Practice and throw it away
John C Lucas
Do any of you ever do this. I recommend it every time i teach. When you know you are going to throw it away you are more relaxed and feel comfortable trying new cuts. Thats how i learned the skew. I now play with fine tuning my cuts to get a cleaner more accurate bead for example. When i havent been turning for a while ( which doesnt happen often) i will just throw a 2x2 piece of pine on The lathe and turn it down to nothing practicing beads and coves with different tools. It helps me get the muscle memory back. As I grow as a turner i find that quality tool handling is all about very fine adjustments to the cutting edge presentation. When i havent been turni g in a while these tend to be gross movements instead of very fine movements. A practice piece takes care of this andets me turn my expensive pieces of wood.with confidence.
This is straight off the tool no sanding what soever. That's what practice will do. What I do to get such clean beads is I never use the nose of the tool (I use a Thompson 3/8" beading tool) I start with the flute very slightly tilted in the direction I'm moving and I start the cut on the wing of the gouge about 11 oclock or 1 oclock. Maybe even 10:30 or 1:30. This is then a slicing cut which is much cleaner. If I started with the 12 oclock position and roll the gouge which is what I was taught the wood is crossing the nose at 90 degrees which is a rather course cut compared to a shear cut.
