(Message Deleted by Poster)

An excess in round, is an accurate description..

Leo Cuellar

of me!

Segue alert!

Bruce, a MN Galoot

I know of three members of your woodworking club, and Wilbur mentioned another published writer. And you introduce us to yet another astonishing ww'er. WOW! Do ordinary people find your club intimidating or inspiring?

I have a lot of research...

Leo Cuellar

to do yet. I've only just scratched the surface so far. An article from Make magazine got me thinking seriously about it. I'm dreaming of a low slung bed so that I can get a 4' or greater swing. My turning, like my character, runs toward eccentric.

Re: Segue alert!

Larry Barrett

+1 That link to kandi boxes gets a wow!

What a beauty! *LINK*

Leo Cuellar

That one has some really nice lines.

This one has been on craigslist near me but it is a little too big for my shop.

Nice but not nearly so stylish.


http://bellingham.craigslist.org/tls/3612058447.html

Re: Concrete

Leo Cuellar

Thanks for the info, Tom! I'll definitely start checking that out this weekend. The synthetic stuff'l probably be out of my price range, but you never know... more options to procrastinate over.

Re: Segue alert!

William Duffield

We don't have any ordinary people in our club. At least, they don't stay ordinary woodworkers for long. I hope we're not intimidating anyone. We try to inspire, or at least amuse, them all. Steve does a really good job of inspiring, while entertaining, everyone.

We've recently (in the last couple of years) started organizing "group builds" which we find excite, inspire, and qickly increase the skill sets, self confidence and sense of adventure of everyone who participates. The biggest challenge is finding enough build leaders to keep everyone inspired.

(Message Deleted by Poster)

Re: The bloviating primate

TomD

Ok so you tried it. My first bowl look pretty close to a Prestini bowl I had seen in a mag, and the lathe was a horror show scabed onto my table saw for a drive. So it is as you say not so difficult one needs to stick with it for years to get the basic feel for it. So I get what you are saying if you tried it and didn't like it. Just wasn't sure which realm we were in.

That brings up another thing which is that one can actually learn lathe work at a blistering pace. For seemingly pragmatic users this is a great boon since it means one can add the skill at little actual cost in time or money (different point). I think it is one thing that ends up boring some people since it is picked up quickly and one can rapidly get bored if one is in it mostly for the skills build part of it.

Aside from the fact that you own a lathe, aside from cost and space constraints and all that, I don't buy a number 7 sweep chisel with the feeling that from now on all I will do is cut number 7 sweep cuts. It is just there till I need it. And so for instance I needed 25 foot radius workboards for making guitars. I don't like the ones they sell, and maybe a Canadian thing, I can make them a lot cheaper than I can order them, and get them a lot faster. And then there are myriad little bits they don't sell that really need the same radius. I just turned all this stuff on my lathe. Hardly worth having a lathe for all that. But then it would free me up to use these "expensive" pieces for something more useful when the shutters come down on that interest, because I could make new ones if I get back into it. I have lathes, just the 5, and I finds lots to do with them, on and off, that does not involved doing bad things. Did I mention shaker pegs.

Windsor chairs

jack curtis

Yeah, I pretty much agree with all you said. Good critique, that philosophy degree really comes in handy for you.

On Windsor chairs, I never liked the legs, all the trivial bumps and coves; but then I saw Curtis Buchanan's videos. His Windsor legs are marvelous. According to the turner at Homestead that I took a one day turning class from said it was because Buchanan's leg protrusions (I don't have a better word for this, but there must be one) were very sharp and very crisp.

Also, I fell in love with my inlaws' dining room chairs, not knowing they were birdcage Windsors until Buchanan named them for me. I'm now starting a birdcage extended project for my dining room. It'll probably take more than a year to get this done, but it'll be worth it.

Re: Should not!

