Dibbler - First non-pen turning!

After thinking about whether I’d actually use one or not, I finally decided to buy a lathe. (Penn State’s Turncrafter, since it was cheap).

I bought the set that came with 40000 pen kits, since it seemed a good way to learn a little turning skills.

My assessment is that its a good way to learn to turn pens, but turning pens doesn’t prepare you for turning much else really.

At any rate, my girlfriend asked if I could make her a dibbler for when the planting season comes up. She had one as an example, but it was too thick and didn’t leave very useful holes. I have some seasoned maple branches I’d planned to use as firewood, so I tossed one on the lathe and decided to see if I could freehand something sorta resembling a dibbler.

It did work, kinda. I didn’t set the drive center well enough, so it got off center towards and end and some of the lines don’t wrap all the way around. I also have no idea how to correctly part spindle work (I’ve been mostly reading about turning bowls), so the ends aren’t great, but even so I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out considering I have no idea what I’m doing.

This turning thing is kinda neat, its nice to be able to do a project from start to finish in an hour or two, unlike any of the other types of projects I’ve done. I’m looking forward to getting some better turning tools and chucks and trying my hand at more!

-- Dylan Vanderhoof - General hobbiest and reluctant penmaker. http://llarian.etsy.com