Wednesday's Wisdom For Woodturners August 28, 2024

[lew]

Summer ain't over yet- 94° and heat index a little over 100!

 

 

Our Patriot Turners-

New member @Gordon posted a scary image of a bowl he was turning.

 

Fortunately, the bowl was the only casualty. Check out Gordon's post for more about what happened-

 

 

@kreisdorph and @User74 added to our "What's Off Your Lathe..."

 

 

 

 

You can catch up on all the images and comments starting here-

 

 

@AndrewB continues to revamp his shop. He is currently working on his sharpening station. Read more here-

 

 

@Masonsailor was back at his lathe to finish up his door project.

 

Checkout his post to see what he has made!

 

 

 

What’s Coming Up-

@Gerald was lucky enough to be able to attend SWAT last week. For those of us stuck at home, Cindy Drozda gave us a video walk about-

 

 

Cindy is also hosting a Live Tool Talk on Friday August 30-

 

Registration is here-  

https://streamyard.com/watch/3Ajs9A8vghKr

 

 

 

For The Newbies-

Considering getting into bowl turning? A very informative video from Craft Supplies USA-

 

 

 

 

Expand Your Horizons-

Mike Peace shows us how to turn a Hair Stick-

 

 

Alan Stratton is still turning out spheres-

 

 

 

New Turning Items-

There were some new items presented at SWAT. In Cindy's video tour, she gives us a glimpse of some of the items.

 

 

Everything Else-

I hardly every remove my chuck from the lathe. The EWT chuck jaw changes are so fast and no screws to drop. But when I needed to use a sanding pad, the Jacobs chuck require the EWT chuck removal. Enter Rube Goldberg- I wore out one of those angle drill/sanders from Woodturners Wonders. Removed the small chuck from it and made tis jig.-

 

 

 

 

Sanding while the chuck is still in place!

 

 

I mentioned my brother had back surgery. I've started making a cane. I found a "how-to" by "mmh". Some of you may remember her from "that other" woodworking site where she posted her custom canes. Her how- gave lots of tips and much needed assembly techniques. 

 

I got the shaft turned and rough sanded today-

 

The taper is 5/8" over 32" length

 

 

I discovered my LED, ala Alan Stratton steady rest wouldn't  adjust small enough for the small end of the shaft. Had to fall back on my original steady. 

 

 

The old steady had inline skate wheels and the rubber has dried and fallen off, but it worked.  Next up will be to form the handle. 

 

 

Finally, from Ron Brown's newsletter-

 

The Argument For Carbide-Tipped Tools

 

I met Craig Jackson around 2008 in Gainesville Georgia at a turning symposium. He was in the very early stages of introducing Easy Wood Tools with their carbide-tipped cutters. Craig is the founder and original owner, he is the “Father” of this category of turning tools. Others made similar tools but they never really caught on. Craig was finally able to make carbide-tipped tools a mainstream product.

 

I got to know Craig over those 4 days and I let him know in no uncertain terms that I thought he was ruining woodturning by promoting scraping tools over traditional high-speed-steel tools that cut wood fibers rather than tear them savagely. We agreed to disagree.

 

Over the next few years, I made a discovery and went from a strong detractor to a strong supporter of carbide-tipped turning tools. There is a fundamental truth that applies to everything in life.

 

If something seems easy people will try it. If it looks difficult, they are less likely to begin at all.

 

Using carbide-tipped scraping tools is easy. Just grab one and go. You don’t have to own a low-speed grinder and an expensive sharpening jig, or take the time to learn how to use it all. You don’t have to know different grinds or the difference between a bowl gouge and a spindle gouge. You don’t have to know about sharpening at all.

 

Craig’s success ultimately led to many more folks being willing to get started in wood-turning because it was so easy. What if it took longer and didn’t give as good a surface finish? They could still turn beautiful pens, pepper mills, bottle stoppers, turned-lidded boxes, bowls, and anything else one can make on a lathe. They were tuners just like everyone else.

