I watched David Marks interview James Krenov on Woodworks, and he made a comment that didn’t sink in immediately. He had a bookmatched set of boards in spalted maple, and he designed cabinet around them. How profound is that? As woodworkers, how often do we start with a plan and make the wood fit with it instead of starting with the wood and planning a project that maximizes that piece of wood’s potential?

Almost every woodturner starts off “wrong”, and I won’t go into a lot of details why on this topic. It is safe to say that if a new woodturner produces his or her first bowl from a piece of 7”x3” wood that the bowl will be 7”x3” EXACTLY. Why- because we are taught not to “waste wood”. The thought is so ingrained in woodworkers that I wonder if there isn’t a gene sequence in our DNA that somehow describes it.

How many of you have a box full of offcuts? Stuff that you couldn’t bear to srap, put aside for some future mystery project, or give to someone that uses smaller pieces of wood? Me too. We all do, and I am not saying that this is the wrong thing to do, but I do believe it plays against our potential as woodworkers. Philosophically, I would rather create one masterpiece and a winter’s worth of firewood than a tree’s worth of mediocrity.

I have been working in wood for probably 20 years now, and I have a house full of compromises- from the knothole in my dining room table top, to the shelf I am making now with the wainy edge. All of them stem from starting with a plan instead of the material. There is a well known woodturner, John Jordan, who is famous for saying that “Life is too short for turning crappy wood”. He selects the right materials from the start that fit his artistic visions and then executes his projects.

We have a certain amount of responsibilty to the material to maximize it’s potential, and in turn maximize our own potential.

Off to the shop to deal with that wainy edge…

What is production work? To me, it’s work where the creativity is decided one time, and then executed many times. We need production work- spindles for staircases, utility bowls- for our every day lives, but it doesn’t feed my creative side. The funny thing is that production turners typically make more money because there is a much larger audience for their work, and it’s easier to sell when you have customers.

But I mean production work in a very different sense that most woodturners don’t really see. I mean it in areas that many see as being creative. If you turn the same wood all of the time, that’s a rut. If you turn the same form all of the time, you are in another rut. If you only turn bowls or spindles, you’ve found yet another rut. And it seems like a very easy trap to fall into.

A couple of years back, I was turning hollowforms almost exclusively. Even worse, the rut had gotten so deep that they were all the same basic shape. The wood didn’t stand a chance. It was going to be a certain shape no matter what the right thing to do with it was. (Look up Procrustean Bed) Then, one day- almost in a fit of anger, I shut the lathe off (and mumbled some bad words) and vocalized that I didn’t want to make “another one of those”. I stood looking at the wood, and decided that the only way to stop myself was to cut away all of the usual bits and make it impossible to produce that form again. Gouge in hand, I turned away a bunch of perfectly good wood, from a perfectly good form, and I made a mess that I was now forced to look at and reevaluate. I don’t remember what happened to that form, but I know what did happen. I had gotten myself out of the rut.

We all need to figure out what makes us happy. I am driven by being different (and original), which is harder to do than being good. Technical proficiency can be achieved with practice and determination. Being original is another story. It involves taking the little bits of yourself and your experience, and putting it into your work. If you keep doing the same things over and over, you will become technically proficient. However, you will also find yourself in that rut. Even if your idea was originally “new”, you eventually become a machine capable of “copying yourself”.

I implore anyone willing to listen- if you are in this wonderful journey called woodturning, try something new today. Be willing to fail- and grow, because you can’t do one without the other.

I’m off to the shop to see what happens…

1.) “What lathe is the best?” “What angle is that sharpened to?” “What tools are the best?” “What chuck…”

AAAAAAARGH! The answer to all of these questions is “It doesn’t matter.” I think far too many folks are concerned with the brand name, whether there is some perception of status or instant expertise if you own a Oneway vs. a mini lathe- it doesn’t matter! Folk overlook the basic facts- A lathe spins wood, and a tool cuts wood. A better lathe will outperform a lesser lathe only if there is a BETTER turner holding the tool.

We tend to think investing in better tools is the easiest way to get better at the craft, when the truth is that we really need to invest in our skills and knowledge. Once you have done this, most folks will realize that what they have is more than sufficient and stop asking those questions.

2.) “I can’t do what you do.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! (really bugs me!) I stand there holding a sharp tool to a spinning piece of wood. It requires almost no skills at all. The root of the matter is that these folks are still mystified by the very basics of woodturning, which boil down to the following:

You either cut or you scrape. Period. A cut is supported by the bevel of the tool. A scrape isn’t. Pretty simple stuff. From there, you need to know what one looks like vs. the other, and watch your tool presentation to the wood. Practice makes perfect, but in 15 minutes, I’ve taken folks that have never held a turning tool and taught them how to make ribbons of wood fly.

If I had know 10 years ago what I know now, I’d be where I will be 10 years from now.

3.) “I like straight sided bowls”

(I’ll save the keystrokes the ARGH would require here…) Really? Have you ever seen one for sale in a store somewhere? If you did, you were probably in a pet store, because a dog dish is the quintessential “beginner bowl shape”. Usually, it is driven by two things- the desire to get the biggest possible bowl (not the best bowl) out of an expensive piece of wood (beginners SHOULD NOT BUY WOOD) or the fear of a catch in the curve or transitions.

