One Tool, One Type of Turning, One Wood OR Keep Exploring?

Charlie I too am a dabbler. I spin up a piece of wood and see where it will take me. I use just about all the tools I have, about a dozen and really don't have a favourite yet. I also like to explore what ifs. Man that can get you into all sorts of things. I'm still engrossed in all things turned and have given up on all flatwork except for house makeover which is now in it's 18th year. Oh well!

Interesting musing (*wink*, Arch), charlie.

I think there are a couple of forces at work here. First, it is fun to do something you are good at and doesn't tax you to much when you are doing it. If I have had a rough week, I am not much inclined to go do something in the shop that will tear me up. I >will< go in and make some Christmas oil lamps that are a little challenging, but not difficult. I think there is a comfort level to turning something you know, and it is easy to like turning something you get a lot of positive attention for making.

Second, it seesm that the nationally known turners of today have a style or some form that is closely associated with them. Take a look at a couple of threads that were posted here a year ago when some were debating if form turned by someone was similar in design to an artist; the question was asked, "do I need to give that person credit?"

That is a subject that has been bandied about quite a bit, and especially since simple woodturners have decided that they are artists in their own right. They may have not been discovered yet, but hey...

This singular form turning seems to be exacerbated by the encouragement doled out by any middle school art class: "find your own voice". So I guess that lidded boxes are the voice some seek.

When I started out to be a "carpenter", my boss never considered me to be a "carpenter" until I could do everything with wood on the job that needed to be done. We started by setting the forms for concrete, and ended up with crown molding. In that tradition I have endeavored to learn all I can (when I am interested and can make the time) about something.

Like you, my interests fly all over (currently studying competition bbq) and I have turned anything that looked interesting. Bowls, pens, treen ware, Christmas ornaments, jewelry, oil lamps, you name it. I have a tendency to turn things for a while and then get bored with the product. If I have another shape or skill to "get a handle on" I can and will turn for hours and hours, days and days.

If I don't, the lathe will be quiet until I find something else.

I do have my favorite tools, though. And I find a way to use them on just about everything, maybe just because I like to use them.

Robert

Gosh, I hope it takes forever! I would quit if I had to do the same thing over and over again.

On the other hand, you can always sell a salad bowl or two to get a new tool, while some things have limited appeal to buyers. Had a couple of "thin" pieces that I had to weight at one show with the wind off the lake which are a turner's tour de force, but nobody did anything more than remark on the lightness and translucence. Couldn't figure a good use for them, I guess. Same with some undercut natural edge pieces. Other turners and I had some good chats on how to do them, but the buyers weren't there. Didn't take long to earn my new Bosch 18V cordless assortment selling salad bowls, though!

If all else fails, turn an ornament. Most creative type of turning, to my way of thinking. No limitations on you because of the size of the wood, and stem up, stem down, both up and down, with endless assortment of shapes in between.

An interesting inquiry, Charlie. Certainly in the year and one-half I've been turning, I've discovered some preferences for certain woods and certain tools. For example, I love wet maple of all types, but especially hard varieties. And I love my Ellsworth gouge--it does almost everything reasonably well.

However, finding myself no better than an experienced novice in turning, I try virtually every tool on almost every piece of wood I turn. Within reason, of course--I don't use spindle tools on bowls, and vice versa. The learning curve is flattening out a bit now, but I still glean something every time I turn a new piece of wood. For example, yesterday I found myself thinking that wet yellow poplar doesn't seem to scrape well, notably the end grain.

No doubt I'll form some strong preferences with time, but for the present I'll attempt to be as flexible as possible. I have a lot to learn.

Max

An interesting point. I've sold only a few items so far, noticing that the unsophisticated buyer tends to equate weight with quality. My segmented pieces assembled from purpleheart, lignum vitae, and zircote seem to sell first and occasionally are the only pieces that sell. Similar pieces of thin cherry, maple, and stained holly, which I find more attractive than the exotics, quite often go home with me. (sigh)

Max

I don't turn a lot, but I do sell the occasional piece through gallery, and I dont' think I've ever intentionally turned two pieces the same - like others said, I like to see what the wood "makes" me do - and looking at what sells, I don't see any pattern - heavy, light, shiny, dull, natural or rough edges or smooth, dyed or not, spalted or not - so, I make what I like, and let people buy what they like. but, I'm not giving up my day job either.....

like any artisan, you need tecnical skills (and there are many better than I) and you need to develop an ability to use those skills - lack of skills can be a preventive force, but even great skills don't make you a real artist, right?

