just a hello and a little background

My name is of course Hu as my handle states. I have a few toys for woodworking but have always spent more time with metals and plastics, a bit of time on a cue lathe too which is closer to a metal lathe than a wood lathe. My brother and I bought out a two car garage size woodworking shop about six months ago and we got a bunch of DVD's with the purchase. That is where the trouble started. I moved to the middle of nowhere, just me, a TV, and those DVD's to watch over and over. One had a section on green wood turning. Somehow it seemed the thing to do so I rooted around in the back corners of my storage and unearthed this old lathe. A bit frustrating, I can't find any of the four or five sets of turning tools or the nice individual tools I have bought at one time or another. Had the itch to make chips and PMI is only about thirty miles from me. I scored a bowl gouge to go with the cheap parting tool, the only thing I found in storage, and fired up the lathe.

Zero experience using chisels and gouges so I started cautiously. I turned a couple of six inch sections of 1.125x1.50 dark mystery wood from a friend's attic sorta round. Sure was easier when I was just watching it on the video!

With all this experience behind me I was ready to turn a natural wood bowl and I had some natural wood, four or five year old cedar I had saved for another project. It is only six or eight inches around so I decide for this practice turning I would ignore the pith and just turn. Got the wood mounted sideways between centers and went to power whittling. A given the bark was gone but I was hanging on to the modest wings on the piece and it soon looked something like a vessel. Out of daylight, I went inside. My "shop" is the back porch at the moment. The next morning I scraped a little on the outside and saw the wood had held it's shape well. Still took a good bit of wood off the bottom to carve away a spot where old wood was showing. That'll matter later.

I have a live center, a drive center, and a face plate. I have at least one wood lathe chuck with multiple jaws, AWOL too. However I am turning this shape for experience and I want to hollow some. Something else that is much easier watching than doing! I do get things going a bit but about thirty minutes into hollowing I get a catch. A bit confused, I was watching the corners of my straight cut gouge, not a fingernail cut yet, and didn't see what caught. I went back in several times trying to figure what I was doing wrong. The big wing is history and this is no longer a natural edge vessel but still a fair sized salad bowl can be had. Another thirty minutes and both wings are damaged, looking more like this may be a cereal bowl. I think I am just trying to work too big of a tool in too small of an area and the square cut gouge ain't helping any, it is about 5/8" or a little bigger US measurement, 1/2" English. Finally have my little dessert bowl hollowed out and as a plus the holes left by the pith are gone.

I have a little bit of wobble to the bowl for some reason, not too bad. I also have an uglier curve where bowl wall meets bowl bottom than what I had last night. Things are pretty thick down there, I should be able to sneak a nicer curve onto there. A few more minutes work and I discovered why they call it a blow up instead of a less dramatic sounding term. Things weren't going badly when it happened and I didn't catch. Heat? Vibration? Offending the turning gods? I don't know but all of a sudden my little dessert bowl is in five or six pieces. None hit me or damaged anything else so all I have done is get a lot of firsts out of the way. I retrieved some hopefully spalted oak later this evening and am going to try to figure how to split and cut it tomorrow to make a decent bowl or two after watching a few more video's. I'm thinking start with more bowl and less hollow vessel next time.

All my posts won't be quite this long, this one included my entire woodturning career! :D

Hu
 
Welcome aboard, Hu! And welcome to woodturning. By now, you likely understand why they call it The Vortex. :) You have also seen now why the vast majority of us wear face protection. There are two types of turners: Those who have been hit in the face and those who have not...yet. ;) Always better to be wearing protection when it happens.

I would recommend sweeping back the wings of your bowl gouge. It makes things easier and also gives you more options for different types of cuts. And it's probably been mentioned in the videos you've watched, but sharp tools are essential. I highly recommend getting a sharpening jig like the Wolverine system made by Oneway. A jig makes sharpening much easier and more consistent.

Lastly, the saying "you have to walk before you can run" holds true in woodturning. Natural edge bowls and hollow forms are both pretty tricky projects. They are good goals, but very challenging for a beginner. I'd suggest working up to them instead of starting with them.

