| Blog series by William | updated 9 hours ago | 33 parts | 25929 reads | 591 comments total |
Part 1: How a Good Day Turned Bad
In the responses to yesterday’s blog, I told a friend of mine, Grizz, that I would turn him one of my bowls. I don’t know why, as I’m still learning, but he hinted that he’d like one.Also, some things Bearpie said in response to that blog kept sticking in my mind. The main thing is sharpen my lathe tools. I’ve been and am using the Paul Sellers method of sharpening these days for pretty much everything. It works great for all my tools, except those lathe tools. I...
Part 2: As The Lathe Turns........Again
I bugged the boys to get their butts over here early. We replaced the MDF top on the stand and mounted the new (to me) lathe. In case any of you don’t know, fellow Lumberjock, Eddie, gave me the lathe after mine bit the dust. Thank you so much Eddie. You have no idea how much this means to me. So I checked everything out on the lathe. Everything seems to be in good working order. My only complaint with it was the tailstock center. It has the type that does not turn. I do not like that t...
Part 3: The Lathe Saga Continues
I have been working on a project. In the meantime though, my newly found wood turning fascination is still in full swing. What you see here is the corner of my shop over behind the table saws where the lathe always sat. I use the word sat, as in past tense, because you may notice there are three lathes now. The one closest to the camera is the old one that I recently discovered had a bent shaft. I thought of carrying it out back and putting it out of it’s misery, but I think it can stil...
Part 4: I Feel Like An Idiot
I’ve had the flu and haven’t felt up to doing too much. I’m been puttering around though and doind what I can. Yesterday, I pulled out my grinder and oil stones. It was something I could do sitting down. So I got some of my lathe tools sharpened up nicely.One of my older sons had brought me a small pile of firewood. It was still pretty wet, but I remembered someone telling me green wood was a good idea to start with for practice. So, today, I pulled out my electric chain saw...
Part 5: This Idiot Can Learn
In the photo above, you see yesterday’s results. That was yesterday though. This is a new day. If you read yesterday’s blog entry, and then read this one, you’ll understand the idea behind the title of this one. Stefang, I want to thank you for pointing me to Bob Hamilton’s videos. They were a huge help. I’ve read and watched a lot of videos, and you are correct, there are so many techniques shown all over the place that it’s hard to know right from wron...
Part 6: Lessons Learned In Bowl Turning
Learning to turn bowls is becoming quite an adventure. It seems sometimes that the more I learn, the more I have to learn. It is a fun adventure though, so I think I’ll keep at it for a long time to come. Actually, the amount of knowledge and skill required I think is what makes turning even more interesting to me. A lot of wood working skills come easy to me. Sometimes, it seems they come too easy and there just isn’t much of a challenge to it. Therefore, something like turning, ...
Part 7: The Bent Shaft Lathe
You may remember, my recent adventures into wood turning almost ended before it even got started good due to the bent shaft on an old lathe. In that corner, there sits three lathes now, a Ridgid, the big heavy flat bed lathe, and the bent shaft lathe. Every time I looked over at the bent shaft lathe, I’ve considered what to do with it. It sits on a heavy old bar and was just taking up space. While I do have a very large shop, I still don’t like wasted space. I need to figure out w...
Part 8: Close Only Counts With..............
I was going to title this entry, Close To Success. Every time I think of the word close though, I think of my Uncle who used to say, close only counts with horse shoes and hand grenades”. I’ll get to that unsuccessfuly, but learning, experience in a bit. First, I wanted to share a few thoughts of mine as I go down this turning road. First, I’ve learned an important lesson lately. I’ve been down a lot the last few weeks. I’m currently going through a particular...
Part 9: Now THIS Is What I Call Fun
I sat here this morning trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was hurting so bad I couldn’t even put my boots on until my wife got home from her night shift at work to help me. I lurked around Lumberjocks until then. As soon as I got my boots on though, I was determined not to let the day be a total waste. I was going to do something, even if it was wrong. Not only that, but I wanted to do something on the lathe.And I did do wrong. I had a good reason though. I could not bend o...
Part 10: Round Bowl In A Square Block
It’s funny to me. I’ve had several larger bowls thrown at me. I’ve had heavy pieces of wet wood drop on me. I’ve hurt my back trying to lift a piece. Then, after all that, today a small piece of dry wood spinning on the lathe brought blood from me for the first time since I started down this road learning to turn.Don’t worry. It’s nothing serious. It’s just a small nick. I will tell ya’ll more about that later. First, on to today’s adventu...
Part 11: A Good Day
I am not completely over this bad spell I’ve been having, but I did feel a lot better today than I have in about a week. So I went to the shop, all gung ho about doing something with some of those logs. I stopped short though and considered that I am supposed to have three fellow Lumberjocks visiting my shop on Saturday. I’m not completely well, so there is no sense in taking a chance on putting myself right back down by over doing it too soon. So I decided to stick with what I...
Part 12: Turn, Turn, Turn, And Learn, Learn, Learn
I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but even though I’ve been getting better, I’ve only been turning out an average of about one small turning a day. The reason for this is that, being left handed, and with a bad back, the awkward way I have to lean over sometimes to take those hollowing cuts made me have to take frequent breaks. It also was leaving me hurting a lot of times. Then today a light bulb went off in my head and I wondered how anyone could be so foolish. There is ...
Part 13: The Trouble With Turning
Alright, this is getting downright ridiculous. I’m addicted to bowl turning. I’m already in a twelve step program for scrollers, and now I’ve turned a pen, and found it to be just as addicting. I think I’m in trouble. I made a mistake about a week ago. I let my wife look at the Penn State Indutries catalog. She seen pens and started asking when she was getting one. This made it apparant that I’d be making a pen sooner or later. At the moment though, I do not h...
Part 14: The Disappearing Pen Mystery
Since the five pens I turned yesterday were quickly confiscated by my wife, I decided to turn some more today. My idea is to have some in a cup next to my lathe. That way, when certain family members and such come over and hint that they want something I’ve made, I can give them a pen instead of something I’ve got countless hours into. I realized today that, now that I’m used to turning them, I can turn them out pretty quickly. I turned eleven today. One of them left with my...
Part 15: Move Along, Nothing To See Here
I have to apologize. I have no new project or techinques or newly learned advice to share today. I just felt a need to post today about yesterday’s non-progress. First of all, I did not make much yesterday. I did make my kids some sort of spinning top things. I call them “some sort of” because they weren’t great. They were just ideas I was working on as I went along. The kids liked them though. Before I could even think of whether I wished to snap a photo or not, th...
Part 16: Gluing Up Bowl Blanks, And Some More Of My Ramblings
First thing today, I wanted to show the thread adapter and live center that someone sent to me. These come from Penn State Industries. The reason I wanted these was that the Ridgid lathe has #1 morse taper, while my larger lathe has #2. On the headstock spindle, the Ridgid has 3/4”x16 threads, while my larger lathe, and most of my accessories, have 1”x8 thread. Someone had these shipped to me. Whoever it was apparantly did not wish for me to know who, but I do thank you, whoever y...
Part 17: The First Glueup Results
Today has been a long day. As a matter fact, I can’t even believe I made it to the shop today. I couldn’t help myself, and will probably be paying for it in the morning, but those blanks I glued up yesterday were on my mind and driving me nuts.First of all, my wife has been working some crazy hours because her company was short handed. They finally hired someone though. She was able to come home early today. It’s been so crazy lately that I’ve almost felt like a single...
Part 18: Trying Something Different With The Next Glueup
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I glued up two bowl blank. I turned one of them yesterday. It was made of sycamore and it was easy to turn. So I thought I had this thing licked. Then again, today was another day. The second glueup was of pecan, and it did not turn nearly as easily as the sycamore. I already knew that pecan was a hard wood. I’ve worked with it often on smaller projects, and flat type wood work. This is the first time though for me to turn a piece this size...
Part 19: Why Buy When You Can Make?
Since I decided I wanted to turn, I’ve learned how to use a variety of tools. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert at any of them, but I’m learning. I’m also learning what I like and what I don’t like. For example, I don’t like my parting tool. The tool I have works great. I don’t like it because it removes too much material. You see, a lot of times I’m already limited on how thick the material is when I start. I don’t want to have to accoun...
Part 20: My First Pen From A Kit
I was on pens and needles this morning about, well, pens.According to the tracking information I checked on this morning, my package with my pen kits were out on delivery. I went to the shop, made coffee, and sat in the door watching for the UPS guy. I don’t remember watching for a package like that since I was a kid waiting for the X-Ray glasses I ordered from the back of a Superman comic book. I was nine, don’t ask me what I wanted to see with the X-Ray glasses. Anyway, I didn&#...
Part 21: Solutions, And a Couple Of New Mistakes
I am a day late posting this. I got down in my back yesterday evening. Rain was coming in this morning. Changes in weather effect my back greatly. Anyway, I’ll be typing this up as if it was last night. I jumped right into the fray of things today with preparing multiple blanks before doing anything else. I wanted to turn today without having to stop, cut, drill, and wait for glue to set. The first pen of today, I made one of the wood blanks longer by the length of the width of the c...
Part 22: Learning To Adapt
I am always trying to think of little lessons to give out as I learn all of this. Today, I want to share what I believe to be the most important lesson I’ve learned about wood turning. Adapt. If something goes wrong, set it aside and think on it a while. Then adapt it to do something different. If you’re wondering what made me think that one up, read on about today’s adventures.First up today was a piece of bloodwood. I think this is a beautiful wood. I had a tiny piece of s...
