George wrote:

"Stuffing a gouge" into a spinning piece of wood, if that's what Charlie or
anyone else really does, is foolish in the extreme.

A little artistic license please. To someone not familiar with the
ways
and means of wood turning it could appear to be exactly that.

Doubting that's what
Batty does. I'm sure there must be fifty ways to flay a feline, and even if
Batty wants to put his audience at risk for the sake of showing off, let
him. If all you retained from his demonstration is the sound of whirring
wood, either the teacher or the pupil needs to do some rethinking.

There is an element of exhibitionism that seems to come to the fore
in front of an audience. There is, after all, a little Ham in all of
us.
(hmmm - Ham? Hamlet? To Be - or Not To Be? What was the question?)

But back to the apparently dumb ass things turners try and those
which become "common practice" a few years later.

Could be that a fair number of turners are self taught and somewhat
reclusive - time socializing is time away from the lathe. Not
knowing
any better, one of them might try something that a more knowledgable
turner wouldn't. If one of the "I wonder what would happen if I . .
.."
survivors happens to get out into the wood turners network, word of
his/her "innovative" technique will spread. One or more of the
"adventurist" - but not suicidal - folks will hear about it, try it,
refine it, maybe even make a tool or two to make it easier/safer/
quicker to do and share what he/she is doing with another turner.
In a month or two there'll be a video clip of the technique on
YouTube
and a few months later two or three books about it will be on the
shelves at your local bookstore - after articles on the technique
have been in a wood turning magazine or two.

I venture to say that wood turning has evolved faster, and in more
directions, than any other form of woodworking - with solid wood
funiture making being at the other end of the spectrum. It could
be that solid wood furniture making has been around longer and
probably was more lucrative - hence had more funds available
for "capital investments" in machines that made furniture making
more efficient - or just faster.

And that brings up a question. When - and why - did wood turning
hit the hobbyist/amateur market? I'm guessing turners began
using machinist 3 and 4 jaw chucks sometime shortly after WWII
when plenty of "surplus" machines/ tools / equiptment became
available - cheap. About that time "suburbs" were invented and
guys, I'm betting it was probably guys, had an attached or detached
garage in their new "subdivision tract home". With the GI Bill
available, many of the WWII veterans got educations which earned
them more money - enough to have a "disposable income", some
of which could be used for "shop tools and equiptment".

Maybe it was the WWII vets that increased the share of risk
taker genes in the genetic pool. After surviving an "88 shelling"
and/or being shot at for three,four or five years, the idea of
spinning a chunk of wood and poking it with a piece of steel
didn't seem risky at all. I mean, what's the worst that could
happen - relatively speaking?

It's not the pioneers that move things along - it's the farmers
who come after them that use their discoveries that make
civilizations.

charlie b