I've heard that you can learn a lot about a restaurant's success or its
impending failure by looking in its garbage cans. I wonder what can be
learned about a
woodturner by inspecting his rejects and ruined pieces. Unlike
restaurants, it sometimes seems as if the more pieces ruined, the more
exacting and presumably better the turner.

"No risk, No glory" "One last cut! " "Always do the best you can"
"One fine piece is far better than ten good enough ones" "If you follow
the crowd, you can never get ahead of the crowd" "I turn what I like
when I like" One cliche' is as good or bad as another, but "to coin a
phrase", "where there's smoke, there's fire"

Cliche's aside, it's not easy for some of us to make that 'one last cut'
or take other risks for failure or take inordinate time in trying for
excellence, instead we settle for mediocrity. Thin walls and fine
finishes seem to lead the list of things we fear. It's easier and
safer not to strive, but then we try to convince ourselves that thick
walls feel secure, and smooth & glossy isn't nature's way. Somehow, we
are never really convinced even when we convince others.

Some of you are able to forget about the disappointments of ruined
pieces and wasted time and materials for the occasional joy of great
success. Perhaps you can tell us how to force ourselves to take one more
cut or add one more coat of lacquer. Failing that, please tell us how to
cope with our 'belt and suspenders' approach to woodturning.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter



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

Actually Arch, I think the phrase in this case is "where there's smoke
there's kindling." I do not know about the quality of my turning, but the
quality of learning is directly proportional to the amount of kindling
generated. One of the best teaching or learning techniques in my book is to
take a piece that I have turned well, at least at first glance, and run it
through the band saw. That way I get a very different look at mistakes and
successes.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
www.aroundthewoods.com

On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 11:24:47 -0500, (Arch) wrote:

I've heard that you can learn a lot about a restaurant's success or its
impending failure by looking in its garbage cans. I wonder what can be
learned about a
woodturner by inspecting his rejects and ruined pieces.

For most of us, you'd need a CSI team to go through the ashes, Arch... *lol*


IMHO, in turning as well as many of the silly things that we do in our lives,
there are no failures.... just experiments or tries that didn't work... and we
have to build off them...

Probably not true, but the story goes that someone asked Edison how it felt to
finally get a bulb to work after about 1,000 failures... he supposedly said
something like "I never failed, I simply discovered 999 ways that didn't
work"...
Mac
https://home.comcast.net/~mac.davis/wood_stuff.htm

Arch, long ago I promised myself that I would never ever say "that's
good enough" instead, I want to be able to look at a piece and say
"that's as good as I can do". It's easy to stray from that promise, so
I sometimes have to get after myself. Only once in a while can I look
at a piece and say "I really got that one right". The perfect form is
very elusive. Pressure is when I have a couple of pieces to do for a
show, and time is growing short.
Arch wrote:
I've heard that you can learn a lot about a restaurant's success or its
impending failure by looking in its garbage cans. I wonder what can be
learned about a
woodturner by inspecting his rejects and ruined pieces. Unlike
restaurants, it sometimes seems as if the more pieces ruined, the more
exacting and presumably better the turner.

"No risk, No glory" "One last cut! " "Always do the best you can"
"One fine piece is far better than ten good enough ones" "If you follow
the crowd, you can never get ahead of the crowd" "I turn what I like
when I like" One cliche' is as good or bad as another, but "to coin a
phrase", "where there's smoke, there's fire"

Cliche's aside, it's not easy for some of us to make that 'one last cut'
or take other risks for failure or take inordinate time in trying for
excellence, instead we settle for mediocrity. Thin walls and fine
finishes seem to lead the list of things we fear. It's easier and
safer not to strive, but then we try to convince ourselves that thick
walls feel secure, and smooth & glossy isn't nature's way. Somehow, we
are never really convinced even when we convince others.

Some of you are able to forget about the disappointments of ruined
pieces and wasted time and materials for the occasional joy of great
success. Perhaps you can tell us how to force ourselves to take one more
cut or add one more coat of lacquer. Failing that, please tell us how to
cope with our 'belt and suspenders' approach to woodturning.


Turn to Safety, Arch
Fortiter



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

I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers (
I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out. I
can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.
robo hippy

"robo hippy" wrote in message
oups.com...
I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers (
I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out. I
can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.

