The turn of the screw...

Which in this case means the wood screw that holds the bowl-sized block of maple onto the lathe chuck. My fascination with woodturning continues.

I took two classes a couple of weekends ago: pen turning and bowl turning. The contrast between them is startling. When turning the wood to make a pen you use a proportionally small gouge. When turning a bowl you use a very large, very sharp bowl gouge. (This is not my hand or my bowl, by the way.) FIrst I shaped the outside of the bowl. Then I flipped it around, clamped the chuck around the foot (in wood parlance it's called the tenon) on the bottom, then hollowed the inside. The pile of shavings was immense.

In the end, I thought I did pretty well. It was round, it was even, and it looked like a bowl. My first bowl. I was ridiculously pleased.

I've done a bit of the other sort of turning this week too. Since Rhinebeck is coming up, I figured I'd better clear out at least one of the bags of fleece I bought last year. Finally completed: 127g and 720 yards of Persimmon Tree wool/mohair in "Autumn Leaves."

Veni, vidi, almost vici...

Or, more accurately, "I came, I saw, I turned."

One might view woodturning as just another form of spinning, but instead of a saxony wheel you use a lathe; instead of fleece you use wood; and instead of your hands you use sharp tools to shape your end product. Turning is also a lot like spinning in that it only takes minutes to learn the concepts but a lifetime to truly master them. That's why I can't say, vici: "I conquered."

I really enjoyed the wood turning class I took this past weekend at Woodcraft in Woburn, MA. There's nothing more exhilarating than learning a completely new skill and getting the hang of doing it. While I wouldn't call myself an expert yet, I feel that I made a lot of progress between my first tentative application of the gouge to the rapidly-spinning 3x3x10-inch chunk of wood (far left), and my last attempt, where I cut the smooth set of beads and coves you see on the right side of the photo.

Like any serious craftperson, I love nice tools. Consequently, I bought several wicked-looking gouges including this nearly two-foot-long high-speed steel roughing gouge.

It's really neat to think that it may soon help me make my first drop spindle.

Random bits...

...In other words, what you talk about when you don't have much to talk about.

In spite of my woodworking obsession, I am still knitting. Lately it's been socks; in particular, Silky Socks from Great Adirondack in "chili peppers". With 70% merino, 20% silk, and 10% nylon, this is some of the nicest sock yarn I've worked with. The colors are wonderful.

I've been spinning too. I finished this during the Tour de France: It's a Corriedale/Border leicester blend and is working up at about DK weight.











Finally, an illustration of how to stay cool on a hot summer day.

It was only a matter of time...

It begins small: with a threading tool and a diz. Soon you're on to orifice hooks. Before you know it, you've escalated to the harder stuff. I guess it was just a matter of time before I turned to drop spindles.

While perusing the goods at Rockler last week, I bought a bag of maple toy wheels. Add some walnut doweling that, conveniently, comes in just about the right diameter to fit through the hole, apply the now-ubiquitous sandpaper and tung oil, et voila! I've got a rather nice drop spindle or two. Since the spindle with the copper wire rotates more evenly than its sibling, I've decided that the wire is in fact a design feature, not random decorative fiddling.

For the inquiring minds who have asked, the spindles are 9 inches long, and weigh about 1.5 oz. (One weighs 42g and the other 46g.) They spin pretty well considering I've done nothing to balance them. One thing I do need to do is cut a groove in the side of the whorl. This will be part of the balancing act.

I've signed up for a woodturning class later this month, and I'm learning some new lingo: Skew Chisel, Spindle Gouge, Parting Tool, Cocobolo, Bubinga, Macassar Ebony.

Ahh! There's nothing more exciting than a new obsession.