During the Easter season,I wonder how many of you Dads and Grands are
turning out either a very fancy Faberge' Egg or churning out dozens of
simple (as if turning a properly shaped hen egg is ever simple)
unfinished eggs to be painted by your young genius at his/her day care
school.


Along with Charlie's question about getting out of the comfortable rut
and back on the hiway by turning new and innovative pieces, another way
of refreshing our turning life might be for hobbyists to try turning the
same ole at production speeds as fast as we can. That can be a very
uncomfortable pleasure.


Striving for perfection is good and it's necessary for growing as a
woodturner, but it can become a rut in itself. By taking the ruts we
might avoid the holes and rocks between, but nothing ventured nothing
gained (oh no! not another cliche)


It's surprising how interesting testing the limits of our turning speed
can be and amazing how fast we can become when we get out of our
'perfectionist rut' even if only for warming up before nervously and
often with little or no fun, turning that masterpiece from that
outrageously expensive exotic blank.


Last couple of days I've been turning eggs from 3in. blocks of squared
off white wood stud cut offs as fast as I can. I am getting a few
abortions that no hen would admit to laying and I'm still not timing
with a stopwatch, but neither with a calendar.


Developing speedy production techniques to crank out our same ole _small
spindles as fast and as decently as possible can be fun for a hobbyist.
Techniques like grinding special tools, turning several objects along
the same cylinder, cutting many blocks from free wood, using only one
tool, very fast speeds, centering by eye, banging the block onto the
drive center or cranking it on a spinning center, locking the tailstock
and using only the tail ram to mount and dismount, etc. can get us out
of the ruts safely and is a turning (not a political) _change for some
of us.


I often turn batches of fan pulls of the locally famous Jupiter
lighthouse by the dozen to give to local charities to sell to tourists
and to keep in my truck to give to the nice people I run into. I wrap a
printed history of the Light around the pulls, hold them with a rubber
band and put them into plastic baggies. The 'devil may care' turning
experience is fun, the gifting is satisfying and I'm not repeating the
boring compulsions of trying to make sure not to
mess up what I hope will be a nice bowl.


OTOH, driving in the ruts can lead us to new places. Good question,
Charlie. Sorry I got carried away.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


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