TomD

"Problem is, it's overwhelmingly hard, nearly impossible, to argue compellingly for 'every' when it is so easy to demonstrate one—one single solitary exception to such an absolutist postulate—and only one exception is required to render the postulate flaccid, meaningless, erroneous."

Is there is lawyer in the house? The fact there may be one or a few people who do not need to eat, does not dissuade me from the blanket statement that "people need to eat". Nitpicking be damned (unless, of course, I am doing it).

"Had William asked: "Should every woodworkers not have a lathe", I'd have argued some, although not every, should."

That is quite the sentence, I might have enjoyed sitting that one out on the sidelines.

"But as an exercise it's nevertheless fun and often revealing, and I fully appreciate and enjoy your well-argued efforts to that end."

That is so kind and I do appreciate the climate. It would be interesting to know how many general woodworkers get a lathe, what they make of it, and so forth.

Re: Steve's boxes, and his philosophy

TomD

The problem with a lot of tools, maybe all of them, but certainly the more powerful tools like lathes and table saws, is their overuse. But that really isn't and argument against owning them on functional grounds. It's like candy some people can't have it around the house, other people will have the same jelly bean in a bowl for months until the right situation presents itself.

I like some Chinese furniture a lot. I am not sure what extent one should take seriously their pre-historic disdain for certain tools. Some stuff is always fun when you have slaves or peasants around. Certainly today, they approve of machine tools and glue.

One thing the chinese and others out east before them, have contributed to the conversation is lathes at about the price of two steak dinners, it really takes an enormous exercise in head hiding in the sandism not to snap these opportunities up. We have frequent discussions here about Nanji..., uhh, Naga... uhh... Notagonna be able to explain that price to my wife stones, that cost enough to buy both a metalworking and a woodworking lathe. There are small lathes that will actually do a lot of the mechanical work...

Re: What a beauty!

TomD

The key metal working lathe is the South Bend 9" You can make a lot of stuff on one of those, and it is the core lathe, like a 1911, AR, 870, 700. Except that stuff is being made today, the South Bend 9 is not, yet is still the lathe to beat, as far as support is concerned. You can find one in good condition for 200, but a more realistic price is 500, and 700 often gets a really special lathe and some lathe loot. Your part of the world is not bad for second hand stuff. The biggest find I ever heard of happened out there. Some serious guy bought every piece of home metal shop stuff you can imagine. I forget what it all was, but there were something like 60 to 100 pieces of it. some old iron dudes got it after he died, it was still all in cosmo in boxes. talk about a time capsule!.

The problem with a 9 inch is that it is a very small swing for a wood lathe, but you could easily set yourself up with a Moutrop bowl turning lathe, etc... if you had a 9. The 9 was not the best lathe, there were just so many made...

Re: Epoxy Granite/polymer concrete

TomD

It could get expensive, but then you are in the States, where you can order cheap kits of epoxy on Amazon. You get no sympathy from me. The stuff can be home made, but then it is still more expensive that aggregate you add water too...

Here is the Epoxy Granite forum:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/epoxy_granite/

How about that...

John in NM

A friend of mine had that model lathe for a while, one of those projects that never really takes off. His needed some new gearing though, a previous user had driven the tool holder into the running chuck and knocked some teeth off the power feed gearing.

Thing sure was a monster though

Re: Sorry about the pickelhaube

David Weaver

Otto von Bismarck would've been offended by it, but I'm OK with it as long as I don't have to wear a pickle that's been turned into a hat

Re: Keep me informed on the concrete bed lathe

TomD

That could be. I know of at least plans on the internet, from those old magazines for making a concrete horizontal milling machine base. A wood lathe is tough because it requires lots of gears and the lead screw, etc...

What you can find online, is a plan for a base for the South Bend 9 made of concrete. These little lathes were run 24 hours a day in houses converted to shops where guys would hot rack for 8 hours, and work 16 hour shifts, or maybe it was 8 hour shifts, the lathes would be kept running indefinitely. They put them on solid concrete bases, because the machines were fine, it was the bases that let them down. They can take a 1/4 inch peeling cut in cold rolled like that.

