Arch wrote:

How come a simple skinny plain turned wood spindle with visible tool
marks and a pinched mouth often earns "Oh! Very Artful, Arch".... but If
I add my best finish and a candle cup or lamp harp to the same turning,
I get, "nice candlestick" or "good lamp" in ho-hum sotto voce?

My daughter tells me that there is a saying in the prospecting and
exploration business: "The best drill hole is the one you haven't
drilled yet!" -- or words to that effect.

Perhaps it is because at that stage we can see the potential -- what
might be. Later we see what is -- and the mystery is gone.

The best lamp (bowl etc.) is the one you haven't made yet.

Perhaps the burl is best uncut -- there it has the most potential -- and
our work devalues it. :-)


If woodturning in the larger craft/art arena is so small, but within it
are several very active net forums and numerous and widespread websites,
why is it that I recognize so few of you at symposia or large meetings?
Maybe lapel name cards should be in larger print or pinned where they
can be seen. Or just maybe, I need a better memory and new glasses.


Here we are concentrated -- there we are few.

I think of rcw as a worldwide list of persons sharing a mutual interest,
but in no way as a consensus group. This forum is composed of
individuals and is certainly not a committee. Is that the reason why we
have little impact on the tools and equipment manufacturers offer us?
Or does our impotence have more to do with more important influences
being market constraints, investor's profits, designers bias and
engineer's inflexibility? Probably few of them turn wood, while most of
us have at least one "why don't they".


If we had consistency of methodology, need, customer requirements and
desire, then it would be like manufacturing. Without consensus on at
least methodology we have craft and art. What do _you_ want?

Without consensus, and if that does mean we have art, then there will be
no agreement on the "best" way to do something. Hence there will be less
standardization of tools and methods than there could be otherwise.

If we have art then we have the freedom to express ourselves.

It is the inaccuracies of the standard woodworking lathe that give us
freedom while it robs us of our ability to repeat operations accurately
and precisely =- a fair trade in my mind. (You pays your money and yah
takes your choice.)

(I see no right answer(s) BTW.)


While I'm at it, what do some of you wish they would make for us or what
do you think might improve their extant products?


A self guided skew?

The guys in NZ giving free tools to (un)deserving newbies? (Just to
evaluate for a few years...)

Lots of other things -- mostly unobtainable and not worth mentioning.
(e.g. A trophy wife/mistress? --Providing SWMBO gives permission... both
probably unobtainable singly or in conjunction.)


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter



http://community.webtv.net/almcc/MacsMusings


You make my head hurt. LOL

--
Will
Occasional Techno-geek
http://woodwork.pmccl.com