I rarely draw crossing diagonals in the ends of blanks to locate centers. I never check spindle speeds with a tachometer. I don't mike bevel lengths or protractor accurate bevel angles. I don't weigh bowl blanks, or measure exact lengths and diameters of highs, lows and transition points along a spindle or the lengths and diameters of chucking tenons and dovetails. I make no attempt to duplicate the scale and dimensions of working drawings. I don't measure much, that is if measuring means the use of the numbers on hardware such as scales, calipers, rules and compasses.
I don't believe that my being able to use ded reckoning to navigate turning seas is due to any great talent or wide experience. I think it's a natural part of a craft that to be comfortably proficient in generally means using unrestrained free flowing cuts to make largely ad hoc designs. This is not the same as wildly waving a gouge or having nothing in mind to begin with.
And it doesn't mean that I don't determine these variables by looking, listening, feeling, hefting and balancing. I rely on squares, calipers, depth gages, rules, scales, story sticks and the like for comparing but rarely for measuring in specific units. For precision and/or accuracy (there is a difference, isn't there?) for such as box lids and threads, I mostly rely on witness marks and the old reliable 'cut and try'. Of course, I don't make patterns, segmented turnings, lattices, pens or commissioned work, and some will add sotto voice: "or decent work".
My turning's golden rectangles are tarnished and the proportions are not divine. The height/width fractions are not classic ratios and I don't know the numerators from the denominators. My vessels' feet are size 12 W or larger, flat and the soles are neglected with never a pedicure, but they do keep the piece upright and decent. My hollow forms' walls are thick, and as rough and uneven on the inside as an rcw thread.
My orifices are open enough to drive a scraper thru and my finials are plump enough for lifting the piece. My cups hold tea and my bowls hold popcorn. Some even hold lettuce. My platter edges are thick and my cheese plates are round with tacky tiles in the center. My ornament's insides remain in and their outsides stay out and they are solid enough to bend small Christmas tree branches. However my icicles are delicate and fragile, owing to Darrell's fine tutorial (although he might prefer that my icicles not associate with his). Anyway, neither my icicles nor his tutorials are for sale on ebay or anywgere else.
I really would like to become a modern day upscale woodturner. I really would. Why can't I see that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The best flat woodworkers make bow dressers and use band saws to cut curves, while today's better potters use wheels to throw square pots and woodturners use table saws to cut straight kerfs and employ lathes to turn angular bowls.
The best current turners care enough to turn their very best; work that is off axis, oval and in the shapes of irregular geometric solids. When they inadvertently fall into route step and forgetting protocol begin a platonic solid, they wake up in time to avoid one of the classic 'five', hoping to turn the unattainable 'sixth'.
By all counts, I'm an out of step eccentric who favors concentric pieces and misuses his lathe to turn circular objects. So why do I have so much fun with my hobby? Maybe because I'm a practicing COC. It beats being a Doc. (not a quack, just a 'dead ole coot'. :)
Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter