Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Practice makes perfect

Almost every Saturday at the shop, you'll find Ann fooling around on the lathe. 


She's takens some lessons from Jimmy Clewes, but more importantly - she practices. A lot. At any given time, you might find her wearing her Lee Valley turning jacket and making bowls, spindles, salt cellars, lidded containers - whatever. She's constantly experimenting. 

Check out these small bowls that she made from eucalyptus logs that someone donated. 


She was trying to understand the appearance of the bowl in relation to the tree's annual rings, so she turned two samples, with the grain "smiling" and "frowning" in different directions.


In addition to her lathe work - she's mastered sharpening her lathe tools on the grinder. It wasn't easy to learn, but she can now sharpen a bowl gouge like a MASTER. That's been a huge help in making her turnings so successful. 

She's now incorporating her spindle work into the furniture she's building. 


And damn proud of it, I'd say!



Which brings this point to my mind... the holidays are now on the horizon, and there will be some past students wandering into the shop, hoping to make some holiday gifts. So much of woodworking is about practice. Practicing cuts on the saw, practicing gluing things together, practicing assembling pieces of wood - without practice, these skills get rusty.  So if you're thinking about swinging by to make a few things, I'd recommend brushing up on some skills - the end result of your projects will definitely reflect the extra work you've put into it. 

Here's an absolutely fascinating bowl video that one reader sent to me - wow! Call me boring, but this video had me captivated from start to finish!







1 comment:

John Frame said...

Ann, your chairs really came out nice.
Turning looks like a lot of fun. And that video, that bowl is amazing. How one even thinks that sort of stuff up.