Part 23: People Spoke, So I Listened
For several days now, I have been wanting to glue up some more bowl blanks. It has been cool though. When I say cool, keep in mind I live in Mississippi. It has ranged from the forties at night up to around the mid sixties during the day. I know that during the day it is warm enough to glue, but the temperatures fall below what the glue bottle instructions recommend before it is set. I’ve had a past safety issue with trying to glue material in low temperatures before. So, I won’t ...
Part 24: A Tale Of Two Bowls
If you read my blog yesterday, you know I glued up material for two bowls. I got to work on those today.Here is the first one, with an interesting result.The bowl is made of glued up layers of pecan and sapelle. That is not the story though.If you looked at all closely at the photos yesterday and remember them, you may remember the blank was a bit thicker than that. This is my lesson of the day for my friend, Randy. Never stand in the line of fire when turning anything that you don’t wa...
Part 25: Woke Up With An Idea
Do any of you wake up with an idea? Almost like it came to you in a dream? I can’t say it did, because I can never actually remember my dreams, but I woke up this morning with an idea that was driving me absolutely nuts. I couldn’t wait to try it out. Now, I’m not saying that this idea is completely original. I often have brilliant ideas sometimes that I realize much later that I had seen somewhere and must have just tucked it away somewhere deep in my subconscious. As I lik...
Part 26: Failure Is Not An Option
I have been complimented on my “never say die” attitude in the past by fellow Lumberjocks. That perserverence helped me get to where I wanted to be today, but it made me want to share with my friends about my Uncle J.C. My Uncle J.C. was one of the men who helped raise me. He was a twenty three year military veteran. In my eyes, he was what a real man was. He was a hard nosed, gun toting, take no crap off noone kind of guy, who also taught me how to sew, cook, iron clothes, do ...
Part 27: One Step Forward......
I have an opinion of wood working in general. If you’re not constantly learning something new, then you’re doing something wrong. I think that’s what I’m enjoying so much about this wood turning. It always seems to be one step forward and two steps back in the learning process. I am consistently unhappy with the pens I’ve been turning. If I get to where I’m almost happy with the results, I add something new to the scenario to keep the learning curve high. T...
Part 28: Squaring Solution - Shop Made Pen Blank Squaring Tool
If you read the last blog installment, you know I was having a problem squaring the pen blanks to the tube inserts. I don’t like the barrel trimmers. The idea is a good one, but I just didn’t like the performance of the one I have. So I had an idea for a different approach.I have seen some jigs to be used with disk sanders. I have a disk sander. However, I keep course paper on it for another purpose in my shop. The disk sander idea would involve either setting it up with finer pap...
Part 29: Sidetracked
I know. I am supposed to be working on a marble machine. I have a little, and I promise a post on that a tad bit later this evening. The thing is though, I have gotten sidetracked. I hate to sound like I’m making excuses, but I’ve had a rough week so far. I have been in a lot of pain. Sometimes the pain gets to me and I’m easily distracted from something I am supposed to be doing. Recently I have learned that turning is a favorite diversional tactic of mine when the pain wea...
Part 30: The Lumberjock Pens
Most of you know of my health issues. Since we’ve been getting winter in May lately, I have been having some bad days. On top of that, I’m going through just a “blah” spell. I have only done one small project since finishing the modular marble machine. I built Matthius Wandell’s wooden ir engine. It turned into something I call the DODGE, Dad’s Old Dead Garage Expiriment. It didn’t work. I haven’t given up on it. It is something I will rebuild i...
Part 31: Turning Something Besides Wood
This is deer antler. Ever since I first seen this in the Penn State Catalogue I have wanted to try this. I live in Mississippi though. This is arguably the deer hunting capital of the world. There is no way I was paying for deer antlers when I knew that, if I asked enough people, someone around here had some lying around that would let me have them.As it turns out, I kept forgetting about it though and finally got around to asking someone. Or rather, my wife asked someone. The maintenance man...
Part 32: A Gift From a Friend
Recently, I received an unexpected package in the mail. When I opened it, I discovered that a good friend had sent me several packages of Abranet abrasive. I had never heard of it before then, but this friend told me it was supposed to be great for wood turners. I was getting ready for the cradle project at the time though and had no choice to set it aside for the moment.Well, I finished the cradle and was anxious to see if this stuff was any good. Since receiving it, I’d looked it up a...
Part 33: Promises And Challenges
Today I needed to get to work on some deer antlers and fulfill a promise I’d made. You see, I told several people that if they’d find me some deer antlers, I’d make them a pen. I had done one a while back. I still had to make one for my son though who had located me some antlers. I also wanted to make one for my display for anyone who comes to my shop to look at them.This is the one I made for my son. I was only able to get this one pen out of three racks of antlers. I got t...
