this is pretty much where I am at now.
I've not really heard anything good or bad about the ST2000 system. It looks good on paper, but I suspect there just wasn't enough market demand for a proprietary system like that to keep it viable. (As I recall, it was pretty pricey, too.) If someone gave me one, I'd definitely put it to use. I have several Taylor tools, and they are of decent, but average quality. Better than the cheaper tools from Harbor Freight and Penn State, but not in the same league with Thompson or Glasser.
Good to hear you keep getting back on the turning horse each time you get bucked off.
From the sounds of things (with as many bowls as you're losing), I suspect you might either be trying to be a bit too aggressive with your cuts (being in too big of a hurry to remove material), presenting the tools to the wood incorrectly (something a bit of mentoring with a club member can easily fix) or that your tools aren't yet "turning tool" sharp.
But keep working at it, and all the pieces of the puzzle will come together.
Vaughn,
It takes awhile to catalog all I was doing wrong and still won't have it perfect for a long time yet. First the basics. I want to turn bowls and hollow forms. I have turned dozens of spindles with toolpost type equipment and duplicator type equipment and I just don't want to mess with spindles although I know handheld tooling isn't the same thing and most people start with spindle work.
Pretty much everything about my stock and equipment is wrong. Until I move a building or two here and set up better my fairly light lathe is on a bench I knocked together out of scrap to reload on twenty years ago. Getting a wee bit shaky. My wood is whatever I had or grab. So far I have destroyed a piece of very light cedar that is about five years old and a piece of pecan with rot all through it. A major portion of the problem was that I couldn't hold it adequately. Someone with their ducks already in a row might have been OK with my set-up but my blunders were multiplied by the piece getting loose on the headstock spindle over and over. The piece on the lathe now has seen me return to the outside over and over when I was supposed to be done turning there. It really is past due to blow up. It has been through a rainstorm and a weather front with paper towels wrapped around it and covered with a garbage bag on a roofed but open patio. Going to see how bad it wobbles in a few hours and put some tape on it and see if I can turn more on the inside. To give me room to turn on a face plate with two inch bolts going through it I am turning end grain cedar, trying to make a goblet. Not the usual beginner project. All my tooling is 5/8" or bigger too.
How many things can one person be doing wrong? I finally found what seems to be a pretty good video to me after watching probably a dozen instructional and other videos. First off, my gouges are either square or one with the wings raked back about 35 degrees with sharp corners. Even if I was doing exactly what the videos show it wouldn't work with my tooling since they are using long feathered edges. However, the horizontal angle I held my tooling was wrong, the vertical angle was wrong, I had the tool far too open trying to shear with an angle to come across much like a spiral cut router bit. Also once I seemed to have things going well I opened it up ninety degrees, didn't realize that forty-five or less is about maximum for most situations and I would probably be best served by only opening to twenty degrees or so most of the time now. Need to try some wider flatter projects in better wood to learn on too. My RPM seems too low and lower than the speeds indicated on the dial. Not sure about that, not used to this size wood lathe.
I am reading, watching video, and studying. I do believe in doing some cutting at the same time to try to drive home what I am learning. I was watching the video inside with a cereal bowl and gouge in hand copying the angles and motions. Glass bowl, no harm done.
A few things I have done right. After over forty years around rotating equipment of various types I haven't been in harms way when things go wrong and I do test spin everything after changes staying well to the side. of the likely path of any flying chunks. I do know Murphy can still strike and something come flying off at an angle but I reduce the odds. I'm also incorporating what I learn. Annoyingly, I got a better finish when I didn't have a clue!
I have the drill chuck and Talon coming as mentioned. I am also going back to where I bought out half of a wood working shop, including many turning tools I can't find, this Saturday. Everything from carbide roughing tools, three or four sets of chisels, I think a couple fair quality, probably a Wolverine sharpening system I thought was something homemade the man was building on.(my brother and I bought out the shop from a widow so no direct information and neither of us has wood shop experience)
My cue lathe is a fantastic duplicator for things like gouge handles and I refrained from buying blanks until I have it set up again to resist the temptation of hacking them out but basically whatever I need that I don't find this Saturday I intend to start replacing with Thompson tools or very probably some of it with my own tools. I still have access to a job shop machine shop and some grinding equipment. Speaking of which, while I am just using some tiny diamond stones that no doubt went with something else, I am carefully maintaining tool bevels, sharpening as needed, and the tools all shave hair after sharpening with stones hand marked coarse, fine, and ultra fine. No idea what they are in terms of grit but fine leaves a smooth finish and ultra fine very close to a mirror finish.
The local AAW chapter meets on the 13th and seems very active with over a hundred members. Hopefully I will learn a little and get a little local assistance after I join. I'm hoping to find someone with a sharpening system to reshape some of my tools when I go there. I do know basically what I want in the sharpening system and unless I find most of what I want from the shop I bought I think I will go with the cheaper but seemingly well thought out Sharpfast sharpening system. May put something of my own together. Funny as it sounds I am more qualified to fabricate, weld, and do standard machine work than I am to use turning tools. Far more qualified but as you can tell that isn't saying much!
Some people say I am determined and persistent. They usually use the vernacular, pig headed and stubborn, but close enough. I will make this thing sing and dance before I am done. One thing I learned long ago though, a few minutes or a few hours of face to face mentoring can be invaluable. After months of fighting an ill handling stock car a man told me in one sentence how to fix it. That was decades ago but I still remember it well. Another time a good friend that was a world record holder for many years listened to my ideas concerning how I wanted to set up my benchrest rifle and rest and told me he was sure that after I finished reinventing the wheel it would be rounder and better than ever. I laughed, rubbed the big dent in my head, and got the message. I try to avoid reinventing the wheel these days but once I understand it I might indeed balance and true it.
I have some vast and some halfvast ideas. Sorting out which is which is the tricky part. I know many of my problems and am watching for new knowledge. I couldn't understand my catches hollowing because I was making sure my corners weren't touching. My "catches" might not have been catches in the usual meaning of the word, they were caused by having the tool way too far open trying to hollow. I learn, . . . slowly.
Final note, when the weather breaks I plan to grab some straight grain oak logs that are pretty fresh. It won't make pretty forms and bowls but probably far better to learn and practice on than the wood I have on hand.
Hu