 

Many of the folks who started with carbide-tipped tools later went on to acquire High-Speed-Steel tools and the associated sharpening station after all. But if they had not first begun the easy way with carbide-tipped tools and got hooked on turning, they would never have made it to this level.

 

Rather than ruin a whole generation of woodturners, Craig Jackson’s Easy Wood Tools actually increased the number of turners adopting woodturning as a hobby. I saw Craig a few years after our first meeting and apologized for my lack of vision. I thanked him for expanding our membership in the woodturning fraternity. Craig eventually sold Easy Wood Tools and went back to being an expert machinist. Thanks, Craig!

 

My advice is don’t hesitate to start someone out with an inexpensive set of carbide-tipped turning tools. HSS tools can come later. Make it as easy and affordable as possible for them to get started in turning wood. It may well lead to a lifetime of joy in the workshop. I see turning clubs offer free pen turning at public events and they almost universally offer a radiused square carbide-tipped tool to each total novice. And they get excellent results indeed!

 

 

Safe turning

[kreisdorph]

Man, I hear you on the heat. I had this really punky piece of sugarberry on the lathe when it was cooler. It tried to blow apart, but I saved it. After I glued it up a bit it got hot outside, so it's still sitting there waiting for me to sand it.

 

The pictures are out of the order I wanted. The last picture is the bottom of the bowl after roughing it out. I soaked it with a 1# cut of shellac, sharpened my 1/2" gouge, and took very thin cuts. The next to last picture is after that process. As you can see, it smoothed up pretty durned good. Anyway, I hope this still makes a nice bowl. I'll get back to it when it cools off. 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2024 by kreisdorph

[lew]

@kreisdorph I use thin CA for that. 

[HandyDan]

Nice post Lew.  You ought t sell your chuck idea to EWT.  They could fashion a mount for it like used on the

Easy Wood Tools

Multi-Spur Easy Drive Center

 

 

Edited August 29, 2024 by HandyDan

[kreisdorph]

14 hours ago, lew said:

@kreisdorph I use thin CA for that. 

 

I haven't tried CA because I haven't wanted to deal with the discoloration. On a spalted pith like this one, it probably doesn't make one iota of difference. What's your experience with CA re discoloration?

[DuckSoup]

16 hours ago, lew said:

Enter Rube Goldberg- I wore out one of those angle drill/sanders from Woodturners Wonders. Removed the small chuck from it and made tis jig.-

 Again, necessity is the mother of inventions, well done Lew.

[lew]

1 hour ago, kreisdorph said:

 

I haven't tried CA because I haven't wanted to deal with the discoloration. On a spalted pith like this one, it probably doesn't make one iota of difference. What's your experience with CA re discoloration?

As you mentioned, on the spalted pieces it is not noticeable.

 

For smaller pieces, I usually cover the entire turning. No one can tell where the CA has been applied

 

[kreisdorph]

10 minutes ago, lew said:

As you mentioned, on the spalted pieces it is not noticeable.

 

For smaller pieces, I usually cover the entire turning. No one can tell where the CA has been applied

 

 

 

I suspected as much. Thanks. 

[Gerald]

Thanks for the post Lew. I like your new steady, may have to steal that. Where is the design from?

 

By the way CA is ok but if planning to dye the piece you do have to be sure to remove all residue.

 

I took lots of pictures in the SWAT Gallery and plan to do a slide show of them. Will post here when done.

[lew]

8 minutes ago, Gerald said:

Thanks for the post Lew. I like your new steady, may have to steal that. Where is the design from?

I’ll find the link and get it to you 

[lew]

WOW! Thanks for all of the responses, they are truly appreciated!!

 

@kreisdorph Thank You! great looking spalted bowl. I like the shellac idea it would certainly be less expensive than the CA glue. 

 

@HandyDan Thanks for the design idea! My original thought was to do something like that with a square mount. If i had metal working tools yours would be the perfect solution.

 

@DuckSoup Thank You! Sometimes my ideas actually work!

 

@Gerald  Thanks! What I really like about that steady is that you don't have to remove the turning to reposition the banjo to the opposite side of the steady. If you make one, hope you post pictures of it!!  Thanks for the tip on the CA and dying.