My path...

Six years ago I saw some wood turnings at an art museum. Bowls
mostly. I wanted to know how to do that so I:
Researched lathes
Researched how to make a bowl on a lathe
Bought a Nova DVR wood lathe
Found out I needed tools
Bought some turning tool
Bought a Ellsworth bowl gouge
Started making simple bowls
Bought a grinder
Bought the Wolverine grinding jig setup
Bought a bandsaw
Bought a riser block for above bandsaw
Bought a Nova chuck with some jaws
Took a class at a Woodcraft store
Bought an angle drill to sand bowls
Bought the outboard turning attachment
Made lots of bowls
Bought another chuck and some more jaws
Started giving bowls away to friends until I saturated that market
Made lots more "better" bowls
Started to sell a few bowls
Took a class with David Ellsworth
Bought some DVD's of other turners
Bought an inertia sander to sand bowls
Had to find places to store the bowls that I made
Accumulated a huge pile of chips and scraps in my backyard from all
the turning
Had to find people to take the scraps and found uses for the chips
Sold a few more bowls
Bought some hollowing tools
Started turning a few things other than bowls (hollow vessels mostly)
By that time I was turning so many bowls that my garages was over run
with the mess
Sold a cherry hollow vessel to our state rep to be given as a gift at
the annual governors conference (a real pick me up for myself)
Had offers from three art galleries that wanted to display and sell my
work
SOOO...
I built a pole barn
Made part of it into a workshop (this process occupied the past 2 and
a half years)
Sold my old lathe
Bought a new Oneway 2436
By now I am on my 5th bowl gouge (too much grinding)
Bought a dust collector
Bought a large air compressor
Bought a random orbital air sander to sand bowls
Bought a laser guided hollowing set up
I have now decided to try my hand at segmented work
Bought a combo disk/belt sander

During the past 6 years I have seen so many marvelous things made by
some very talented people, both in person and online, that I now
realize there is no end to what you can learn. I have barely done any
spindle turning. I have not done much with coloring or carving. The
journey has only just begun. I have miles to go before I sleep.

My name is Ted and I am a turning addict...