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Well I’ve not had a lot of time at the lathe recently.  Life and work have been inconveniently getting in the way.  I managed to arrange the whole of Bank Holiday Monday in the workshop with the intention of making a couple of bowls.

The first bowl was made from Olive Ash and generally went ok.  My technique is slowly improving and I managed to get the outside almost perfect off the tools.  Only minimal sanding was needed.  I’m still struggling a little with hollowing out the inside of bowls and ended up having to use the sandpaper gouge on a few areas.

The result was pleasing, but I felt could be improved.  Unfortunately the wood has some markings which are not pleasing to the eye.  Much like dirty finger marks, but were there after I’d sanded.  I finished it anyway with Shellac based sanding sealer and an Acrylic Lacquer.

To follow this I quickly roughed out a piece of green Beech, which will be eventually (hopefully) used for a box.

After that I was quite upbeat and moved on to a nice piece of Elm.  I was going for a similar shape as before and, again, the outside of the bowl went fine.  The Elm was a tricky customer but with sharp tools and plenty of speed, I managed to do minimal sanding.  I finished the outside with Cellulose sanding sealer and beeswax, buffing at speed with a piece of tissue.

I stopped for lunch and came back to flip the bowl round and began hollowing out the inside.  It started fine but, again, I was struggling with technique.  All of a sudden towards the end of hollowing the tool caught and the bowl went dancing off the lathe into oblivion.  Disheartened, I didn’t even retrieve it from where it landed.

I was determined to make use of my day in the workshop, so I placed a 3″ square piece of Oak on the lathe with the intention of doing a box.  A change is as good as a rest, I thought.  Roughing out went well and I even had good success planing with the skew.   However, as I’d not planned what I was doing, the project was doomed.  I began trying to put a shape into the wood but I wasn’t getting anywhere, fast.  The final death knell came when the spindle gauge dug in and left a not so decorative spiral down the length of the wood.

I was clearly not in the frame of mind for it and finally gave in, bidding a retreat to the sofa where a turning DVD was already loaded in the DVD player!

Next time…..

So after the last disaster at woodturning club, it was time to have a go on my own.  I took a piece of Utile off the shelf and screwed it to the faceplate.  My pockets won’t run to a chuck yet so I’m having to go with this method.  At this early stage it’s all practice anyway.

Compared to the first bowl, it’s much much better.  However, my technique needs a lot of work.  I seem to be picking up the skills for basic tool control.  But I failed to get a good smooth contour both inside and out.  The grain tore quite a bit and I put this down to the basic square grind bowl gouge I was using.  It need the wings swept back, when I eventually get a suitable jig!

I finished the bowl with sandpaper through the grades to 1000g but it wasn’t worth applying a finish.  Put this one down to experience.

Recently there was a thread on UKW about FreeCycle.  I cynically stated that ‘wanted’ ads where pointless because if you had something to give away surely you’d list it.  Well it triggered a train of thought and eventually last week I sent a wanted ad for ‘Logs or large Branches’.
To my suprise I soon got not one but THREE responses.

Today I arranged to do the rounds.  First stop was not so productive, I got a fairly knarly piece of douglas fir.  It will be good for spindle practice but not much else.   Next stop was a guy who’d had a tree felled a couple of years ago and had ‘a bit left’.   When I turned up he had a plastic box full of -1″ branches, a rotten branch/limb and a piece of trunk. I took the piece of trunk which looks like it will yield a couple of small bowls but has some heave cracking on one end. I’m not sure what type of wood it is.  Bit of a gamble.

Finally I drove down to the local country side, around some hairy country roads to a large house surrounded by woods.  As I drove up the drive I spotted a pile of logs which looked very interesting and assumed this was what I’d come for.   As I got out the car I liked what I saw, probably 6-10 large usable logs and some nice thick branches. I knocked on the door and introduced myself. The owner fetched his shoes and led me in the opposite direction to the wood. “is it not that lot over there?” asks I. “that’s some of it” he says.
As we walked around to the rear of his house my eyes nearly popped out of my head when before me I saw the biggest beach tree I have  ever seen, on it’s side! Around the felled log were some very large logs from the very top of the tree that had landed inches from the house in a storm last year. “this is the first one” says he… “first one?” says I.
He leads me over to the rear of his garden to find 2 more trees which where smaller but of similar heft.  More logs surrounded these trees. “These are the trees” he says “let me show you the seasoned wood.”
“You’ve got to be kidding” I muttered under my breath.   He took me over to a pile of covered logs, among which was a piece of Yew calling my name.
“Well this is quite a find” says I,  in total shock and awe.
“oh, let me show you something else” says he! By this time I was too excited to respond, so I just smiled and nodded.   In a garage full of the usual paraphernalia of normal life, under an old bench, was a large pile of logs. Apparently a carver used to own the house and this was his stash.   As we walked back around the front of the house he asked me what I wanted. I resisted my urge to over enthusiastically shout “ALL OF IT!”.

