Turner?s Attention Defecit Disorder
A wood lathe, even a small one, offers just too many phreakin? options for a budding woodturner with A.D.D. With just the standard stuff that comes with a lathe and a few tools there?s a lot of territory to explore. But when you add a chuck it becomes a Star Trek thing - though boldly exploring can be a bit tricky when the thing you?re exploring is spinning at a thousand or more revolutions per minute. The universe of possibilities is so vast - and that?s only considering the lathe and tools possibilities. Throw in all the woods that are available and it?s so easy to get lost. Add carving, texturing and other surface treatments, along with patinas and it?s bouncing all over the place time
- like a BB In a vibrating box - try THIS, try THAT - oh - look over THERE!
There are just so many already discovered places to visit and new ones popping up every day. And when I find a place I think I want to really get to know - someone comes along and says ?Hey! Check THIS out!? - and I do. I can?t help it. If it?s even potentially interesting - I HAVE to check it out.
So the latest Check THIS Out is laser engraving - and piercing.
Scott Landon, a turning club member with a unique combination of imagination, machinist skills and an Epilog Laser Engraver, spent two hours showing me just the basics of just some of WHAT a laser engraver can do, along with the a bit of HOW. With a fairly simple shop made indexing jig that you can attach a chuck to, you can do some pretty interesting things to a turning - engrave IN the surface - OR - cut THROUGH the surface. You do the imaginative / creative stuff and the laser does the grunt work - in seconds - a few minutes at the most. It?s like a word processor for writers, PhotoShop for photographers, the DOMINO for a Greene & Greene furniture pheaks. Theres still some thinking required, and some computer skills with a drawing program (Corel for example) required. And there are limitiations imposed by the laser - the beam?s depth of focus limits how much of a convex curved surface you can work on - but oh the possibilities.
Maybe I ought to just go out to the shop, turn off the phone, stop playing with the computer, leave the internet alone, avoid looking at turning magazines and books - and focus on just one thing, to the exlusion of EVERYTHING else - and really get into say - small pinch neck pots - for maybe a week. Turn nothing but small pinch neck pots - out of just two different kinds of wood. THAT?s what I ought to do. Focus. Discipline. Self control. Practice Makes Perfect. In fourty hours of turning just small pinch neck pots I bet I could get pretty good at it.
But - a friend just gave me a nice 8? diameter x 20? long logette of Pittosporin (sp?) he saved for me (he?s an arborist and woodworker). Stuff?s HARD and heavy and he says it?s an interesting as hell wood to play with . . .
charlie b whirling dervish