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I too like to dabble and try my hand at all sorts. One thing that annoys me is the guy who turns only boxes say, but is not really much good at anything else, then claims that he is an artist in wood. Another one is the chap who takes a poorly turned bowl, distorts it in the microwave and then says it is a work of art.

I believe that woodturning is a craft that has to be learned in all its aspects.

Tom.

Everytime I use the skew I get a lot of design (redesign) opportunities. Ostrich eggs become hummingbird eggs.

Ellsworth gouge would seem fairly easy to duplicate yet I've never had another feel like the "real" one. It's not cheap but I agree it's sweet to use and very versatile.

Woods and designs are like a buffet table. I can't just eat or think of just one item. In fact, the variety is such that sometimes I'm overwhelmed by the possibilities and just go mentally blank :-) Sorta like shooting at the flock instead of an individual bird.

The most intriguing project that I've yet to try is a Bonnie Klein type lidded top. Tops have a lot of appeal and the surprise of being a box and the possibilities for enclosures is cool. I gotta reach financial nirvana to get the $350 threading tool, though.:-) Considering what the stock market has done AGAIN recently to my retirement and the cost of fuel and house insurance I can't afford.........

TomNie

Just my personal thing, Charlie, but I love any kind of learning and trying new things... There are some things that I haven't tried yet, and others that I probably never will, (like closed forms), but I'd like to think that I'm constantly mastering new tools and techniques and exploring new-to-me styles, shapes, etc...

Most folks have a favorite tool, style, wood, etc., but hopefully very few are stuck in a one-thing pattern...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

I don't turn a lot of spindlework, but I have done a number of maple baseball bats recently. And I turned half a dozen belaying pins (an archaic boating item) a while back. I do enjoy spindle turning, but enjoy facework more. One of the quandaries I now face is my next lathe--should I buy a long bed which will allow me to turn the occasional spindle, or buy a short bed, or something like the Vega, which will make facework easier. The jury is still out on that.

Max

My wood pile is a testament to dabbling. When I first started turning, I did a bunch of small bowls and ornament spindles. I cut up a bunch of spindle blanks and small bowl blanks. I still have bunches of them after almost 10 years. I still have them because I went onto boxes. I started getting loads of exotic 2"x2" and 3"x3" sticks for boxes. Made a bunch. Still have loads of box sticks nine years later. I have my vase stock, nested bowl stock, large vessel stock, small vessel stock, dozens of egg blanks, a couple of hundred pen blanks (I made three), and about 2 dozen sphere blanks. Oh yeah, a have about $1,000 of Australian burl caps for a project that is about

25% complete (before Pasadena) and a stack of canister blanks too. Right now I'm collecting light colored and figured woods for coloring (or stacking). Not sure which it will ultimately be. Joe Fleming - San Diego

My next lathe will be set up for outboard turning... best of both worlds, IMHO..

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

For that reason, the Powermatic 3520b ranks high on my current list of prospects. The headstock will traverse the entire length of the ways until outboard turning is a given. It is possible to use the tailstock for stability when roughing a bowl, then remove it and move the headstock to the right until there's just enough room for the banjo. Very kewl. Oneway's larger machines also have outboard turning features, but at more than double the price tag.

Any opinions from others??

Max

Why pick only one? I do whatever the hell I feel like at the time on the lathe!

It's like anything else- I work in a job shop where we do a combination of one-offs and almost production-level runs. Some people love the security of doing one or two things over and over, and others don't care to see the same project twice.

The world needs both kinds- when it comes time to do the long runs, I'm terribly grateful for the guys who want to set up a big job once and coast through the day, and leave all the short ones for me. They feel the same about me burning up all the little jobs at a frenetic pace so that they can get back to pressing a button and shooting the breeze.

I hope you do keep up your wandering- not everything you've shown here is my cup of tea, but you've come up with some real gems.

I've noticed that the more experienced turners in the turning club I joined seems to have found one or two types of turning they really enjoy and have gotten really good at. Some turn BIG, some turn tiny, some do hollow forms, others do mainly Natural Edge bowls. By focusing on one area of turning, they refine their techniques and develop on eye for what shape works best for a given chunk of wood.

By focusing they get really good at it and pretty fast at it - no time wasted deciding on what tool to use, what technique fits the need at the moment.

Having worked on an assembly line - at Ford - I can see both sides. Repetative tasks can leave your mind free to do other things. One of the guys I worked with had a masters degree in English Literature. I asked him why he was still On The Line. "I've written three novels while working here, all worked out in my head while my hands were doing something else." Since I was a "utility guy" - I filled in all over The Line when a guy was out sick, on vacation, etc. so I was seldom doing the same thing more than a day or two - which, for some jobs, was quickly mind numbing. Eight hours of building dash boards is really boring.