I had expected nothing more than a few logs at the very most and as such had already filled the boot with other bits and pieces. All I could fit in was the yew branch and 2 large pieces of beech.  We had a chat and the guy was happy for me to come back and collect as much as I liked! His only use for it was for fuel and he was sitting in 5 acres of forest.  I really didn’t want to sound greedy and state I’d be back next week with a transit van! But is is tempting!   I will be begging someone to come back with me and help me load it.   Because of my back problems I really shouldn’t be lifting anything at all so it’s a bit of a conundrum.   It’s far too cheeky to expect the owner to help me load a van worth of his wood for gratis.   Needless to say I will be going back, even if it’s to pick up a few bits here and there.
So in short:  FreeCycle is a very good thing!

Tonight was hands-on night at my not-so-local turning club. Based in Fairlop, Essex. It’s about 45min drive for me but well worth the travel. They have more than enough facilities including lots of lathes, enough for 2 each! I turned up at 5:30 and most of the chaps where there and already stuck in. I brought my own lump of oak to play with and had decided I’d have a go at doing a bowl. It would be my first bowl on my own and I was a bit wary of the process. I have had some good tuition from Allen but as yet we had not done a bowl from start to finish.
I sorted myself out a lathe and a rack of tools. The athe of choice was a perform CCSL. It’s a very small and lightweight lathe, without much power. I found the centre of my blank and hammered in the drive centre. After some fiddling, trying to get it mounted on the lathe, I realised I wasn’t using a revolving centre on the tail stock! doh! So with a bit of help from the chaps I got the blank mounted and off I go. Everything started fine and I started to cut the spigot using a parting tool. This is where the trouble started. I’m not sure if it was the extremely dry and hard oak, the blunt tools, the under powered lathe or the ten thumbed monkey who was turning the bowl. But I got a lot off dig-ins as I tried to reduce down to the spigot. I felt a bit better when a couple of the guys tried it and also ran into problems. In the end I got down to the right diameter and was ready to shape the outside of the bowl.
When planning for bowls I seem to draw a blank. I had no idea what shape I wanted it to be and in the end I just winged it. It was more about learning how to use the tools and hone my skills. As I went a shape that pleased my eye began to form and I began to work around a design in my head. I got on well with the fluted bowl gouge but the oak tore out around the end-grain somewhat. Instead of whittling it away I decided to stop and resort to sand paper. The tear-out may well have been to do with tool sharpness, but more likely technique. After I had finished through the grades of sand paper, I was happy with what I’d produced. It wasn’t perfect but I wasn’t expecting it to be.
So now to mount it in the chuck. Problem No.2 I’d made the spigot too long and not trued it flat. The result was a wobbly bowl. Whoops! Seeing as this was just practice. I carried on. Hollowing out the inside was slow and tricky. I wasn’t doing too bad but struggled a bit in places. It seemed that I couldn’t retain consistency in technique. One cut would be nice and smooth, then the next would be jerky with catches. Towards the end, John handed me a ‘Superflute’ to try. It was fantastic. I really got on well with it. Then he handed me a multi-tip hollowing tool. This worked well too. But he didn’t stop there. He passed me tool after tool, all working better than those that i’d been using. I surmised that the tools had either become blunt or were blunt to start with. The club has grinding facilities but it was getting late and the chaps were starting to pack up. Just so I had something to show the wife, I grabbed some sand paper and finished it off.
This is how it turned out:

So not bad but not great.  The club is great for learning.  Whilst formal tuiton is not offered, everyone will chip in and help when things aren’t going right.  I really enjoy spending the evening turning and seeing what everyoen else is doing too.

Back to spindle work this weekend.

Today is the day before my Wedding.  My fiancée left this morning for the hotel we are getting married in and I spent the day in the workshop.  I’d ordered the pen kits from Turners Retreat and they had arrived on Friday.  That evening I managed to get out in the workshop to cut and drill the blanks.  So this morning I had to glue in the tubes and then turn away.  This is the first time I had turned pens on my own so I’d ordered a spare blank and kit just in case of error.

The turning went very well on the first blank. It should have been a piece of Mgurure but TR didn’t have any in stock so replaced it with an unknown alternative. It was looking good as I sanded down through the grits to 1000g. I decided to use a finish called Osmo Poly X which is actually a hard wax oil used for flooring. It’s lovely stuff, hard wearing and extremely easy to apply. 3 coats later it was dry and ready to be assembled. I took the kit out of the bag and laid the pieces in front of me. It was then that I realised I had no idea how to assemble this pen. The kit I’d used before at Allen’s was a slimline kit. I didn’t even consider that this Flat Top Twist Pen would be assembled in any other way. TR hadn’t supplied instructions so I was on my own to figure it out. After a lot of head scratching I decided to assemble the bit I thought obvious and see if I could work it out as I went. Big mistake. I ended up with a non-assembled pen. This prompted me to leave the workshop and seek help. I posted on the UKWorkshop forums but also went off to google it. I found instructions on an American website which look identical to my pen. On reading the PDF file I realised I’d done it all wrong. Not only had I assemled it incorrectly but I’d turned it wrong. With this kit the top and bottom are different diameters and the cap piece had a piece of the brass tube exposed as a sort of tenon.

