My First Turn on my new lathe

[Chris Huybregts]

Hey Guys, just quickly, an introduction.

By day, I'm a software engineer, by night, I fight crime...err, am attempting to turn wood. To say I'm a wood worker would be a joke as I think right now, the wood works me! Like many people here, I got into the hobby with the interest of making pens and other small gifts as well as I am looking for a hobby that I can use my hands to create (as oppose to hammering on a keyboard all day). My wife and I are in our first home and really, I had zero tools. This of course, makes the vortex even more costly to start up.

You can see my current set up here Turning Group Members (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showpost.php?p=1012144&postcount=4)

I'm still missing a Grinder, Drill Press and a reasonable chuck. I also don't have a table saw, but do have a chop saw which I will carefully be using to cut my blanks. (What are your guys opinions on a drill press for pen turning? Should I get one or just use a drill chuck in the tailstock and invest the money for the drill press into a good chuck?)

I've had the lathe for all of 2 nights now, and I've only ever turned 2 pens one evening at a Woodcraft class about a month ago. In the attached photo's you'll see the result of my 2 nights, the spindle laying down was me trying out my new tools on the first night (which definitely need a grind! Reading through the posts here, it seemed most people were happy with the HF HSS set so I picked that up). I'm just using scrap 2x2 pine I had laying around. The second spindle was mainly a test on using the Skew on the second night. I had never used the tool before but can tell it will have much power, yet will be an interesting beast to master.

The second picture, not quite sure if you can see it, but roughing out the 2x2, my gouge kind of nicked the live center that was in the tailstock... now I need to figure out how to knock off those burrs as they're pretty sharp.

Anyway, Just wanted to introduce myself, and let you guys know that a true "newbie" is in your midst and I plan to frequent here often.

Chris From Austin, TX

[Keith Christopher]

Chris,

Well for starters welcome the spiny vortex ! For those burrs, they are on the outside edge so hit 'em up with a file, don't be to aggressive just knock 'em down you should be fine. Oh and you should prolly re-sharpen that gouge. :)

Good to see you practicing. Keep on turning and don't be afraid to ask questions !

Man I miss Austin, love that town ! Maggie Maes was my favorite hangout.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Chris - Welcome to the Creek!

Lots of great folks here willing to help out - so ask all the questions you have!

Nice bonkers! I think we all start off with the same projects! LOL

As far as the nicks - I still do that every once in a while when cutting in to close! I just grab a piece of 320 grit sandpaper and knock the burrs down. Does a number on your black paint job - but paint ain't what this sport is all about!

Have fun with turning! Looking forward to seeing your work!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Welcome to SMC. Take a fine file or sandpaper and knock off the burrs. If you want spray a little black paint on. Nice looking bonkers. Keep'em coming.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Chris....Welcome to the Creek and the Vortex! Nice bonkers. Keep at it! 3 years ago Bernie and I both started our first bonkers. Now.....we can make bonkers with the best of them....right Bernie?:rolleyes:

[Chris Huybregts]

Haha, Thanks guys!

I'll take a file and/or sandpaper to it tonight to get it smoothed out, as for painting it, I like to think of it as battle scars and will leave it as it is :) It'll hopefully remind me not to do it again :)

Chris

[Cyril Griesbach]

Welcome, Chris. I looked at your lathe set up and while it's difficult to tell from the photo my first impression was that you may have the lathe too high unless you're really tall. For what it's worth a general rule of thumb is to have the spindle about where your elbow height is. Too high and there can be a tendency to scrunch up your shoulders to get the tool in the right position and too low and you'll be leaning over. Both will cause muscle tension and/or a sore back.

Consider joining a local turning club which you can find here.

http://www.woodturner.org/community/chapters/LocalChapters.asp

Cyril

[Dave Marshall]

welcome to the world of Sawmillcreek and woodturning. You have a great source for woodturning knowledge in Austin that you should take advantage of asap. It is the Central Texas Woodturners club. Their website is:
http://ctwa.org/index.shtml

check them out. go to a meeting/demo or two and join the club. They have a wealth of info, demos, library, and mentoring days to help you get started. A great bunch of turners down there!

BTW, IMHO, try practice turning on wood other than pine or 2x4s. Try to get some nice, tight-grain wood like maple.... I think you'll be happier with the results. And get that grinder to sharpen the tools. It is a requirement. Don't know how to sharpen?.... ask the guys in the club to show you!

Dave
Woodturners of North Texas, President

[Dave Marshall]

and by the way, if you are interested in learning to "tame the Skew" Alan Lacer will be at our club in Fort Worth on April 25-30 for demos and classes. Check out our website in the next few weeks for details and cost. Alan will be holding beginners classes as well as classes on using the skew.

http://www.wntx.org/
http://www.alanlacer.com/

[Jim Kountz]

Chris, welcome and congrats on the new toy. You're going to like it the more you do it and sooner or later, well you will be lost in the darkness that is the VORTEX!!

[Chris Huybregts]

Dave and Cyril,
I'm definitely planning on checking out the wood turning club here, I just need to wait a couple weeks until their next meeting. As for heading up to Ft Worth, I'll look into that as well! A three hour drive will surely be worth the knowledge gained!

About the height, yeah, it's sitting on a 36" workbench I made. My goal is to get the stand and move the lathe to the space next to the work bench so i can have my bench back! But alas, I need to tame the vortex otherwise I'll have to face the wrath of the Wife (although I hear the wrath is often averted by a pen or two :)

As for hardwood, I'm currently in the process of figuring out where to source that. I have a bag of pen blanks from Woodcraft but until I get the pen mandrel I wanted to practice on something. Reaching in my scraps bucket, I found those.

Looks like a grinder will be my next purchase (probably this weekend) now the question is, to get the woodcraft low speed grinder & wolverine kit, or just the grinder and make a wolverine like jig...

Chris

[Scott Conners]

I'm still missing a Grinder, Drill Press and a reasonable chuck. I also don't have a table saw, but do have a chop saw which I will carefully be using to cut my blanks. (What are your guys opinions on a drill press for pen turning? Should I get one or just use a drill chuck in the tailstock and invest the money for the drill press into a good chuck?)

A good scroll chuck will make turning much better, while a drill press won't affect the turning quite so much. However, a drill press is also a really useful tool, and if you need it for things other than pens, it could be well worth it. That said, I'd go for the chuck. I love my Barracuda 2, because of all of the jaws it came with. Being able to grab just about anything with my chuck without buying 4 sets of $40-$80 jaws is really nice. If I could afford better I would, but not until I had multiple cheap chuck bodies - changing jaws is slow and boring. I'd choose multiple cheap chuck bodies like the PSI economy chuck over one nice chuck with only one set of jaws.

Drilling blanks on the lathe isn't quite as fast or simple as a drill press with centering vise, but it does work well, and it's much less expensive. :D
You'll probably want to cut your blanks to length before drilling, and drill each half separately. You'd grip the wood into your chuck (need jaws that can grip 3/4" or 1/2" blanks), then use a drill chuck (you can get one cheap www.littlemachineshop.com (http://www.littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=1148&category=7)) in the tailstock to hold the drill and use the tailstock advance to drill the blank. Clear the chips often by backing the drill out, and have the depth of the blank marked on the bit. I often put a little starting divot on the end of the blank with the tip of a skew to help the drill bit stay centered. Work gently and slowly, this causes lots of friction and will easily smoke if you are going too fast.

[Chris Huybregts]

Thanks for the info Scott! I don't really have a use for a drill press right now, and if the blanks take longer, I don't really care at this point, I'm still in the honeymoon phase with everything :)