Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT! *LINK*

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

eaglesc

>"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art". -- Leonardo da Vinci

"Anyone can run a CNC who has patience and a half a brain." Joe Barringer of Barringer Cues

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

john lucas

>He is coming up with some unique designs. He will of course take a lot of flak because it's done on a Lazar cutter but I'll bet if you had access to one you'd be tempted to give it a try. Ornamental turning is nothing but a mechanical cutting hand powered CNC. I find it quite interesting. It's not really that different than the guy who throws paint into a jet prop and sells the resulting canvas. Not my cup of tea but he sure makes more money than I do.

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

Ron in Drums PA

>While it's neat and I wouldn't mind playing with an engraver. He's just using clip art from Corel Draw.

It's like taking clip art from a CD and making a birthday card for a friend. Convenient yes, creative no. Any kid with a computer does this with a inkjet printer. He just has a bigger toy.

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

charlie belden

>As is often the case, some focus on a tree or trees and don't see the forest. Perhaps I should have used a Frontiersman metaphor. The folks that head out into new areas aren't the people who build elegant homes or create monumental works of art or beautiful exquisiteky refinded japanese gardens. When they find a place to settle down - THEN they may do those things. But civilizations grow because people go outside the established norms and open up possibilities.

The idea of using string and yarn as inlays in a turning - which is a very defined surface - and blurring, with the nature of spun yarn, the outline/surface of the piece, adding some subtle or very obvious and bright color to a piece . . .

Turners have been incorporating soapstone, marble, epoxy etc. into pieces. PolyClay lends itself to turning, and is more forgiving than stone or some of the other materials that have been used.

The laser engraver is a tool to remove wood - and so is a turning tool, or a carving tool, or a bur in a flex shaft . . . The laser worked pieces are examples of early exploration of the use of lasers with turnings. And as is the case with learning to use a new tool you start simple and explore how it works. THEN you can start adding the "artistic" element(s), the creative stuff.

I assure you that Michelangelo's early experimentings with marble carving were not like The Pieta or The David.

Imagine if Binh Pho had found and worked out how to use the laser to do his piercing rather than the bur and flex shaft he now uses? He does a drawing on the piece to know where he'll remove wood and where he won't - then he cuts. But if he could've done the design - and have the cutting done without the grunt work, or could do a drawing, have it cut out quickly and relatively effortlessly - and then see if it "works" in the real world. Think of the laser as a 2 1/2 D word processor or as Computer Aided Drawing - the ability to quickly try alternatives - with an UNDO option if the idea doesn't please you - or keep your "original" and vary it in all sorts of ways, keeping what you like and playing with that/those some more.

The stuff I put up on the laser engraving/cutting is just some of what I learned about this tool - in just a little over two hours - some of the basics of what this tool can do. Imagine just playing with the positive and negative of an image - a picture or a drawing - you can have the laser "burn" the "dark lines/areas" and leave the "white" - or "burn" the ight and leave the dark. You can get it to cut deeper in black areas, less deep in gray areas and not at all in white areas - or visa versa. How about adding a pierced "woven reeds" area to a piece, with "carving" where one reed goes over or under another - or an interesting Celtic Knot. How about a flowing art nouveau design in an an area of a piece that is otherwise an uninteresting area - say on a piece with SOME intereting spalting but most of the outside surface that's really bland?

While some see the laser engraved and cut examples as just clip art I see just some of the capabilities and possibilities this tool may provide other turners who may have access to this tool. And who knows, maybe in a few years your local Ginkos or some other "Copying Center" may have a laser engraver. You hand them your piece and the computer file, with the "printer" settings and in a few minutes they hand you back your laser engraved/cut piece - along with the bill.

I'm kind of frustrated by my inability to adequately convey what some of the new tools and refined tools I've gotten to play with are capable of letting you do, or do more easily, or more accurately - the Festool DOMINO and the AKEDA Dovetail Jig for example.

Will try to do better as I get to play with the laser engraver.

In the mean time - hopefully - some here will think about ways of using this tool - and share their ideas.

charlie belden

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

eaglesc

>If you can write a program to run umpteen thousand of an identical design then why not just buy "manufactured" stuff.

I equate it to flat work.

How many times have you heard people complain about cheap furniture and the lack of craftsmanship.No one does fine joinery anymore.