We are all guilty of having to start somewhere, but my biggest investment in turning is my library. I have scores of books that went from how-to, to what-to, and finally why-to. Woodturning is a very tactile craft- most of the things we make are going to be handled by human hands, which can instantaneously provide feeback that our eyes cannot. If we pick up something that doesn’t feel “right”, it’s usually a red flag to our perception that something is “wrong”.

A straight sided bowl doesn’t fit into the human hand. It may be perfect for keeping the dog from knocking its water over, but let’s try to work in some curves.

Why am I ranting about this? Generally speaking, I don’t know. I guess it’s because I see an opportunity to change the way turning is taught – why, how, what. If you know why, you can apply how to make whatever you want.

Rant off. Thanks for listening.

I found it pretty funny, since I began turning for the exact opposite reason. I could go to the lathe and make something that was pretty nice (by my standards at that time) in an hour. I had started in woodworking via the traditional means of making furniture and boxes, and I was frustrated that you had all of these things you needed (tools, wood, finish) to be “just so” or the finished product would be less than perfect. As a frugal person, spending a lot of time and money to make something that I didn’t love seemed pretty stupid.

So I started turning wood for the very simple reason that it was fast. And the wood was free (it grows on trees where I live :-)! How can you beat free and fast?! I made a few hundred bowls and a few hundred hollowforms and probably a hundred pens. I bought all kinds of books and studied others work to the point where I could probably produce most of it.

Then, a couple of things happened. The first was simple boredom. I could turn another bowl, but why? I have stacks of them scattered throughout the house, and most of the people I know also do too.Secondly, I went to few events and saw other people’s work, and realized that there were a few hundred guys who were stuck in a rut like I was- producing good, but boring stuff. And then there were a few that weren’t…

A couple of pretty well know turners made comments that changed my perception of my own work. Granted, I use the word work to describe what I do for fun in my garage, but I still think of it as a form of work because I do work at getting better at this craft.

The first turners was Keith Tompkins, who told me that until I put something personal in my work, it would never truly be mine. For an “artist” to be connected to the work, it does require something intimate about that person to be present and I needed to think about what makes me… me.

The second turner was Harvey Fein, who saw one of my pieces, and thought it was a great copy of another well known turner’s work. I contacted that turner, and he said that he thought the work was good, but also was missing the connection to my soul. Without MY personal experience in the work, I would always have this problem.

What does this have to do with time? Well, it seems that it takes me a lot longer to get finished with my “work” these days. Most pieces have at least 6-10 hours on the lathe, and at least as many hours off the lathe in finishing. What used to be “how many things can I make today?” is now “how many steps on this one (or more pieces) can I complete today?” Occasionally, I’ll probably turn a basic bowl or something, perhaps as a gift or just because, but I don’t know if I’ll ever look at my time in the shop the same way again.

Typically, the desire to make something is within all of us. Whether it is in our DNA or just our culture, we all have creative capabilities that manifest themselves in different ways. Some paint. Some sculpt. Some of us choose wood as our medium.

I think it’s pretty common to see people approach woodworking with a “let’s see what happens” attitude. My personal experience started with a tablesaw, since I needed to cut wood and couldn’t saw a straight, square cut by hand. I still can’t to this day.

From there, the normal acquisition of tools to make boards flat and square arises. We buy planers and jointers and sanders to help with the basics foundations. Some of us like to do things by hand, so we buy the manual tools of our forefathers in an effort to be more hands on. My personal view is that the board doesn’t really care how it gets flat and square, and the piece that it becomes cares even less. All of these things are immaterial to the end product, but it seems that most people start here without fail.

So if it doesn’t matter how we prep materials, then what does matter? We must have some level of skill with all of the tools (manual or powered) to be able to successfully execute a project without loss of life or limb. I will contend that the single most important tool that we can develop along the path is our mind.

We’re all born with an inherent sense of good vs. bad design. I don’t know how to make clothes, cars, houses, plumbing fixtures- but I know an ugly one when I see it. We can sense proportion and craftsmanship without knowing about the manufacturing process. We judge quality all of the time. To me, there is nothing worse than great execution of a poor design. It shows talent without thought.

My personal path in wood working is a parable for illustrating my point. I began making furniture, but was unhappy with the results, so I stopped. I’d follow the plans I saw in magazines and inevitably over the course of months, be disappointed with the end result: a sum of errors and lost time. I tripped across woodturning somewhat by accident, and like past experience, decide to try it to “see what happened”.

Not surprisingly, I measured success by quantity, not quality. If I made more things more quickly, I must have been getting better, right? Then, a funny thing happened. I started to buy books and read. The books were about technique, but moreso, design. I held my work against the pages and became “unhappy” again, as I realized that I was turning “lots of stuff that wasn’t very good.”

I began to reevaluate my priorities. Was it better that everyone I knew had an ugly bowl or that some people I knew had pretty bowls? I began to slow down. Before long, the work improved. When I started, I measured success in bowls per day. Today, it’s more appropriate to think in days per bowl.

So in summary, I’d like to offer the the following advice to anyone considering taking up the craft of woodworking. Practice with your tools so that you can work safely, but do not rely on the tools to make decisions for you. Read voraciously to become an expert, and use what you learn to guide you in execution.

I’ll leave you with this final thought:

100 years from now, someone might look at what you’ve made. They won’t know how you made it or how long it took. All that will stand the test of time is the object itself and your name attached to it.

Evolve past your tools.