I think you're the first member with a pool cue lathe. We have several avid pool players here, including me. Feel free to share photos of it and stories about using it. :thumb:

Again, welcome, and fire away with any questions you might have.




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Welcome aboard, Hu! And welcome to woodturning. By now, you likely understand why they call it The Vortex. :) You have also seen now why the vast majority of us wear face protection. There are two types of turners: Those who have been hit in the face and those who have not...yet. ;) Always better to be wearing protection when it happens.

I would recommend sweeping back the wings of your bowl gouge. It makes things easier and also gives you more options for different types of cuts. And it's probably been mentioned in the videos you've watched, but sharp tools are essential. I highly recommend getting a sharpening jig like the Wolverine system made by Oneway. A jig makes sharpening much easier and more consistent.

Lastly, the saying "you have to walk before you can run" holds true in woodturning. Natural edge bowls and hollow forms are both pretty tricky projects. They are good goals, but very challenging for a beginner. I'd suggest working up to them instead of starting with them.

I think you're the first member with a pool cue lathe. We have several avid pool players here, including me. Feel free to share photos of it and stories about using it. :thumb:

Again, welcome, and fire away with any questions you might have.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Thanks for the Welcome!

Running before I learned to walk is why I still have so many scars. I am moderately safe around rotating equipment as indicated by still having the issue number of fingers, toes, and eyes, but I was misbehaving today. I did have the decently rated bubble type safety glasses on, bi-focals. I have a face shield buried somewhere seventy miles away that was used in a woodworking shop, not sure of the quality but as a beard wearer for all of my adult life I hope to purchase one of the helmet, face shield, air filter, assemblies. Past experience tells me that nothing but fresh air is effective with a heavy full beard.

I'm short on pictures right now although I do have a few of the lathe. Where can I store them online? My real tale of woe started with Isaac. My brother and I had bought out a two bay woodworking shop the week before and fortunately hadn't had time to move it when we lost much of our tools in our shop and I lost the battery charger to my DSLR camera. Hoping the lens and camera are still good, unfortunately the charger was laying on the floor when we flooded after 23 years of no problems. When we finally moved the shop we had purchased four of us were loading and much of what I know was in the shop can't be found now. Household goods were placed in front of shop stuff and old and new repackaged and combined in containers so a 12x20 bay with lots of shelves and bins needs to be totally gone through which means dragging it all out into the hall of the storage facility. Much of a three bedroom home and three workshops went into that bay. Can you say jammed floor to ceiling? Frustrating to know I have things and can't find them. I'm pretty sure I saw a Wolverine system in the shop we bought, didn't know what it was so I don't know if we got it. Trying to get set up to meet and look through things we left behind but things have been kinda hectic. I moved sixty miles away and the house I lived in was just bulldozed yesterday. Got to move my stick built storage shed from there, got to move my cue shop building from another place. Fortunately the cue shop was up the road high and dry.

The cue lathe is or was a Hightower Cuesmith Deluxe. Lots of extras. I wasn't happy with it so I built a base for it using over a sheet of 3/4" MDF and two large pieces of cold roll flat stock. I also modified it so it can be trued, something that isn't practical with the original design. It still is quick and easy to use, far more accurate, not as portable! If somebody buys it they will get the original base too and can use either set up. It isn't for sale or trade at the moment but may be in a few months if I like natural wood turning once I get my feet wet. A little NC mill too, maybe 25"x39"?

I am retired with time to spend turning wood once all these storm related headaches are out of the way. If I like it I will almost certainly be looking to sell or trade off cue building equipment and supplies to buy and upgrade the woodturning stuff. Of course I could make some most beautimus finials on that cue lathe and the NC router is a carving and inlaying machine.

I plan to sweep the wings back on the gouge but thought I would wait until after the second Saturday of next month. I do have multiple benchgrinders I can find, one a fairly nice tool grinder, but I'm hoping to see what sharpening systems I have and attend a Bayou Woodturners meeting before I cut on it. They are the local AAW chapter and they seem to be a pretty large and active group. The meet the second Saturday of each month.

