John I think you have hit the nail on the head as far as symposia categories for experienced turners. Beginners need a buffet of various techniques and approaches to build interest and ability as they begin the craft of turning. With experience comes direction in the craft. Most of us determine a type of turning that catches our interest and in which we specialize. Other forms are mildly interesting but we are not really wanting to go there. However, what a person does and why they do it in that direction may have a lot of bearing on what we do with our particular piece of wood. I like your turnings but I am not especially interested in making grain disappear with dyes. On the other hand what you do with the dye and why you use it and how you propose to enhance your work intrigues me. Why you might carve one piece of maple one way and the next another is a good question that may not have one answer but it might have three or four equally valid ones. I am turning a piece of maple burl that will become a "bowl" with a major void in one side if the bark inclusions allow it to remain in one piece. The process began with a burl that could have made several different types of forms. It might have been an elongated bowl, a lamp base, a vase of several shapes, a hollow form, ... I cut a piece from it that will likely be a future vase but for now it is in the bag with small burls. The decision process of examining that burl, deciding what it will be, and figuring out how as well as why intrigues me because I think someone else would look at the burl and say "I think it should be a ..." Making the bowl is just a basic turn, sand, and finish procedure. The other thing you alluded to is instruction or hints in using other tools. While some of us come to turning through general wood working, others start in as turners. Yet we use grinders, Dremel tools, chain saws, files, band saws, table saws, hand grinders, carving tools, and a myriad of others, often badly. The other day I was helping do some work at a summer camp our church supports. I borrowed a hand saw for a few minutes and it was dull as a table knife so I took out a triangular file and sharpened it. All of a sudden I had an audience of about ten looking at me like I had two heads. Sharpening is a basic skill but it is not well known. Cutting a stub from a turning with a dull saw is a royal pain. Drilling a hole with a dull drill is another pain. Cutting with a badly set up band saw is a dangerous hassle. Not every pertinent topic in a turning symposium has to be turning. I am reading a book on the history of porcelain and pottery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and America. Some of it is ugly in the eye of this beholder but some is lovely. It raises questions of "can I do this in wood?" and "why would I want to?" Glass blowers do neat stuff with round shapes and it intrigues we as to how it might move over to wood. There is a lot to consider in other media that we could look at as turners.
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20 years ago