woodturning

I retired from my day job Feb 28, 2022, having worked pretty much continuously since May of 1968. If you do the math, you’ll understand how ready I was to explore new vistas, unencumbered by the agendas of others. Turns out, while I enjoy being free to plan my own days, the first several weeks felt a bit like falling off a cliff. Not to worry; working on building my skills turning spindles and bowls has so far kept me sane (to the extent I can reasonably lay claim to that status).

You'll sometimes (okay, frequently) hear woodworkers grousing about what they consider the less than elegant parts of the craft. I'm not one of them. From tree to finished (bowl, wand, table...), there's really nothing I do in my workshop that causes me any discontent. Yes, I even like sanding sometimes. Anyhoo, I thought I'd share a bit about how I do the 'work before I can work.' It's all part of the whole.

Between tree and lathe

Tough but lovely

Quite early in my woodturning journey, I elected to try making a bowl from a lovely piece of wood of indeterminate origin. Although beautiful, the wood was extremely hard and the face grain given to serious fuzzing. No surprise, I ran into trouble immediately and elected to set the piece aside and wait until I had a bit more practice under my belt. That was early in 2020. Flash forward to April 2022, and I felt I'd developed the needed skills to do justice to this chunk. I'll leave it to you to judge how well I did.

Starting again

Almost there...

Okay, mebbe...

Oy! This is work!

Eureka!

I'm learning the value of patience and persistence and this little piece of (Padauk?) has been a great teacher. I hope you enjoy it as much as do I.

Madrone mortar and pestle

Continuing to find ways to use chunks from the Madrone we felled as a learning medium. This one was fun. Full disclosure - This was going to be just the bowl but I achieved a nice, fair curve on the inside, so decided to try a pestle. Madrone isn't as hard as you'd want for grinding spices and such, so this is likely destined to be a display item. By the way, if you listen to the sound the shavings make when I pick them up in the first clip, you'll realize just how quickly Madrone gives up its moisture. Those shavings were maybe twenty minutes old and already dry, although the blank itself was still relatively wet. Relative humidity in the shop was low that day, so I had to complete turning this thick-walled bowl and get it waxed in one go to prevent cracking.

B-B-Bubinga!

Wood turners tend to share wood, sometimes in barter, sometimes as a challenge, and frequently just because they tend to be a pretty collegial group who like to share their finds. Mary and I recently attended a sale by the Strait Turners, the turning club in Sequim. It was a lovely drive up there and we met some equally lovely folks in the process of gathering a number of pieces to add to my lumber rack. In April, 2022, I pulled out this piece of spalted Bubinga sapwood, which as you'll see, had some problems but nevertheless held promise. I leave it to you to determine if that promise has come to fruition.

As you'll see above, I started with a very angularly shaped chunk with significant ring shake showing on the bark side. The videos below will take you through the process by which I took this chunk from raw to turnable blank, to bowl.

As you might imagine, I try very hard not to waste wood; at the same time, you'll note that the condition, shape and other characteristics of the wood itself will frequently dictate the loss of mass as we progress. As always, my aim here was to reveal the beauty within. I loved both the process and the piece.

Emerging Chalice

Last time he visited, my brother brought me a couple of pieces of some really interesting but unknown wood he got from a friend. It looked like some sort of fruitwood but with a cool (inclusion? wierd pith?) and a cleft running along the length on one side. He'd made a twig vase with a piece of it that came out nicely but I've taken several months to figure out what to do with mine. I hope you like what I came up with. Sorry I haven't yet learned the app to edit into a single, flowing video. I'll get there...

Lines and fissures and tears...Oh, my!

I worked on this chunk of White Oak that seemed determined to, shall we say, provide me with learning opportunities. One of the lessons came in the form of an accidental design revision. Another involved learning when to stop.