So what's of advantage in "consistent thickness" anyway? Fair curves inside
and out are all I worry about. I let the bottom thickness grow, using the
lower center of gravity thus developed to compensate for a narrower base.
This isn't pottery, after all, where differences in thickness can destroy it
in the kiln.

As to pushing oneself, that's great, but as Harry once said, "a man's got to
know his limits." We need the wisdom to know where those limits lie.

robo hippy wrote:
I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers (
I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out. I
can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.
robo hippy


My sentiments too. If it looks good, feels good and serves whatever
function if any it was supposed to, how can it be improved?

The only reason I can see for cutting a bowl up is to verify ones
ability to make non-destructive assessments.

--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com - a blog for my customers
http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com/TheToolrest/ - a blog for woodturners

"robo hippy" wrote:

I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers (
I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out. I
can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.
robo hippy


You do get a better view of the form when you cut a piece in half. If you
look at the 'whole', you are distracted by finish and grain. When you look
at the cut edge of a piece you are seeing unadorned Form and can learn a
lot from it.

Lobby Dosser wrote:
"robo hippy" wrote:


I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers (
I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out. I
can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.
robo hippy



You do get a better view of the form when you cut a piece in half. If you
look at the 'whole', you are distracted by finish and grain. When you look
at the cut edge of a piece you are seeing unadorned Form and can learn a
lot from it.

Rather that cut the bowl in two and make fancy firewood, Feel it. I can
feel the thickness of a bowl and tell if it's uniform throughout or not.
I'm sure that most turners can. I agree with the others that it seems
a waste of time, effort and money to willingly destroy something I made
just to determine wall thickness which can be determined by other means.
Furthermore, does it really matter if the wall of a bowl is a uniform
1/8" or 1/32" thickness throughout or if the thickness varies from 1/8"
to 1/4" as long as the shape and finish pleases the eye?

"Ralph" wrote: (clip) Furthermore, does it really matter if the wall of a
bowl is a uniform 1/8" or 1/32" thickness throughout or if the thickness
varies from 1/8" to 1/4" as long as the shape and finish pleases the eye?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well, you never know when a customer might take one of your bowls home and
saw it in half, and then come back and complain if things are not right.
Maybe you should hand out a little brochure, warning that the bowl is
neither dishwasher nor bandsaw safe.

Actually, I think you can learn a lot from cutting a piece in half, or
quarters or whatever. And I am not only talking about rejects, I think that
we do not look enough at what we do well and seek to improve it. Ok, mostly
I am talking about myself here. One of the things I do and as far as I can
tell most turners as well, is to turn for constant thickness. It gives a
rightness of feel and balance to a piece and also lets it dry and or settle
with less chance of splitting. The most accurate way to determine if a piece
has constant thickness is to cut it along the center line. In my experience
turners can not tell if a piece is constant thickness by feel nor with most
calipers where the jedgement is made by the gap left as you slide one foot
of the caliper up the edge of the piece. Besides, my fingers only reach in
so far, and for a hollow form maybe not at all. What I am advocating here is
turning for education and skill development. I am not cutting a $25 bowl, I
am finishing a classroom exercise by running it through the band saw.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
www.aroundthewoods.com

Ralph wrote:

Lobby Dosser wrote:
"robo hippy" wrote:


I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers
( I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out.
I can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.
robo hippy



You do get a better view of the form when you cut a piece in half. If
you look at the 'whole', you are distracted by finish and grain. When
you look at the cut edge of a piece you are seeing unadorned Form and
can learn a lot from it.

Rather that cut the bowl in two and make fancy firewood, Feel it. I
can feel the thickness of a bowl and tell if it's uniform throughout
or not.
I'm sure that most turners can. I agree with the others that it
seems
a waste of time, effort and money to willingly destroy something I
made just to determine wall thickness which can be determined by other
means.
Furthermore, does it really matter if the wall of a bowl is a
uniform
1/8" or 1/32" thickness throughout or if the thickness varies from
1/8" to 1/4" as long as the shape and finish pleases the eye?


Form is More than thickness.