Thankfully some of the grunt work of production runs has been automated. But there's the danger of becoming careless. Automated processes don't care if it's your hand or a piece of wood they cut.

Head over to alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking and have a look at "Just Skewing Around (with Santos Mahogany)".

After turning the Ants (of Ants & Ahnks) legs I turned a Spider (for September). Got pretty good at turning small diameter stuff so I did four "Spires" as Extra Credit for the September turning club meeting.

If the JET mini/midi had more between centers room I'd have a go at a real Trembleur. Maybe someday . . . Back to my original question Try Them All? or Get Really Good With One?

By using a curved edge skew a LOT, I can do things with one tool where others might use three or four, and can work almost uninterrupted and almost without thinking. Stuff just seems to flow. I guess it's sort of like to old dancing partners - the music starts and the dance just happens.

I like dancing with my skew ; ).

charlie b

Charlie, you and that skew :-) Let me be sure of something. "curved edge skew" to me is one that sorta looks like a bell curve. Mostly a straight edge that curves back toward the handle on its right edge. Which makes me wonder if you have right hand and left hand skews? Or maybe you're just keeping a straight edge in the middle with both ends curved back?

I noticed Lacer? uses that curved corner and maybe that's the root of my problems since mine are simply straight. A skew guarrantees me two things: a beautiful finish and redesign practice.

TomNie

First - to the curved edge - I use a long radius curve with the center well above the point of the skew. There are no flat/straight areas on the cutting edge - all one continuous curve. (first image on this page)

What it gives me is an almost single point of contact anywhere along the edge when doing peeling cuts or scraping cuts when the tools is on its side. As I pull the tool towards the headstock, Long Point to the right, entering the cut in about the middle of the curved edge, I can swing it horizontally gradually - in either direction - along the cut, continuously changing the cutting edge. For spindle type cuts I almost always use the skew Long Point down, starting the cut with the point and then rolling to cut a shape, lowering the point as I roll the skew left or right for a bead or cove, and, as the cut progresses I get into the sweet spot (actually an area) on the cutting edge.

That curve also comes in handy when cutting a "tear drop" shape - the long curved taper at the top of the droplet. Starting with the skew, long point down and to the right, almost horizontal I roll the edge clockwise to almost vertical then while pushing to the right, roll it counterclockwise towards horizontal as I cut down and then to the right "up" the droplet's taper.

All the readily available skew chisels I know of are double beveled so you can ride a bevel as you roll the cutting edge. Problem is that you end up with an included angle of about 45 degrees. This limits how close your can do small beads and balls as one side of the bevel rubs against the far side of the cut. In those instances I use a 1/4" bench chisel which has a single bevel for getting into tight places. Haven't reground a curve in it because I also use it for chopping the waste out of dovetail sockets. One of these days I'll get a couple of 1/4" bedans and put a curved edge on one of them.

I think after you see the picture of the curved edge skews things will be a bit clearer.

I don't know what his tool looks like, but there is a tool called the SpindleMaster that is flat on the top and curved on the bottom. It's ground to have a slightly pointy "U" shape so supposedly there's no "point" to catch. I've got one and despite the hype, find I can get it to catch without even trying.

If you have a sharp skew. preferably with a polished bevel, you certainly can get a nice burnished finish - especially when rolling balls, beads and coves.

As for designs, other than a very general idea of what I want to do, things change in The Doing and I just go along for the ride - and the endorphin rush the brain rewards me with for doing something creative. If you lock yourself into a specific design you often preclude a more promising, unforeseen one.

Fun this turning thing.

charlie b

Charlie, I love the stuff you do - the way you document it - the way you express yourself. So cool. You bring a lot to this group.

Thanks for the link. It answered my questions perfectly. I've got to grind things differently and see how it goes. I love the finish a skew gives and am embarrassed I haven't been able to constantly control it.

Your finials/spindles got better each time IMHO. Cindy Drozda does some of the finest finials and works very hard on subtle differences. I've been playing some with the CAD program Fred Holder put me on to. It's amazing how such tiny changes make such a difference to what feels right. Opening the program several times and tiling the pictures side-by-side highlights the subtleties.

Now the trick becomes moving the image from the screen to the lathe exactly as you want it. At least, it gives you a visual to compare to. On the screen you can put "wood" back when it doesn't look better. Haven't mastered that on the lathe yet :-)

TomNie