Just a retired guy's venture into woodturning
This site is brand new as of 12/16/23 so please bear with me as I work through the growing pains.
This site is brand new as of 12/16/23 so please bear with me as I work through the growing pains.
As someone afflicted by Essential Tremor I decided to make this a talking point of my site to help create awareness. Essential Tremor is a neurological condition that causes a rhythmic trembling of the hands, head, voice, legs or trunk. It is often confused with Parkinson's Disease although Essential Tremor is eight times more common, affecting an estimated 7 to 10 million Americans.
You can reach me at tremorwoodworks@gmail.com
In the big scheme of things I am but a raw rookie at woodturning. My journey began with a couple of training classes in May of 2023, and as of the start of this website in December 2023 I have completed 65 projects. With each project I (usually) get a little bit better. They say that practice makes perfect; well, I don't know about perfect, but my works are more refined now then they were six months ago. All the photos on these pages are of my own work; there are no stock images being used. I do not currently sell any of my works but may do so in the future. Right now they are just gifts for family, friends and neighbors, or perhaps serve as a Thank You to someone for a good deed. I have a blog at: https://tremorwoodworks.blogspot.com/ where I will continue to post more photos and show the process of turning individual items, but I'll keep this site to just the completed items. In my gallery here you may find up to four photos of the same item because I want you to see all sides of it.
My preference is to work in Mesquite because I like the colors and grain patterns it produces. With very few exceptions all my items are finished in Danish oil and beeswax, both of which are food safe products. My raw wood blanks are not perfect when I begin turning them; some are spalted, have cracks, bark inclusions, holes, etc. Wood is a natural product and therefore has defects that come naturally to it. In addition to mesquite, I've also worked in Acacia which produces similar results to Mesquite, Ash, and Eucalyptus. I sometimes work with FOG wood (Found On Ground) so I don't really know what species it is when I turn it. With few exceptions my items are utilitarian; something to hold your car keys, spare change, popcorn, candy, etc.
Mesquite with bark inclusion.
01/112
Wood can be purchased, found, cut down, obtained from friends or neighbors, etc. This tree pictured above was a 35+ year old mesquite that was being removed by its owner who allowed me to have some. I have since made some items for her and will make more in the future for her.
As soon as you get the wood home, or ideally as soon as the wood is cut from the tree, it needs to be sealed. Trees can be made up of 35% or more of moisture and that needs to be released slowly to help prevent the wood from checking and cracking. I use a product called Anchor Seal.
Now you stack it where it is protected from the elements, has ventilation, and you wait. Wood tends to naturally dry at a rate of 1" per year in many parts of the country. Wood can also be dried in a kiln and small items can be turned while they are still wet and then dried in the microwave.
When your timber has dried to a sufficient level you need to cut it up into manageable pieces and this is normally done with a chainsaw.
Wood lathes come in various sizes so now you need to reduce the timber to a size that your machine can handle. This is normally done on a bandsaw, but with experience can also be done with a chainsaw. The goal is to make a round item small enough for your machine to handle.
There are a number of ways to hold a blank on a lathe; a screw chuck, or between centers, or mounted to a faceplate. The above photo shows a faceplate being used. This is screwed to a flat portion of the wood and the back part is threaded onto the spindle you see on the headstock.
This photo shows a blank with a faceplate mounted to the spindle on the headstock of the lathe. The long bar next to the wood is called the tool rest, and it in turn is inserted into a banjo.
Determine the shape of the item you want and begin removing all the waste wood. You will need to create a tenon or a mortise for when you reverse the item to begin hollowing it out. You can see the end of the tenon to the far right of the bowl in this photo. That is grasped in the jaws of the chuck when the bowl is turned around.
A tenon or a spigot is a protrusion at the bottom of the bowl that the jaws of your chuck will hold onto as the bowl spins on the lathe. In this photo the tenon has broken off the bottom of the bowl; a rare occurrence.