We had one of the boys in our club a few months ago and turn a
wonderful deep bowl out of ash. He was pretty busy as the bowl was
about 11" in diameter and about 8" deep. He took it from rough log to
sanding to 220 in about an hour. He mounted a disk on the headstock,
pulled up the tailstock for some light pressure, and cut off all signs
of the dovetail he was using to hold it. All that was left was the
little nub from the piece left on where the point of the center was
holding the piec on the disk.

He hollowed the bowl with the walls and bottom consistently at about
1/4" thickness, with a nice rim cut down to about an 1/8". We passed
the bowl around and we all admired it a lot.

Then he went over to the bandsaw and cut it in half to show us that
there were indeed places where he was almost a 1/16" fat, and there
were a couple of small valleys that were imperceptible after sanding
that none of us saw. Personally, I would have been thrilled to have
made the bowl, then even happier still to do it so easily, maintaining
a friendly, relaxed style of instruction while
roughing/hollowing/turning.

He thought it was absolutely hilarious to see how visibly shaken some
of the people in the club were, including me. He felt like you could
never REALLY understand what you did to the wood until you profiled it.
He felt like you couldn't understand the profile and actual geometry
what you were looking at on the lathe unless you knew for sure by
opening up the piece. He credits his ability to turn quickly and
accurately to "breaking a few eggs" along the way to make sure he was
getting the thicknesses and internal profiles he does so easily.

Having done professional carpentry most of my life, I don't have a lot
of compunction about tearing up my work to take a look at it to satisfy
my own curiosity. But I haven't quite come to the point of being able
to saw a bowl in half. A small vase, yes. A cup, yes. A bowl? No
way. Of course, I can't turn one out that fast either. He told us
that was a 30 minute project (tops) if he was really after it and
wasn't talking while he was turning. Sheesh.

Robert

Leo Lichtman wrote:

"Ralph" wrote: (clip) Furthermore, does it really matter if the wall of a
bowl is a uniform 1/8" or 1/32" thickness throughout or if the thickness
varies from 1/8" to 1/4" as long as the shape and finish pleases the eye?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Well, you never know when a customer might take one of your bowls home and
saw it in half, and then come back and complain if things are not right.
Maybe you should hand out a little brochure, warning that the bowl is
neither dishwasher nor bandsaw safe.


Have we met?

The last cut is always the last cut if you take another cut than it was
not the last cut, GEEEEEA
I turn thick and I turn thin, even in and out and not, some are smooth
and shiny others are not, some are large and some are small.
If it looks right and it feels right TO ME, it is right for ME.
If someone else does not like it TOO BAD
I might end up with a barn full of turnings nobody wants, but I don't
have that problem jet.

Have fun and take care
Leo Van Der Loo

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 21:52:34 GMT, Derek Andrews
wrote:

robo hippy wrote:
I have never been able to take a turned bowl and run it through the
bandsaw. It may be just because I am too cheap. I mean why ruin a
perfectly good (or maybe not perfect) bowl that will sell for $25 or
more, just to see if the walls have a perfect thickness. Use calipers (
I like the bent wire kind that I saw on the David Elsworth videos),
then run your hands and fingers over the inside and outside of the
bowl. You can feel any bigger bumps, and smaller ones will sand out. I
can measure from the rim of the bowl to the bottom, and see if the
thickness is consistant, but cut it in half? Never.
robo hippy


My sentiments too. If it looks good, feels good and serves whatever
function if any it was supposed to, how can it be improved?

The only reason I can see for cutting a bowl up is to verify ones
ability to make non-destructive assessments.

or very expensive dog food scoops...
Mac
https://home.comcast.net/~mac.davis/wood_stuff.htm

On 1 Feb 2006 21:46:00 -0800, "
wrote:

The last cut is always the last cut if you take another cut than it was
not the last cut, GEEEEEA
I turn thick and I turn thin, even in and out and not, some are smooth
and shiny others are not, some are large and some are small.
If it looks right and it feels right TO ME, it is right for ME.
If someone else does not like it TOO BAD
I might end up with a barn full of turnings nobody wants, but I don't
have that problem jet.

Have fun and take care
Leo Van Der Loo

I think that's the key, Leo...

If you like and are happy with it, it's good...

If it gets compliments and sells, it's even better...
Mac
https://home.comcast.net/~mac.davis/wood_stuff.htm

For me, woodworking is a fascinating trip, with an infinite
number of places to visit, no destination and the things
I make are merely postcards from the journey. Since
I do it for fun and not for money and the trip lasts a lot
longer than a cruise or guided tour, the trip can last
'til I get patted in the face with a shovel full of dirt.

