After a long, hot, humid summer, wary
of approaching hurricanes and Fl just dodging them followed by a long
dry spell, finally we are enjoying beautiful cool days. Naturally I
hobbled out to the shop looking forward to turning my first masterpiece.
A work so acclaimed that a special skew will be marketed with my name
engraved on it. The "Arch skew" That does have a nice ring to it. It
will sell well and the big bucks will start rolling in. Life after
senility isn't all bad.


I've been turning wood off and on since beginning with a decrepit old
Dunlap in the mid thirties. So what? Well just a summer's inactivity
and damned if I hadn't forgotten how to turn! My coves and beads were
ruts and bumps. My skew was a wrecking bar and as far as recentering a
little bowl, forget it. Along with its owner, the shop itself had lost
'it' by not using it; the lacquer thinner had evaporated, the &&& had
jelled, The scrapers had rusted, and the chuck insolently squeaked back
at me like a recalcitrant schoolboy. Things were a royal mess and I
figured that my turning days were over! Sadly, there would be no "Arch
Skew" .



Not so fast, Arch. Seeing the nice work of my old COC Chief and RCW
organizer, Kevin, and Charlie's 'art in motion' plus Tom's new
adventures in segmenting, along with all the enthusiasm of my fellow
'turnmates', I had to give it another try before giving up.



Well dearly beloved, "It" does come back. OK no masterpieces, but after
messing about with a few practice spindle and face pieces, deliberately
making mistakes and remembering why they happen, I was again a
reasonably able 'shadetree woodturner'. The gashes were smaller, coves
almost symmetrical, the beads fairly smooth and although not artistic
weren't too ugly. The shop equipment and supplies pitched in and helped
out after a little elbow grease, WD40 and a trip to Home Depot.



What's the point of all this waste of bandwidth? There isn't one. Well
maybe just to remind y'all that when your turning takes a nose dive,
things get in the way of your masterpiece, you're digusted with the
hobby (and rcw) and ready to sell your lathe, keep on turning. It'll all
come back.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter


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