So it was back to the drawing board.  The 2nd blank I had was a piece of ebony and was what I wanted the finished article to be.  I’d allready prepared the blanks and this time I was armed with the proper instructions.  I laid out the blanks on the pen mandrel with the bushings int he correct positions and off I went.  Again, the turning went fine.  I shaped the body to have a curve near the tip and then went on to sanding.  The ebony was a bit harder to sand.  For best results I found sanding with the lathe off, going in the direction of the grain worked better to remove all scratch marks.  After the final grade of 1000g the pen was looking good.

Then came the fatal blow.  When I got up close to apply the finish, I noticed that there was a small crack near the tip.  I’m not absolutely sure how this happened.  It has been suggested that the heat build up with either drilling or sanding can cause Ebony to crack.  For a few moments I was incredibly angry and started to panic.  I really wanted to make her something made by my own hand.  I started to consider what I could go out and buy at 4pm on a Friday afternoon that would be a decent keepsake for our wedding day.  No inspiration came, so I decided to at least assemble the pen and see what it looked like.  At least I’d have learned out to correctly assemble that pen kit.

So this is how it turned out:

It doesn’t look to bad.  I think the curve could have been a bit lower down and the Poly X was a bit matt for a pen.  The crack is only noticable if you look up close.  I will give it to her and then tell her I’ll replace it soon after the Wedding.  These things happen.  I am still very new to this so I’m not going to bat myself up too much.  I guess the main problem was leaving it so late to get round to it.

I’m really enjoying turning so far.  More practising after the wedding.

Welcome to my new blog.  My name is wizer and I have been a hobby woodworker for about 4yrs.  When I started I didn’t have a workshop and used mainly hand power tools on the deck of my last house.  A year ago we moved to a new house with a garage attached and I finally got the opportunity to have my own workshop.  Having a dedicated space to work is fantastic.  You can leave things as they are and come back to them next time and resume work  No need to dismantle everything and pack it away.

Over the past few year I have had a spinal condition which has been getting worse as time goes by.  This means my actual workshop time is very minimal.  It’s quite sporadic, with 4hrs here 30mins there.  I found that I wasn’t getting much done and it wasn’t doing anything for my morale.  So at Christmas a friend introduce me to wood turning.  I was bitten instantly.  Such a rewarding and satisfying hobby.  The instant gratification you get from taking a piece of wood and turning it into something beautiful over the space of a few hours is brilliant!

So I needed a lathe.  Having been doing woodworking for a few years, I know what it’s like to buy cheap tools and end up having to buy them again (and sometimes even again!).  With this in mind, I decided to get a substantial lathe.  Something which will last me a very long time without me yearning for more capacity or power.  My good friend Allen happened to be selling his WoodFast M910 as he’d just upgraded to a Silverdrive Statesman 280.

I had to save my pennies for a month and sold my table saw.  But eventually Allen and John brought me my new lathe.

It’s a beast of a machine!

Allen has also been kind enough to give me a few lessons on his lathe, so I was quite confident I could set it all up and start playing.  As I blew the budget on the lathe, I a going to have to wait a few months before I can afford a chuck and some more tools.  I could also do with a sharpening solution and ideally an air filter.  All this will take time and will have to come when budget allows.  Not having a chuck will mean only doing spindle work (between centres) for a bit.  I see this as a good thing, as hopefully it will help me hone my skills before I rush into doing bowl work.  Being able to quickly roll a bead or cove will be a great discipline.

The day after it arrived I excitedly went into the workshop for a play.  I started by trying to clean up the front of the lathe but the stains are baked on finishes and will take a lot more elbow grease.  I’m in two minds over this.  Normally I’m a bit odd and like my machinery to stay clean and tidy.  But then I guess I will be apply finishes myself on the lathe, so will it always be mucky?

I mounted a length of oak between centres, selected my roughing gouge and off we go.  It was a testament to Allen’s tuition that the rouging out went fine and I moved onto using a skew to plane a nice smooth finish on the cylinder.  After reading a lot about skews, I was apprehensive.  I’d had a go with it at Allen’s and only had one dig in so I had an idea what to do with it.  Luckily enough this operation also went well and I got a lovely smooth finish from the oak.

I really like using the skew so far.  It’s a tricky tool to use and you have to be careful.  One false move and not only will the tool be shoved towards you at speed, but it leaves an ugly scar in the wood.  However, here you can see just how good it can be

With that done it was onto playing with the tools I had, making shapes, curves, sweeps.  No real plan in mind.  The session went well although what I produced would never

win any prizes.

So we’re not off to a bad start.  I have a go lots to learn and am excited about the future.  Come back soon to see how I’m getting on.  Feel free to leave a comment.