Woodturning Lathe Build Process
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Posted 25th August 2024
I haven't been using the lathe much over the last few months, but I wanted to have a bit more of a go to try to improve my turning skills. Following advice from someone on the woodworking forum, I did a one-day woodturning course on Saturday with Paul Hannaby in the Forest of Dean. The morning was spent making this out of a lump of oak:
Okay, that doesn't look like much, but the idea wasn't to make something pretty, it was just to practise skew chisel techniques. It started off with practising getting a good finish on relatively straight sections, then we did some peeling cuts to reduce the diameter followed by cutting into a corner with a good finish. We then went on to cutting V-grooves and finally beads. I'd never tried cutting beads with a skew chisel so that was really quite challenging and the advice and suggestions were really helpful.
I started off the afternoon by making a bowl out of a lump of ash:
That was really instructive and definitely helped me feel a lot more comfortable using a bowl gouge than I had before the course. I decided to leave it unfinished during the course (to save time) and instead applied Mike's Magic Mix after I got home.
Once the bowl was finished, I made a small box out of brown oak (again finished with Mike's Magic Mix after I got home):
I really enjoyed making that box and I'd like to have a go at one myself sometime soon (although I might cheat and use a Forstner bit rather than doing everything with the lathe tools). He had a home-made hollowing tool that worked extremely well for cutting the sides and bottom of the box; I've ordered some 300 mm lengths of 12 mm high-speed steel so I can make one for myself (along with a round, square-ended skew chisel that makes beads much easier).
None of the above was done on my little lathe: I used Paul Hannaby's beast:
However, I did take my lathe along to the course and set it up on a mitre saw stand:
That enabled me to try the odd technique (mainly skew chisel stuff) on my own lathe so that I could convince myself that the improvements I was seeing in cutting action were a result of what I'd learnt and not just down to using a "proper" lathe.
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