Wood Turning
Posted in Arts and Crafts on 07/22/2010 06:43 pm by adminWood Turning
The most basic of all woodturning skills is cutting wood with a hand held tool while the wood spins on a wood lathe. This requires the second most basic skill, sharpening the tools themselves. There are two major ways to accomplish this, free hand sharpening and sharpening with a jig.
Free hand sharpening mimics the movements of woodturning itself. Virtually the same movements are needed at the grinder as at the wood lathe. A grinder is after all is said and done, a round stone moving in the direction of the turner, or in this case the sharpener. Tools are presented to the stone in the same fashion and at the same angles as they are presented to the wood. It would seem that this should be a simple task to master but experience will quickly establish otherwise.
First of all, when a woodturner is beginning to learn to turn wood the motions that will later become second nature must first be learnt and practised over and over. While this is accomplished at the wood lathe with inexpensive or even free wood, sharpening is practised on the tools themselves. If it is done badly, expensive steel is wasted and even more is ground away in further attempts to rectify the mistake. At the same time, dull or badly sharpened tools make learning those woodturning skills difficult, impossible or dangerous.
Jigs can help. It is an interesting occurrence in woodworking that the same people who will use jigs with router, table saw or other woodworking tool, frown on the idea of using jigs to aid in sharpening woodturning tools. There is certainly a measure of elitism involved.
However, jigs, either commercial or home made, will enable even the newest turner to quickly and effectively sharpen their tools and return to work with sharp instruments for a great cut. Just follow the directions and good results come easily. More and more professional woodturners are also using jigs for sharpening their tools because the results are so predictable and good.
While the choice of learning to turn free hand or use a jig is certainly up to the individual turner, it is a good thing to learn both ways. Use of a jig will gradually get a person used to the movements fro free hand sharpening for that day when he or she is away from a jig. Also one skill complements the other as was pointed out before. Elitism should not prevent one from the enjoyment of sharp tools and whispering shavings nor should reliance on jigs prevent one from the satisfaction of learning valuable skills.
Darrell Feltmate is a juried wood turner whose web site, Around the Woods, contains detailed information about wood turning for the novice or experienced turner as well as a collection of turnings for your viewing pleasure. You too can learn to turn wood, here is the place to start. Wondering what it looks like? There are many free videos on the site dealing with everything from sharpening to making a bowl.
While sharpening wood turning tools is a mystery to many wood turners you can easily and cheaply make a jig to solve your sharpening problems. To see how and solve those problems in a hurry, check out the sharpening pages at http://aroundthewoods.com/sharpening01.html. There are lots of explanations, pictures and videos, all free, to get you underway.
does anyone no where to buy a cheap wood turning lathe???
i have reciently been intrested in making baseball bats. i love baseball and have been intrested in making a wooden bat for some time. The only problem is that i can only find mini lathes that are not big enough to turn a bat, or cormerrcial lathes, which are huge and expensive. Does anyone know where i can buy a cheap lathe that is big enough to turn at least a 33” bat, but is not huge and expensive????
Harbor Freight Tools is a possible source. They sell lots of stuff imported from China, most of it of adequate quality. Shipping a lathe any distance will be costly.
wood turning a spintop by Philippe
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