As long as a port of call is interesting enough, I'll
stay and get to know the place better. Turning
turns out to be a pretty interesting place. Relative
to furniture making, turning is like the Wild West,
few if any functional demands, little if any joinery
to learn, no "it also has to fit in this space AND
go with other things in the room" and few, if any
moving parts - that have to fit AND work. Add to
that, it doesn't use up much material and you can
make or modify many of the tools. If, however,
you're a tool freak, which I am, the "tools and
accessories" can lighten the checking account as
fast, if not faster, than with furniture making
stuff.

As for thin walled, almost closed vessels, with
thin uniform walls, I still think a ceramics
wheel and clay is a better way to make those
forms. Being able to have fingers on both
the inside and outside of the object as it's
created seems a lot easier than poking calipers
or using lasers to find out wall thickness.

Fun stuff this woodworking thing - turning
being one of the funner parts.

charlie b

wrote:

But I haven't quite come to the point of being able
to saw a bowl in half. A small vase, yes. A cup, yes. A bowl? No
way. Of course, I can't turn one out that fast either. He told us
that was a 30 minute project (tops) if he was really after it and
wasn't talking while he was turning. Sheesh.



In the interest of Full Disclosure, most of the items I've cut in half blew
up on the lathe. Then I ran them through the bandsaw to get a better look
at where I screwed up - after a lot of effort. )

"Lobby Dosser" wrote in message
news:AnbEf.16129$oo1.2228@trnddc02...


You do get a better view of the form when you cut a piece in half. If you
look at the 'whole', you are distracted by finish and grain. When you look
at the cut edge of a piece you are seeing unadorned Form and can learn a
lot from it.

You're seeing two dimensions of what was a three-dimensional piece. Not
sure if you should even call it the same thing.

You do get a better view of the form when you cut a piece in half. If you
look at the 'whole', you are distracted by finish and grain. When you look
at the cut edge of a piece you are seeing unadorned Form and can learn a
lot from it.

There are other ways of achieving the same thing, such as taking a
photograph with bad exposure, or holding it up to a strong back light.


You're seeing two dimensions of what was a three-dimensional piece. Not
sure if you should even call it the same thing.

Good point. I can imagine that some fine 2D profiles just won't work
when examined from different angles in 3D.

How often does anyone other than a woodturner bother to look at the
profile of a bowl? How often are they displayed at head height for
viewing in that mode?

Examining profiles is important, especially checking for flats that
might go unnoticed until the bowl is sanded and polished.


--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com - a blog for my customers
http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com/TheToolrest/ - a blog for woodturners

wrote:
We had one of the boys in our club a few months ago and turn a
wonderful deep bowl out of ash. He was pretty busy as the bowl was
about 11" in diameter and about 8" deep. He took it from rough log to
sanding to 220 in about an hour.

For the record, what type of wood was this? Presumably still green?


... He felt like you could
never REALLY understand what you did to the wood until you profiled it.
He felt like you couldn't understand the profile and actual geometry
what you were looking at on the lathe unless you knew for sure by
opening up the piece.

Did he expand on this any further? Most bowls are pretty simple, and I
can't imagine what more there is too understand. I'm really curious in
case there is something I've beem missing all these years.


He credits his ability to turn quickly and
accurately to "breaking a few eggs" along the way to make sure he was
getting the thicknesses and internal profiles he does so easily.

Now that might be some justification for the destruction! Did he explain
how this has helped him get faster? I'd certainly like to be able to
turn a bowl that fast


--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com - a blog for my customers
http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com/TheToolrest/ - a blog for woodturners

Darrell Feltmate wrote:
.... One of the things I do and as far as I can
tell most turners as well, is to turn for constant thickness. It gives a
rightness of feel and balance to a piece and also lets it dry and or settle
with less chance of splitting.

Hi Darrell, you weathered the storm ok?

I'm of the opposite opinion about bowls. Some of my least favourite and
unsold bowls have uniform thickness. I often leave a wider rim and
heavier base, finding them to be more interesting and of better balance
when picked up.

