A day that changed wood turning for me forever

Rob Keeble

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GTA Ontario Canada
Yesterday i had the fortune to be able to take up Ed Thomas on his offer to teach me how to turn those couch legs i am determined to make versus buy.

Well what can i say and where to begin.

First Ed is a really great guy and incredibly competent in many more things than simply turning wood.

We started in the morning and time flew by. I immediately realized that i knew A BIG FAT ZERO about turning wood. What i thought i knew was all wrong.

Have i made some things on the lathe , yes, did i enjoy making them , yes and no. Did i do them with any kind of technique absolutely not. The consequence is the missing excitement that most of you spinny guys get was well missing for me.

That all changed yesterday. What i wish to say to anyone that has not had any one on one tutoring on the lathe and considers themselves a hacker like i am, is get to have some one on one time with a REAL turner.

Many years ago when i first joined the forum, i had an epiphany when i first sharpened my Dads old WW2 chisels. There were two parts to that experience. The first was the initial sharpening, which was ok but was still MEH and i could not understand at that time what the fuss was about in regards to sharp chisels. Then somewhere along the line i got to find out about scary sharp and when i then used the chisel i could understand.

Well yesterday was the exact same epiphany for turning. I hope i never get too old to stop feeling the excitement and giddyness in ones stomach when you first experience these things.

I wont go into the long list of take aways because i would then be writing a book. Lets just say flatly in the words of Manual from Faulty Towers .....I knowa nuthing.;) :rofl:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6EaoPMANQM


Well not quiet true now i know what i need to practice on and how to go about it. And this is only in the category of spindle turning.

Something that hit me was that spinny work is essentially high speed wood carving with gouges but with trying to control at high speed where the cut takes place.

However unlike carving where you can follow a tracing on the wood, in turning a curve one really needs to get a grip on where the curve starts and ends ( in my case what a proper curve is :doh:, THEN what the heck the motion is that is going to get your cutting edge to follow that path and do it in stages to get to where you need to be.:doh::eek::(

Ed also got me to see that it did not need to be a white nuckle ride when you trying to take some wood off a rotating cylinder.

Oh there is so much that by the end of the day between my darn knee killing me and all i was taking in i was pretty tired but in a great way.

BIG THANKS TO ED THOMAS, Ed you changed my turning days. :thumb: Now its down to doing some practice. :)
 
Until I went to LV and took a course, anything I turned on the lathe looked like it had been chewed by the dog. I actually thought that the tools didn't have to be particularly sharp because of the speed the lathe turned at! The course was more than worth the money, especially as my daughter and son-in-law paid for it. Turning is the most fun I can have outdoors with my clothes on; it's a great hobby. I need to do more of it.
 
So Rob, now you are hooked on, Larry warned you about it LOL, so I can see your next Xmas tree full of turned ornaments and maybe turned elks?:D.

Glad you enjoyed the lesson and had a good time, seeing is believing says the sentence.
 
Very cool, Rob, and way to go, Ed! :thumb: Rob, you are in good company...there are a lot of folks who have turned for years without realizing they were missing the real fun because they were doing things wrong. One of the cool things about turning is that we get to have those epiphanies over and over as we pick up new skill sets. Or at least I know I do. And I still have a lot of areas where I'm uneducated and un-practiced.
 
Good deal! Glad its clicking because its to much fun to not get it :D

The white knuckle comment strikes a chord, everyone wants to start there and it just makes it more difficult. Its also true with carving and a lot of other things as well (knot work and braiding come to mind, loml says wool spinning is the same way). I think I finally started to kind of "get it" in that regard when I realized I was taking a super thing finish planing cut with a bowl gouge and my front hand wasn't really doing anything after the tool was placed into the cut. It was just there for moral support... hmm.. interesting.. Then I realized that the same thing was mostly true with most skew cuts as well.. Not that I'm saying to take your front hand off of the tool, just that it ends up not doing as much as you'd think it ought to. The spindle detail gouge on the other hand.. Grrrr... I don't know why its not clicking, maybe its my grind (yeah must be :p).

