Woodturning Learning
Creativity is a virtue I do not possess, in so far as arts and crafts. Playing with wood is fun no matter the skill level attained though. Plenty of online videos show turning scraps into interesting and useful pieces. Never believe what you see online with 100% faith.
Scraps are cheap so this should be an economical way to spend some time. Searching I went for cheap wood. Cut-offs of plywood, 1x, and 2x4 weren’t promising so I hit up the lumber yard. The local lumber yard has some slabs of nice wood. This wood was well outside of my price range for first attempts so off to the franchise stores I continued. There I found poplar dowels of sufficient size. Not a wise choice to inspire a beginner unless this beginner aimed to produce fuzz. Practicing beads, coves, and tops ate through the dowel.
Confident in my new skills that I’ve mastered, let us not just go for a bowl next, an inlay would be cool.
Yes. Yes, it does look more like a candlestick holder, but it identifies as a bowl. That’s all that matters. With that ‘success’ under the belt, let’s try out one of those expensive wood blanks. Surely this will be a masterpiece.
Turns out that getting the inside of a bowl as curvy as the outside is easy though unintentional. Thinner and thinner the walls got as attempts were made to remove the interior accents. It was time to call it done and accept that this was a $30 learning session. But, I did learn right? Sort of.
A friend is turning 29 again this year and I was looking to give this as a gift so the pressure to succeed was higher than in previous attempts and as such it saved itself from the rapid composter. The “woodworker fit” was delightful when the lid was first removed and an audible pop was heard. A joint that snug is something that only has meaning to the creator. The user of the project will find it too secure and quickly becomes annoying. The joint was loosened a bit with the thinking that use and wax would further decrease the tight fit. That hasn’t been the case so far. It’s still a bit over tight. The worry is that the two pieces will again become one and the lid will be forever fused to the base if any warping occurs.
The source wood was half of a 3"x3"x12" block of Angelique which cost about $13. With only using half of the block, the cost to lesson value is better. Still much work to be done, mostly more learning and practice. Long ago, a lesson was learned that tools will not make an increase in performance proportional to their cost. Skilled hands can utilize a teaspoon better than I can handle the finest gouge. Master what you have before upgrading.
Next up is segmented bowls. The aim is to reduce costs. Nothing is free so this means more prep work. Much more.