Admittedly when roughing green bowls for intial drying they tend to be
quite uniform (~ +/-5mm), but that is more for speed and convenience
rather than any problems in drying due to non-uniformity (mainly
red/sugar maple, y.birch, some oak and ash). I dry slowly. Will say no
more on that subject for fear this will turn into yet another LDD thread



In my experience
turners can not tell if a piece is constant thickness by feel nor with most
calipers where the jedgement is made by the gap left as you slide one foot
of the caliper up the edge of the piece.

But does it matter? If the the turner can't tell, can anyone else? I
just fail to see why constant thickness should be such a holy grail.


--
Derek Andrews, woodturner

http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com
http://chipshop.blogspot.com - a blog for my customers
http://www.seafoamwoodturning.com/TheToolrest/ - a blog for woodturners

The only bowls that I have seen that had a uniform thickness
throughout, are 'earthquake' bowls by Larry Karlin of Roseburg, OR.
They are round on the bottom to rock if there is an earthquake. The
foot on a bowl will add thick spots, or you will have a flat bottom
with a rather sharp angle in the transition area, which won't look or
feel good.
robo hippy

The only bowls that I have seen that had a uniform thickness
throughout, are 'earthquake' bowls by Larry Karlin of Roseburg, OR.
They are round on the bottom to rock if there is an earthquake. The
foot on a bowl will add thick spots, or you will have a flat bottom
with a rather sharp angle in the transition area, which won't look or
feel good.
robo hippy

Derek Andrews wrote:

For the record, what type of wood was this? Presumably still green?


Absolutely. Ash that was as we say in Texas, "green as a gourd". It
had been cut about 3 weeks before, so it was a green as it could be.
He used a 5/8 bowl gouge on it with his own version of the Ellsworth
grind and it looked like he was running it through the shredder. He
was tuning on the biggest Jet in the shop. I think it is Bill
Grumbine's video that shows turning in this manner, and the long shreds
of wood fly off the piece.

Did he expand on this any further? Most bowls are pretty simple, and
I
can't imagine what more there is too understand. I'm really curious in
case there is something I've beem missing all these years.

I am not trying to make anything mysterious out of something simple.
Out club tries to instruct to all levels of turning. So for the
beginners, the message of sawing in two was "It isn't as thin or
consistent as you think", and for the rest of us, it was more of a
study on the uniformity of the shoulder/transition from the walls to
the base on a curved form. He is quite talented and likes to turn for
the joy of turning, not competition; so the better he gets, the more he
likes it. He is not concerned about competitions (he found there was
no real money in it so he lost interest!) and is unconcerned about
bragging rights.

Thankfully for all of us in our little group, he is one of the nicest
guys you would ever meet and takes his skills totally for granted,
willing to show anyone anything he knows. All you have to do is ask;
he is one heck of a guy. As for form, he does not turn salad bowls.
His bowls are almost all for decoration only; they have small bottoms,
sides that sweep up, then out rapidly. His favorite design it to make
a curl on the rim that he feels compliments the size and shape of the
bowl.

Now that might be some justification for the destruction! Did he explain
how this has helped him get faster? I'd certainly like to be able to
turn a bowl that fast

Wouldn't we all. I swear to you, you cannot stand by his side of the
lathe when he is turning as it looks like the long shreds of green wood
are being shot out of a machine.

Here's what he found on sawing his pieces in half. First, it enable
him to see the grain of the wood and how it changed under certain cuts
when he was making his transition to the bottom of the form. If there
was tearout, he could see if it was incorrect tool presention if the
grain was consistent, or if there was a reason such as a little swirly
he couldn't see well.

Now the big stuff: With the 1/2 piece in hand, he takes the actual
tool and holds it in the profile to match what he was doing on the
lathe. He studies angle of presentation, postion, and where on the
bevel the gouge is cutting in regards to those considerations. He
takes what he sees, tries to remember exactly how he cut the half piece
in his hand, and then adjusts or confirms what he did accordingly.

When he held it up for us all to see EXACTLY what he was talking about,
it was was easy to see in the bowl half. Really easy. He just put the
gouge inside the bowl and said "you wanna come at it like this, not
like this" (imagine shifting the gouge around inside the form). He
said by cutting his favorite form in two (notice I did not say piece)
and holding the gouge inside the piece he was able to picture what he
was doing, and what he needed to change. This is actually no
different than the way they teach golf swings; the pro walks you
through your swing and you mimic what he teaches you by cementing the
changes into your brain by practice. However, he eliminated the other
guy and just cut his form open and held the gouge inside to see what it
was doing.