They take up wood working and buy a Kregg jig and duplicate the same crap they complained about.

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

charlie belden

>>If you can write a program to run umpteen thousand of an

> identical design then why not just buy "manufactured" stuff.

There's no program writing - computer applications for doing

your own artwork are readily available - some free or shareware.

There's even a paint program "Painter" that has "natural medium"

brushes that work like sable, or horsehair etc. - water color

brushes, oil brushes etc. and you can "paint" with simulations

of water colors, chalk pastels, oil pastels, oil paint, acrylic paint,

tempra - OR - combinations that won't work in the real world

like water color oil paint. Add a pressure sensitive "pen" and

a digitizing tablet and it's very much like painting or drawing,

without getting paint on your hands and filling the space with

the smell of paint thinner.

And CAD just does what you'd do with a T-square, some triangles,

compass and maybe french curves - and a pencil or inking pen

- common drafting equiptment and materials. Unlike a hand

drafted drawing, the CAD version can easily be modified - change

dimensions, scale the whole thing up or down, rotate it, ... Rather

than a pencil or pen you use a mouse or a digiting tablet and

"pen" - no need for the Tsquare, triangles,french curves or even

one of those three sides scales.

And just because, once you have the computer drawing, it doesn't

mean you will mass produce the piece it's used for. These programs

and tools just make it easier to get an idea into a 3D wood object

or maybe on one. AND, once you've got the idea "digital" it's

pretty easy to try variations. A prototype of a piece done in say

poplar, or out here, redwood let's you work out unforseen problems

- before committing to mahogany or maple - or rosewood.

> I equate it to flat work.

> How many times have you heard people complain about cheap

> furniture and the lack of craftsmanship.No one does fine joinery

> anymore.

I'm sure there are Chinese craftsman who use triple mitered

joints with integral mortise and tenons and intricate mitered

saddle joints that think Stickley, Greene and Greene stuff or even

Sam Maloof's rocking chair blended joinery are "primitive" - in

part because they're so simple and in part because you can see

them so easily. High end Chinese pieces NEVER have grain

simply meeting at 90 degrees IF a mitered joint can avoid it.

And if it's at all possible to conceal the joinery - you won't

have any idea of how things were put together - even if you

remove drawers and stick your head inside a piece. And that

unseen joinery will hold things together without opening up

or failing - for centuries

Are variable spaced half blind dovetails considered fine joinery?

If you make them with a router, bit and dovetail jig - are they

still fine joinery?

Does it matter if a hidden mortise and tenon joint is cut by hand

or with a machine? Is "loose/floating tenon" mortise and tenon

joinery any less strong/effective than "true" mortise and tenon

joinery?

How about paneled doors? Is a cope and stick framed raised panel

door doenne with a router and set of bits less fine than one that has

the same joinery done by hand - with wooden profile hand planes?

Is a coopered door or box lid - with staves cut on a table saw and

held together with TiteBond II really any different that one made

from split wood that was hand worked to form the staves and held

together with hide glue?

Is a shelf that's joined to the uprights with a stopped dovetail joint

which happens to have been made with a router, bit and edge guide

any less fine than one done with hand tools?

How about an inlayed band in a groove cut with a router and

a precision fence like the Micro-Fence?

> They take up wood working and buy a Kregg jig and duplicate the

> same crap they complained about.

Some do, many don't. I'd venture to guess that some of the finest joinery and the highest quality furniture created in the US are done by amateur woodworkers who will spend the time, effort and money - to make their ideas for a piece of furniture, or a turning - as good as they can imagine - and sometimes even better.

But you don't start out in woodworking, be it furniture making out of solid wood, ply and solid wood, or turning - with all the knowledge, skills and abilities of a traditionally trained wood worker. So if you start with a bathroom vainity cabinet - face framed ply for example - and use pocket screws to hold things together in a way that a) does the job and b) doesn't show - and c) spend the saved time selecting nice wood and ply,pick the best grain for each part and on finishing it - what's the problem?

New woodworking tools come along that reduce the grunt work and lower the learning curve required to do something to within reach of more people. The laser engraver may or may not be such a tool. But it does open up some creative possibilities - if you want to think creatively.

Re: Nothing New Under The Sun? NOT!

eaglesc

>" But it does open up some creative possibilities - if you want to think creatively. "

For those who choose not to develop skill with their hands and head and would rather let a machine do it.