A mortise is a small recess in the bottom of the item that your chuck jaws will expand into to hold the bowl in place as the lathe spins. The jaws clamp down on a tenon, and they expand into a mortise. The use of either technique is up to the turner's discretion.
With the item mounted on the chuck, the excess wood inside now needs to be removed. In this case I started with a 3" Forstner bit and drilled a deep hole before I began using my tools to remove the rest of the interior wood. The piece on top of the bowl flew past my right shoulder and landed about ten feet away. Because of incidents like this I always wear a face shield.
Once a sufficient amount of wood has been removed, the wood needs to be sanded and finished. As you may have noticed, this was also done when the exterior of the bowl had been shaped. The majority of my items are sanded to 220 grit, polished with abrasive paste, and then I apply Danish oil and finally some beeswax which is melted into the wood with friction.
Please contact me at tremorwoodworks@gmail.com if you cannot find an answer to your question so I can add it to the FAQ.
Primarily Acacia, Ash, Eucalyptus and Mesquite, but I'll use whatever is available to me.
As of December of 2023 I do not currently sell any of my items, but that may change in the future.
They are all created on a wood lathe, a machine that spins a blank (a chunk of wood) and then excess wood is removed using gouges and carbide bits until all that remains is the desired item. Michanlanglio is quoted as saying about sculpting "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." Woodturning is the same thing except that wood is our medium.
Spalting is a natural wood coloration caused by fungi. It occurs when fungi colonize wood and extract nutrients from it, leaving behind dark dotted and lined patterns. These lines are the "fortress walls" of their colonies and they are designed to protect the colony from the other colonies that may be within the wood. Spalting normally takes a year or more to begin after a tree is dead and it is the very early stages of the wood rotting away if left unattended. Spalting is highly sought after in woodturnings.
Bark inclusion is a branch defect that occurs when two or more stems of a tree grow together in a V-shape. As the stems grow, the bark between them acts as a wedge. Many times a bark inclusion will not come to light until the bowl has been partially turned. Many turners, including myself will choose to leave the inclusion in the final product because, like spalting, it adds character to the piece.
This term means different things to different people. Some say it's the same meaning, while others argue that when the bark is removed it is no longer a "live edge" and instead becomes a "natural edge." I tend to use the term live edge interchangeably when describing the raw organic shape of the edge without the bark, and also if the piece still has the bark or remnants of the bark. But in general a live edge bowl is a decorative bowl made from the side of a log. The bark or remnant of the bark of the tree is used as a rim decoration. These bowls may have one or more sides higher than the other two.
No. Those were just the bare minimum steps. There are many, many more smaller steps and alternatives that woodturners can take to create a bowl. If you are truly interested in pursuing this as a hobby or possibly a future business, there is a wealth of information "out there" for you to review. I would start with joining a local club, taking some classes, getting to know someone who is already a woodturner, and reviewing YouTube videos and Facebook groups to help get a better idea of what you're getting into. This is not an inexpensive hobby. The cost of your lathe will only be 1/2 to 1/3 of the final cost to you as you will need to invest in tools, sharpening equipment, chucks and other lathe accessories, a chainsaw and bandsaw, hearing protection, dust control and protection, face shield, yada, yada, yada. Small mini-lathes can be found used for $50 - $200, while new top of the line professional level lathes such as Robust or ONEWAY or Powermatic can easily run $10,000 to $15,000.
Good YouTube turners: Richard Raffan, Tomislav Tomasic, Kerry Corney, Kent from Turn A Wood Bowl are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of good woodturning mentors. If I want detailed instruction I download courses from Glenn Lucas in Ireland. Both Glenn and Richard are world-renown turners and have decades of experience to share. Glenn provides both DVD, download, and personal instruction in his shop in Ireland. Richard has a large number of books which can easily be purchased online.
https://woodturner.org is the home of the American Association of Woodturners and is a good starting point before you begin looking anywhere else. You will also find a list of clubs on this site.
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