Calling all woodturners out there

i will ask some freinds over that neck of the woods and post a reply.. happy turning dear chap...if you are anything like me, you will find the task such a relaxing one, you WILL be spending lots of time on the lathe ....
regards matt

 

Wood turning is is something I have always wanted to do but never have. My father bought a Bridges home workshop in the mid 50s. All he ever used was the drill but it had so many accessories including using the drill as a wood lathe. Ever since then I have wanted to do it.
I have done plenty of machine shop turning but never wood.
I was about to make a bench for a small lathe last year when I had an accident which I still have to get over.
I am detirmined to start turning as soon as I am able.
It has always looked so relaxing to me.

 

Dewy,
i started last year, with the ferm lathe and a decent set of turning gouges. Its the most relaxing and rewarding hobby ive ever done. Its eay to start and you soon pick things up if you are diy minded. Another part of the fun of it is hunting down the wood and also being asked to turn items for people. Dont delay start it!

 

I had been looking at the Ferm lathe. Its identical to the MachineMart one & many others badged & painted differently. Only used to be a couple of quid between them but MachineMart just dropped the price to £105.69. Both have the same tool rests, face plates etc.

 

Dewy, same as you I have carried out turning operations, during my time on the tools, on lathes with a 60 inch swing and 30 feet between centres but only cutting steel. I have always had a hankering to try wood turning but the prospect of "rounding over" sharp corners of a square wooden block rotating at 100's of RPM while holding the cutting tool in my hand scares me shiftless, need BIG bicycle clips on my trousers I think. I followed articles by a renowned wood turned called Tobias Kaye for several years but still never plucked up the courage to try it. I have looked at some of the lower end lathes on the market with a view to "copying" the design and getting some of our apprentices to make one as a 2nd year project but with better grade materials, (good to be in that position I suppose).

 

Try a pole lathe. They are only made of wood & I have seen them made using a bungie rope as the return instead of the pole. Thats what has been used for hundreds of years before electricity. Usually used on green woon.

 

I have seen articles on green wood turning, there is a green wood turnery (yes it is a word) not far from where I live and the do demonstrations during the summer months, I might just pop along and have a look see. The finished article must change shape etc as the wood dries out?? Is it a random process? You gets what you gets at the end?

 

LT, have asked and am awaiting replies for "clubs" etc around your area, and Engineer, as for "GREEN" turnery(yes-turnery- it most definitely is a word!!)the timber could shrink/alter shape, whilst drying out, but there are many ways and processes to stop this from happening, it's just horses for courses, and as for going to see a demo' then DO IT.!!.. it will be interesting to say the least.. green turning of timber is quite good fun, and as mentioned on this thread, it is most theraputic.. turning IS!! DEWY, old pal... if you can try it ... it relaxes, like no other area of woodworking...just to see a section of wood go from it's present form to ...well what ever you are making... it is fantastic...
i will admit that i actually keep a chainsaw in the back of my work estate, "JUST" in case i come across a fallen tree, down one of the lanes, (if it belongs to some one i ask)... but it is a great source of fresh turning stock.... helps the local council too!!!!
yours relaxed...matt

 

well i got an ol ml8, and often use it 2 turn,could never do it commercialy,but good fun and spend ages making lovely shavings,buy a few good books 2 learn the basics.
then go 4 it slowly, u will soon learn wot the chisel/scraper is telling u. all the best.

 

Just dredged through some old "Good Woodworking" magazines and have come accross a series of articles on green woodworking which I must have missed first time round in 1996. I think that I will pursue the project of getting a lathe made from scratch, never know I may even try my hand on the mill machining the slides myself. I don't know how good Birch or Pine will be to turn but I had about 30 trees felled at the bottom of one of my fields at the tail end of last year, because they were too close to the electricty poles(leaving about 100 plus), so I might make use of them.

 

Birch should turn OK in the green.Turn to rough dimension first give it a month or two then remount and turn to a finish.If you want a bowl the rule of thumb is to rough turn so that the wall thickness is even and about 10% of the diameter of the bowl.Seal the end grain and leave in a cool place for 3-4 months,remount and finish.
Because you need thick timber for bowls and thick hardwood never really dries to a uniform degree all bowl turning is really green turning to some extent.Most bowl blanks sold as seasoned are really just part seasoned and will distort if you don't rough turn first - although this distortion may be minimal and acceptable in practice.
To my mind one of the attractions of woodturning is that you can use green wood which cannot be usefully used elsewhere.Also the word "Bodger" was applied initially to the craftsmen who made chair legs from greenwood using pole lathes - it carried no connotation of second rate work.
Regards, Hab

 

As for the sharp corners, make life easy for yourself. I remove excess wood as possible with a plane or band saw before i start turning, al lot safer, less effort and easier on the blades of your tools.