Your carving epiphany rings true as well. That's one reason (less clearly articulated :D) that I encourage folks to try cuts with the tool and the lathe off. You can see how the cut works without the speed of the thing getting in your way. Its analogous to learning to ski without using poles in some obtuse way that makes a good analogy in my head and less so once written out. Anyway I found that the turning knowledge had a definite cross over to some carving and vice-versa once I thought about it that way.

The better anti-fatigue mat has done wonders for my knees ability to handle a longish turning session, I tried a couple others and the one that came with my powermatic is still the nicest I have (no idea what it actually is though!?!).
 
Your experience confirms what everyone is telling me: you need a little hands on instruction. I've been struggling for a little over a year to trrn something, and haven't progressed past making square sticks into (not very) round ones. Unfortunately I'm a distance from any such help (or turning clubs) so will continue to struggle (or give it up). Glad to hear of your success.
 
fred you may not be so far from help as you might think do some searching and you might be surprised.. jonathans gathering is only 3 hrs away, and there will be lathes and turners there i am sure..
 
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Very cool, Rob, and way to go, Ed! :thumb: Rob, you are in good company...there are a lot of folks who have turned for years without realizing they were missing the real fun because they were doing things wrong. One of the cool things about turning is that we get to have those epiphanies over and over as we pick up new skill sets. Or at least I know I do. And I still have a lot of areas where I'm uneducated and un-practiced.

Rob glad you got some hands on help! :thumb:What Vaughn said is so true...it will happen many times again.
 
fred you may not be so far from help as you might think do some searching and you might be surprised.. jonathans gathering is only 3 hrs away, and there will be lathes and turners there i am sure..

Fred, Larry is spot on. Don't even need to wait for the Gathering if you are in my neck of the woods. Rob, I remember when I took a class on pen making at woodcraft. I was amazed when I made a square piece of wood round!
 
Thanks Jonathan for the offer, and all others for the suggestions. That's still just a bit too far for a casual visit, biut I'll keep it in mind (if you're OK with that). In the meantime a fellow loaned me a number of turning DVDs that I'll watch and see what I can glean from them. Columbus is about 100 miles from here and I believe they have the closest woodturning club to me, I may check into that as well.
 
Excellent Rob. I need more of those 'ah-ha!' moments in my life. It is wonderful how just a few things can make a quantum leap in your understanding.
 
no multi-quote but . . . .

Your experience confirms what everyone is telling me: you need a little hands on instruction. I've been struggling for a little over a year to trrn something, and haven't progressed past making square sticks into (not very) round ones. Unfortunately I'm a distance from any such help (or turning clubs) so will continue to struggle (or give it up). Glad to hear of your success.

Fred,

I haven't gotten around to buying his DVD's but I strongly recommend all of Lyle Jamieson's youtube video's if you didn't get his basic DVD's in the stack. Well shot and Lyle is a fantastic instructor. Can't beat someone there to tell you what you are doing wrong and make little adjustments but his are the best beginner videos I have found so far. It takes a long time to realize that most cuts should indeed be riding the bevel, either the nose or the wing. If you aren't using a swept back wing gouge you are making things far tougher on yourself too.


Rob,

The next really fun thing is when you cut into a chunk of green wood and you have six or eight foot curls stringing off of it like ribbon. I think I cut one curl per pass one day when I was really rolling. Still a long way to go for me and I am having too many long breaks when I don't get to turn but when turning is going like it should it is fun and almost effortless!


Larry,

That new green monster for $1550 looks to be the perfect beginner lathe for you! :D:D:D

Hu
 
The next really fun thing is when you cut into a chunk of green wood and you have six or eight foot curls stringing off of it like ribbon. I think I cut one curl per pass one day when I was really rolling. Still a long way to go for me and I am having too many long breaks when I don't get to turn but when turning is going like it should it is fun and almost effortless!

Oh man, there are a couple of bowls that ended up a few passes smaller than they should have because the shavings were just so much fun to make. Not sure if its a problem or a symptom of a problem.
 
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