Most people shouldn't own tools, let alone a lathe

steven antonucci

Most people.

Just sayin for every lumpy round dog dish of a bowl hacked out by some wannabe turner, there are 5 craptacular HGTV "fine woodworking projects" made from warped Home Depot sheet goods and 2x4's on a Craftsman tablesaw.

At least the turnings can still be burned in a fireplace when you've seen the light.

Steve

people shouldn't own tools" That's too close ...

Bruce McCrory

... to home. It's like that clock radio... Never changes time 'til I wanna prove it.

I need a lathe. I have lots of twine. Maybe, one with a whip pole?

Most people should own tools, and use them...

John in NM

As I have mentioned earlier in this thread, a few of my early efforts are not objects which I recollect with much, if any pride. Practice is largely what made the difference between then and now. The most ham fisted hack who currently produces the horrible objects you describe may be able to improve with some practice.

Yes

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

Everyone's a beginner at the beginning. Most of what I produced in my early years is, thank goodness, long gone; but those mistakes were necessary to my learning.

And, in those early years, with the kind of income people early in their careers have and first one and then two children snorking up income like tiny little economic black holes, I couldn't afford good wood.

There are, yes, lots of folks who never improve from those early mistakes, and proudly show off later mistakes. But, unless we're going to require completion of a training course/apprenticeship in furnituremaking before allowing anyone to buy a chisel, we have to allow for the eager ignorance of beginner's efforts, and do our collective best to encourage growth in design sophistication.

Interesting

Ron Harper

I have never allowed myself to have a lathe in my shop. I have never allowed myself to own a motor cycle. The motor cycle? Speed is an indescribable rush for me. I would soon be dead or mangled up to the point that I wished I was. The lathe? I have not found any other activity done while dressed anywhere close to being as addictive as turning. I have always thought that I would disappear in a huge mound of shavings and get nothing else done in the shop. Maybe I am a little more disciplined now? I plan to soon build a treadle lathe to turn chair legs and spindles. Still no motor cycle. Wouldn't be prudent.

Re: Danger, Will Robinson!

William Duffield

When I was young, I probably put 40,000 miles on motorcycles, and somehow managed not to hurt myself. My addiction was roads with lots of curves. SWMBO convinced me to quit. My son is an EMT. Their sage advise is: "Do you know what they call people who ride motorcycles without a helmet? Organ donors."

I belong to two turning clubs. It is incredible how addicted many people in those organizations can get to turning. They get a lathe, and the next thing into their shop is a huge bandsaw, and a chainsaw that's always in their pickup. Everything else in the shop just gathers dust. I don't know why it hasn't happened to me, considering how easily I'm addicted to other stuff.

Maybe it's the instant gratification?

Have I got a road for you!

John in NM

US 191 in Arizona, between Hannigan's Meadow and Morenci.... best start from the uphill (north) side. The one time I drove to work that way I thought I was making good time until I hit that stretch... must have been 2 hours of curves

Maybe if you ever decide to have one more ride in defiance of the cooler heads.

Re: Have I got a road for you!

William Duffield

Still crazy after all these years…

Many years after I gave up motorcycles, I bought the car Consumer Reports rated the best they had ever tested for "accident avoidance", a '93 MR2 Turbo. Best way I can describe it is "cheap thrills," but it strayed far afield from legendary Toyota reliability. After car camping in Yosemite, I was on my way to Silicon Valley, coming down New Priest Grade (CA 120) in Mariposa County, and some white knuckled geezer was driving about 15 mph, wouldn't pull over, and no one would (or thought it was possible to) pass him. I'd been up and down this road before, and I understood the topology and necessary techniques. I passed six cars before I caught up to him, and he finally pulled over, without a fight, when I got on his tail. Thereafter, the road was completely empty.

SWMBO (CSP) still won't let me drive if she's in the car.