I tried my first spindles today with a skew, I always assumed spindles were boring(I have never tried one, just done bowls/boxes and the like) it was so much fun!, I spent 2 hours, and am loving it. using up scraps of pine and other random bits around the shop, I always hated using a skew on bowls, because it always catches, and then leaves me with a nice finish, but a ruined bowl. It is so much easier on spindles! I might not be any RR, but I did manage to make beads and the like, perhaps 8 2-3 foot spindles in an hour without one catch, that was a very big morale booster, after the many skew destroyed bowls. anyways, spindles are marvelous fun, and the skew is so much fun too, I really like the curve idea that was in the RR books, it makes them so much easier to use. my teacher got fed up after watching the 3rd piece be reduced t shavings, and a little skinny spindle that broke(I took them all to the point of destroying them to get an idea of how thin I can go before they go to visit the shop walls to make the day more interesting, the guy on the lathe behind me was turning a 4x4(2 2x4's glued) about 4 feet long between the centers, he didn't wack the center in, instead tightened the tailstock for force, turning at 1200, and using a skinning little gouge to try and rough it. it made life interesting when it came out from between centers, the sound of it hitting the sheet metal dust collection was a big surprise.(after that I suggested he wear a face shield and use a roughing gouge, because it scared me a good deal to think of that hitting him, or coming over the top of the shield to visit me)
spindle turning
Apr 02, 2004
2 Replies
Welcome to the real world of woodturning. The next trick is to design and turn four IDENTICAL coffee table legs and just to make sure you have the hang of it try one of those long stemmed flowers with a 1/16dia stem with a captive ring.
Your use of a skew on bowls is a bit of a worry as its usually not recommended due to the grain running the wrong way. Think about how the timber comes on to the edge. The recommended method here is to use either a bowl gouge or a detail gouge on the outside of the bowl. My preference is the detail gouge - one of those flat sided one with heaps of metal under the cutting edge - ground at 25 degrees and as a fingernail. The finer grinding angle produces a finish almost equal to the skew without the danger of the skew picking up on the long grain.
it is the only way I found of getting a decent finish on some very awful fir I was turning. 1/16, hmm that sounds tricky.... since I have no supports, and other such things.(so far the smallest I can get is 1/8th, because then the pieces twists itself appart... maybe its time to stop using pine for this, and try some real turning wood Identical is tricky, right now Im doing two 6 ft poles in 2 sections each, Im cheating because they are to be glued to the front of a bookcase, so I do the beads and fancyness, then spilt them appart, and ive got 2 identical, the two pieces is because the lathe can only take 3ft at a time, gonna separate em by a nice contrasting block(mahogany, or walnut, with either a trefoil turned, or a flower carved in the front. for some reason Graeme Campbell brought snipped-for-privacy@news.comindico.com.au up from the deep depths of Graeme Campbell's mind
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