A few more larger tools than I need at the moment shipped towards me from Colorado today, gifts from a friend. Somewhere there is a container too. I remember a set of shearing chisels, several sets of standard chisels, and I once had two sets myself. I remember a chatter tool and I think a carbide insert type roughing tool, some of the loose tools were almost certainly bowl gouges too. I cleverly put most of this stuff in one plastic container for efficiency. That way instead of losing things one at a time I was able to lose them all at once!

Right now my sharpening choices are a file, I think the chisel is harder, a 4.5" side grinder, or some little diamond stones. I have been carefully using the diamond stones being careful to maintain the original bevel for now.

Hu
 
Thanks to everyone for the welcomes! I now have twice the woodturning experience I had when I posted yesterday. A piece of spalted oak is in the lathe tonight, in about the same shape the cedar was in overnight come to think about it. Hoping for better results tomorrow though. I put some CA glue in some punky spots and inclusions that look like they might not cut away and I plan to mount to a faceplate tomorrow to give more room to hollow. have to figure out some kind of a lollipop to finish the outside bottom if I get that far without another oops.

I am renting a farmhouse from two very nice ladies who live out of town, this was their parent's home. One came unexpectedly today, my phone service is lousy, and caught me on the back porch with my pants down around my ankles. Well actually about six inches of shavings around my ankles! Was quite understanding about the lathe on the back porch for a few weeks and also said that she and her sister would be very interested in some ornamental wood objects. She invited me to come visit and scout for wood on her and her husband's land, she said she had some down and seasoned, not rotten. Of course I have maybe ten acres of woods here and another twenty or thirty acres less than fifteen miles up the road I can scout for downed wood too. Some fresh cut oak logs 4-6 months old in the 12-15 inch range I just have to catch my nephew home to get loaded too.

Life is GOOD!

Hu
 
good question, hard to answer

I haven't tweaked profiles and such yet, been a little busy. The best way to say where I am at is just follow the big yellow pipe to here, they have to pipe in the sunshine!

I am about ten miles south of the Louisiana/Mississippi border about ten miles east of I-55. My mailing address is a little town almost ten miles away. I guess my location is ten miles from anywhere and right where I want to be! :thumb:

Hu

Edit: I did just try to add a little to my profile. Easy questions but some of the answers ain't easy to put in a few words.
 
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well hu i have spent some good times in Mississippi around the taylorsiville area and in radius around there of a 100 miles hunting and fishing.. got a good friend there.. nice folk and great food.. i want to get back in the bayous of LA sometime,, havnt been there but want to get the experience.. always been a outdoors man and that is one thing i havnt done YET:)
 
eye candy

well hu i have spent some good times in Mississippi around the taylorsiville area and in radius around there of a 100 miles hunting and fishing.. got a good friend there.. nice folk and great food.. i want to get back in the bayous of LA sometime,, havnt been there but want to get the experience.. always been a outdoors man and that is one thing i havnt done YET:)


Photography was one of my earlier interests. I met Jude Haase at an eagle's nest when he was just starting out. Mentored him a bit in his early days but he far outran his mentor. A great virtual tour of south Louisiana and the kind of eye candy you can get lost in for hours if you love the outdoors. Many of the images link several layers down into more galleries. With a little planning we can hook up with Jude for a personal swamp tour or while I prefer not to his go-devil style boat that can do everything but climb tall trees is usually available to borrow. So is more camera gear than I could pay for in the next ten years, Jude is just that kind of a guy! I haven't talked to him in awhile, reminds me I need to. He will see many a fresh downed tree in his trips back beyond anywhere. Once I show him what I am looking for he will almost certainly be on the lookout for me.

Hu

wildlife, landscapes, misc
http://www.pbase.com/judemh

landscapes
http://www.pbase.com/judemh/louisiana_landscapes&page=all
 
those are some great photo's hu,, those pictures of the barred owls reminds me of deer hunt in southern Alabama and they must have been courting it was late January, because they were calling all night and started in the dusk time and would do it til around 10 am almost constant calling it was great the deer could slip by from there noises being covered up by the hooting.. but it was ok it was the some of the best music i have heard:)
 
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