On reflection, one can easily see how this method would be helpful for
anyone that had a particular form they liked to see how the tools were
really doing their job inside the form. I can imagine how much this
would speed teaching a production turner along when they were just
looking for a small improvements here and there.

And for the record, his technique is to cut the bowl from inside out,
or outside in without a second thought. He changes when one cut is not
quite as easy as it should be, and changes as needed. Some of the
shreds we swept up after the meeting were probably just under 1/8"
thick and he could tell by the amount of curl in the shaving whether it
was from an inside out (less curl from cutting on the side of the
bevel) or more curly from outside to in (less width of the shaving from
cutting closer to the point). I know most of us turn whichever way the
wood/piece/grind makes it easy to do, but again, I don't know that I
have seen a non-professional turn with such ease and a relaxed
demeanor. For that matter, not many professionals.

Now a dose of reality: he hates, hates, hates, the skew. He isn't
very good with it and swears he only uses it to open paint cans.

Robert

"George" George@least wrote:


"Lobby Dosser" wrote in message
news:AnbEf.16129$oo1.2228@trnddc02...


You do get a better view of the form when you cut a piece in half. If
you look at the 'whole', you are distracted by finish and grain. When
you look at the cut edge of a piece you are seeing unadorned Form and
can learn a lot from it.

You're seeing two dimensions of what was a three-dimensional piece.
Not sure if you should even call it the same thing.



Those two dimensions give the three dimensional piece its form. Try one.

Hi Derek

I think I weathered the storm, but the shovelling? That is an entirely
different matter.

I agree that differing thicknesses can lend interest to various areas of a
bowl or other form. The thing that I strive for is the consistent thickness
I want in a particular area, say the rim or the side or the bottom. Each
requires subtle changes in technique. For me, I like to know if I am coming
closer to my personal ideal. So if I can find that out best by cutting every
fifitieth or so bowl in two, why not?

One of the things this thread demonstrates, I believe, is the individual
approaches we have to the way we turn. I think we are, as a group, better
for it. At least I am having fun. :-) Me and Monty Python, in search of the
holy grail.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
www.aroundthewoods.com

I have two kinds of trash. Some are the piecs with which I'm not
happy. I cut these in half to learn what went wrong. I actually keep
these around for awhile as show and tells. The others are good pieces
that I cut in half to learn how a good piece looks. I keep these too
for show and tell. Many of these bounce around the shop for years.
Eventually, they all find the fire wood pile.

As far as thickness is concerned, some pieces want to be consistent and
others want various thicknesses. It depends on the design.

As others have said, the most important part of this is that we are
making trash. We all need to occasionally push the limits of our
abilities to fine tune our skills.

Joe Fleming - San Diego

Darrell Feltmate wrote:

One of the things this thread demonstrates, I believe, is the
individual
approaches we have to the way we turn. I think we are, as a group,
better
for it. At least I am having fun. :-) Me and Monty Python, in search of
the
holy grail.

I couldn't agree more. This is my fun time, my enjoyment. If I had to
rely on turning for a living, I would starve to death, and that
certainly would be no fun.

You know Darrell, you may have given the inspiration I need to whack a
bowl in half;

"Sweet Concord, you shall not have died in vain!!"

Robert

On 2 Feb 2006 21:15:40 -0800, wrote:

Darrell Feltmate wrote:

One of the things this thread demonstrates, I believe, is the
individual
approaches we have to the way we turn. I think we are, as a group,
better
for it. At least I am having fun. :-) Me and Monty Python, in search of
the
holy grail.

I couldn't agree more. This is my fun time, my enjoyment. If I had to
rely on turning for a living, I would starve to death, and that
certainly would be no fun.

You know Darrell, you may have given the inspiration I need to whack a
bowl in half;

"Sweet Concord, you shall not have died in vain!!"

Robert

before you cut it in half, bore a couple of 3/4" or 1" holes in the bottom, one
on each side of where you plan to cut..
if you're gonna cut a bowl in half, might as well get turn some handles and have
a couple of scoops..


mac

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