 

Why is it unsafe to take of the corners off square section wood with a machine tool specifically designed to do the job? Turning tools are now generally high speed steel ;you won't wear them out this way and you will probably wear out your bandsaw blade first!
There are some activities in woodworking that carry danger but this is not one of them.
Hab

 

The simplest way to remove the corners before turning is to mark the centre then use a compass to show the diameter then run the stock through the table saw set at 45° to just miss the line. You now have an octagon with less broken cuts on the lathe.

 

If the gouge is sharp and presented properly you won't get "broken cuts".When you are turning a table leg you have to leave the top part in square anyway and turn a pummel below it so you can't cut on a saw first.I just don't see why there is a problem with the corners on a square section - present the roughing gouge with a slice action and the finish can be so good that it hardly needs sanding.Turning wood to the round directly is what a lathe is for- why use something else first?
Hab

 

HAB, i can count in excess of twenty differing gouges within the workshop, including a custon made 2.5" wide roughing gouge.. and yet i(and my staff) will always use a machine to remove the majority of the stock from a long blank prior to turning,a bandsaw for bowl/short blanks, or if the timber is "soft-ish" then the chop saw to remove the corners as described by DEWY the reasons behind this are many, 1) time saving , 2) SAFETY reasons, because as you attack the timber when a square section , there is ALWAYS the inherant risk of the gouge, catching or worse still wedging within the confines of the tool rest and the work piece.. 3) attacking a square section , can lead to tear out of the material that you wish to keep....4) to save un-nessesary wear and tear on the turning tools them selves , WHy? keep re-honing when you do not need to.. i could go on , but it would be point less...
also as defined by the term "roughing out" gouge, it is utilized to "rough" out the actual shape that is required. and NOT to turn down a squre/off shape blank, in to the cylindrical shape being sort!!
and as for NOT being able to remove material due to SQUARE sections on "table" legs (newels in our case) or fancy "bulbous" sections .. that is exactly why we use a bandsaw.... and as for a nice "slicing action leaving an almost perfect smooth finish" , can i take it that you deal in mainly easily turned hardwoods, where as comnpanies like mine will be required to constantly use differing timbers like Douglas Fir , which is notorious for splintering out, no matter how carefull you are..
a point in fact is this week end, where i have turned (as per spec's) Boxwood, Yew, Beech, Ash , 4 No newels from Doug fir and also a section of Gum Yew....
enough said i think!!
regards matt

 

It's strange how words have such a changed meaning to most people.
As hab said, a 'bodger' was a turner of green wood chair legs.
My uncle was a shoe repairer but I once called him a 'cobbler'. He soon put me right. A 'cobbler' is someone who makes shoes out of scraps of leather considered to be useless by most shoe makers. I see the dictionary says a 'cobbler' is a person who repairs shoes but the difference was drummed into my uncle during his apprenticeship by an old guy who had repaired shoes all his life.

 

Well Matt, I think we will have to agree to disagree.You have your way of working and I have mine.But the late Peter Child and others such as Tobias Kaye, Richard Raffan and most professional turners would not feel that turning from the square was inherently more dangerous than any other wood working activity- they would see it as a perfectly safe and standard method.Peter Child was quoted as saying that there is a specialist machine tool to take square to round in spindle work - and that is the wood lathe. Obviously you rough down bowl blanks as far as possible of the lathe but , even here there is generally a degree of eccentricity involved especially when you are turning from a green blank - the eccentricity may not be just in the shape but may also be in density or texture.This carries much the greater potential danger although it is not so obvious and is easily overlooked.
The heavy U fluted gouge is commonly termed a "roughing gouge" because that is its primary purpose but it has other uses: when used on the slice it can and does leave a very good finish on the majority of timbers, soft and hard.As you know most woodturning tools have several uses but are named by their main use - spindle gouge,parting tool are two examples.I can't think of a single tool of the well established type that does not have several ,safe and accepted uses!
However I do take your point that in a production enviroment certain practices may speed up the process but for most involved in this craft they are not necessary or inherently safer for spindle work of dimensions accommodated by the lathe used.
Very best regards, hab