Wood Turners - The Evil Knievels of Woodworking?

I’m sure someone thought of jumping a motorcycle acrossed a bunch of
cars long before the thought crossed Evil Knievel’s mind. But, until
Evil Knievel, the others thought just a little bit more - and said -
“Nah. That’s too damn stupid - even for me!”. Now if you know many
bikers, you know there’s a percentage of risk takers in that population
which is much higher than in the general population. And even the risk
takers in the biker community had ruled out something that dumb - and
dangerous. Then Knievel came along and now guys are doing things on
motorbikes in the X Games that probably make old Evil Knievel shudder
and think “Those SOBs are NUTS!”

Wood turners are sort of the bikers of the woodworking community. And
within this sub community there are even higher percentages of risk
takers than there are in the biker community. Well maybe the chainsaw
carvers are the X Game folks of woodworking - but turners are a close
second.

Think about it. We spin a chunk of wood at speeds wood shouldn’t travel
at - even during a table saw kickback. And if standing right next to
that accident waiting to happen - we poke sharp steel tools at the
wood. Now THAT’s just phreakin’ CRAZY. We talk about riding the bevel
and tool control, but lets face it, spinning a piece of wood at 1200
rpms or more - and then applying a sharp edge to it - that we’re holding
on to - thats nuts. AND - that’s just if you’re playing with the
OUTSIDE of the spinning chunk of wood. Somebody - probably related in
some distant way to Evil Knievel - thought to himself “You know, if I
could grip this thing from just one end and still spin it around - hell
- I could poke a sharp tool into the end of that sucker and hollow the
damned thing out!”. Fortunately, emergency medical skills and knowledge
developed before then. Must have since I doubt what ever skills and
techniques that are needed to turn “hollow forms” would have lasted long
enough to be passed on to anyone else.

I suspect that the first guy (I’m assuming it was a guy because I KNOW
women are not dumb enough to try something this dumb - and dangerous)
who figured out how to turn cups and buckets couldn’t stop there. He
HAD to see how tall a cup or bucket he could turn. And I can imagine
the results of the early nasty “catches” while turning one of those deep
cups or buckets. I can just see the guy being hurled up and over his
turning thing (the word “lathe” probably hadn’t been coined that early)
and flung up into a nearby tree - or worse yet - only his arm flying
through the air - his body still at the “turning thing” just starting to
wonder - “What the F___!”

And despite occurance such as that - a few adventurous souls took up the
torch and carried on - into even more insane turning territory. And one
of them asked the question “Why should my cups have straight sides? Why
not turn curves and things?” - followed by “I wonder if I could turn a
cocunut - round hollow thing - with a little hole in the top through
which I can hollow out the inside?”.

Now it’s bad enough to poke a sharp piece of metal into the end of a
spinning piece of wood - even DEEP into a spinning piece of wood. But
poking a sharp tool into the end of a spinning piece of wood - AND not
being able to see what you’re doings? Come on man - you know the story
of what happened to Lefty right?

But after a while, even hollow forms with very small openings wasn’t
exciting enough. At some point, someone asked “What if, instead of
hollowing into end grain, I spun thick chunk of wood the other way - and
poked a sharp tool into it?”

Now THAT’s insane. You’d be cutting into side grain - then end grain -
then
side grain - then end grain. If you don’t gouge out a BIG chunk of wood
doing that it’ll be a miracle. Lefty is a crazy dude - but this is too
crazy even for him. Let’s grab us some mead, down a few and think this
through a bit.

Despite friends misgivings and discouraging words - somebody try it. He
may even have survived the first attempt. But the odds seem to always
be in favor of the house. And so - the eyepatch was invented - to keep
dirt and stuff out of an empty eye socket.

But - eventually - someone again picked up the torch and ventured on
into unfamilair turning territory - and survived long enough to pass on
the Dos and DONTs he’d learned - before The Incident.

At some point - the sharp steel tools became the limiting factor for
insane things to try when turning wood. SO - somebody thought about it
and - came up with turning tools that would enable some nut to try doing
something even crazier to spinning chunks of wood. Who in their right
mind, especially if they’d ever experienced a nasty “catch” would think
up something like a curved cutting tool that would - theoretically - let
you get two, three or maybe even four bowls out of a single blank.
You’d have to be one frugal mother to thing that the savings in
materials would outweigh the risk to life and limb. But somebody did
just that - see for yourself - it’s in the catalogues.

And speaking of frugal - who in their right mind would glue a bunch of
small scraps together - and then spin it AND poke a sharp steel tool
into it. I mean really - THAT IS INSANE! Thankfully an extremely
patient and clever person discovered that they could make patterns in
the wood - something an ordinary piece of a tree doesn’t have built into
it. But come on - when you have six or seven hundred glue joints - I
mean the odds of ALL off them holding up under the turning forces
involved - that’s pushing the odds WAY too far.

Taking frugal to the extreme - or maybe getting REALLY artistic -
someone took a chunk of wood with knot holes through it and shot with
rot - and not only turned the outside - but hollowed the damned thing.
Why on earth would anybody waste that much time and effort on a piece of
wood that was obviously not worth the effort - and probably wouldn’t
even burn worth crap?

And speaking of fire - what about the Burn - and Texture thing. You
spent all that time turning a nice shape in a nice piece of wood - and
now you want to apply fire to the outside - or - chop up and “texture”
the outside? Are you mad? Let’s go get us some bear and maybe go
fishing. Fishing is great for thinking about stuff. Hell - we might
even catch something - edible.

So looking downstream I see a turner eyeing and arc welder and thinking
“I wonder what would happen if . . .” And somewhere, in some weapons
lab, a guy experimenting with shaped charges is thinking “Why am I
hollowing out a piece the same way people have been doing it for who
knows how long. If I were to make a small shaped charge that would . .
..”.

Eveil Knievel - in the turner’s world - you’re a cautious fellow.


charlie b
who shudders when he thinks about some of the things he's seen wood
turners do - and still pokes sharp steel into spinning pieces of wood -
in spite of his better judgement.