with _body English_, using hand adjustments to create or follow contours. This will give you a smoother result.
You know, of course that you cut down hill and down grain as a beginner. This keeps support under the fibers you are cutting or shaving, even if you're heavy on the bevel. Here's where the variety and condition of the wood come into play. Doesn't take much of a lens to see that oak is as much air as there. Unsupported fibers can tear, whether it's from cutting uphill or from mere pores, so slow your rate of feed, and keep the gouge a bit more in the entry presentation than you would for something tight like maple. Let your toolrest steady your angle, not the broader aspect of the bevel guiding on the wood itself.
This is also a good cut for softwoods, where the difference between soft early wood and harder late wood is pronounced. In the case of the softwoods, the danger comes when you have a thin edge of harder wood crushing into the soft. I can fracture easily if you're levering the cut by the bevel.
On the subject of the bevel. It's your friend and your biggest headache, depending on how you deal with it. More frustration has been generated by levering cuts on the bevel, with the bruising that resists all efforts at sanding, than spiral skew runs. Don't lever the bevel as you do in carving. It may seem tempting, and it will remove some impressive curls, but the bruises will be there to mock you when you try to apply a finish. Use the bevel to steady the cut, not make it. When you get to the point where your bevel is burnishing the cut, you're on the edge of disaster, so I favor the less burnished cut, preferring to burnish after, if that's all the piece will get. If you're going to sand, why bother to burnish?
Use the Shaker peg as your school figure. It has a bead, cove, taper, and ten>
I need to bitch at my ISP about this. Too bad I didn't save the messages.
When I switched from the temporary "Blacksburg Electronic Village" ISP to the first commercial ISPs to come to town, I had a choice between two. I corresponded with both of them by email, and remember the exchange clearly.
I chose this one because they said they would always carry binaries groups, and they wouldn't put an arbitrary hard limit on the size of my inbox. I was receiving 25 MB files regularly at the time, so that was an important consideration.
They also said the price would come down eventually.
Here it is 10 years later, and I've been feeding them $24.95 a month ever since. Expensive in 1993, and exhorbitant in 2003.
The price never came down, they cut out binaries groups, and now they have some stupid limit on the size of my inbox.
There's little to be done though. I haven't seen a busy signal yet, the connection speeds are good, no pop-ups or other silly nonsense. I can't ever get DSL, and everything else is just too expensive.
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