Yep, we had a great time. I'm pretty sure we spent at least as much time visiting as turning, but I think that was part of the plan.
Jim and Glenn make quite the tag-team comedy group, and it was great to see Dan again and meet his dad. (Very handy that he is also named Dan. Made it a lot easier to remember his name.)
Dan Sr. seemed to get a kick out of identifying all the different woods that we had sitting around to play with. (Of which we only used a little bit.)
I didn't get as many pics as I should have, but here's a bit more for the album...
Jim hooked up to the Mustard Monster:
I want to mention that he's wearing safety glasses, with side protection. We were keeping the lathe speed down so if the piece did happen to come loose, it wouldn't have enough speed to do any damage. I did wear my face shield when I was doing the eccentric cuts on the demo piece...at 900 or so RPM that could leave a mark if it came loose.
And The Gang, complete with sun flare on my camera lens:
For a more accurate rendition of the group shot, it was necessary to animate it:
Click Here
Dan also brought along a great old set of Buck Brothers turning tools. (At least 60 years old, as I recall.) The set was definitely geared towards spindle turning, but they were all in excellent shape and nice and sharp. Hopefully he'll post a thread showing them off. This one chisel, really got my attention. It's got a single bevel like a bedan, but it's about 2" wide. It looked like a short-handled
log builder's slick. The unique part about it was the serrated edge. Here are a few pics:
That thing looks like it could do some serious wood removal on a large spindle.
I don't have any more pics handy showing any of the finished pendants I've made in my experimenting with Jon's eccentric backer plate, but I'm going to be putting together a how-to in the Turning forum in a day or so, and it'll have plenty of pics, both in progress and completed pieces.
As I said, it was a great time. I really appreciated the fact that these four guys drove quite a way (several hours, in Jim's case) to come up and visit our place. Thanks to all four of you for the fine company.
Hey Glenn, now that you've seen where Big Tujunga Canyon is in relation to my house, picture that
whole mountain (north of the river bottom)
burning about a year ago.