Hopefully spinning up my lathe for the first time soon.
I was wondering if there is any particular wood that you'd recommend for learning on? Judging by some of the posts in the past week, I'm guessing that would NOT include purpleheart or peach!
At a guess, most of the answers you get will be variations of "free wood" and "firewood." Someone might say "green wood," because it is relatively easy to work. It's hard to argue with any of them.
Owen Davies
Which, of course, leads to the conclusion that "free, green, firewood" is the best to learn on :-)
When I've taught woodturning, I start people turning between centers using only scrapers held horizontally (or slightly downward) on the tool rest. Make something simple or even sacrificial. A gavel or candlestick. Use any cheap wood you have around like cottonwood, poplar, basswood, pine, etc. Dan
Two things in addition to the others.
The best way to learn is to make mistakes, lots of mistakes. That being said, try not to make the really stupid ones that will hurt you. You know like wearing loose clothing, loose gloves, no face shield, high speed on a non balanced piece (the flight path of those is really interesting though).
The other thing is, when you turn green try both the "turn to 1" and put up for a year" and "LDD" (Leif has a doc on this that he will gladly send) methods of stablezing wood. Personally, being the impatient type, I prefer the LDD method.
Deb
if you have no lathe experience, PLEASE check out the web pages of some of the folks here first... a few examples:
If you have NO experience on a lathe, start out the way I started my kids... with a closet rod and a few pieces of 2" x 2" pine or fir... get the feel of the lathe and the tools on the already rounded closet rod, then move up to rounding the 2x2... YMMV
As Bill Grumbine says in his DVD (
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
Ok, I have lots of pine, some poplar, so that's good. What about stuff like maple and zebrawood - save that for later?
I've been steadily working my way up from drills to routers and table saw. My collection of safety gear has been growing on par with my toolkit! As a result, I still have all four eyes and eleven fingers...
That sounds like good advice. I've got a friend locally who can help out, also. So far, all I've done is check that the lathe runs smoothly, and figure out how to adjust the various parts. I also want to make sure I have the bits'n'pieces to keep the tools in good shape before I get too involved in anything. Looks like it'll be another week or so before I'll be ready and have time to actually put some wood in the lathe, so keep the suggestions coming!
Now all I have to do is figure out why I keep typing 'lather' instead of 'lathe'...
Sounds like a plan so far. Do you have a chainsaw and a bandsaw? One allows you to make logs into appropriately shaped slabs of wood and the other allows you to make bowl blanks out of them when you are ready to switch from spindle to faceplate work. Wood at the side of the road or from cutting crews is a VEY valuable resource. So is a person who knows how to turn standing next to you. I posted the LDD document a couple of weeks ago. If you do a google search under the groups setting, you should be able to find it. To find the local turners, follow the links in my sig line and go to the local chapters.
Dave in Fairfax
I always started the kids on shaker pegs. They have the five basic moves of roughing, cove, bead, plane and parting. I always wondered if, given how useful the simple peg is (was), and how many were used by the shakers, who had to sublimate their other urges by putting "hands to work," they didn't start their novices on them as well.
David, first tell folks what you have for tools, and then you can get more specific answers.
No... Zebrawood is awful to turn you must send it out to the rest of uss :-)
Or if shaker pegs seem a bit on the droll or boring side, there are always mushrooms. I must've turned a dozen of them before I tried anything else. It was a great experience watching them take shape under my novice hands.
"Boring?" This is time for meditation, for reflection on the universe and our place in it. Time to mentally snuggle up to the life force itself. Never boring.
Come to think - they do look a bit like mushrooms, don't they?
It certainly provides quick lessons in which woods/faults to look out for, along with motivation to learn how to cure it!
- Andy
SNIP.......
Safety glasses will protect your eyes, a face shield will keep you from looking like a punchdrunk fighter (unless you already do). {:-)
Ken Moon Webberville, TX.
As a rank amateur myself, I recall turning my very first piece of pine
2"x2" and being very disappointed with the results. The second material I tried was some 9/4 basswood, and it was a whole lot easier to work with. Depending on what you've got easy access to, basswood would be what I'd suggest. It's cheap, and easy to turn- it's also soft enough to more or less prevent any major catches.
Box Elder, Butternut, and Poplar are great to learn on, green or dried. I took apart an old couch today so I could fit it in the dumpster, and scavenged some 1" poplar from the frame--cut it into square sticks, and it was a joy to turn for skew practice.
Ken Grunke Coulee Region Woodturners of SW Wisconsin
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