Bowl Turning- Mission Work

[Paul Rains]

Here are some pictures of a recent mission trip I was Blessed to go on. I taught some of the Nicarauguans in Costa Rica how to turn bowls and key chains. They have two WORN delta midi lathes. We also salvaged and repaired small desk for Sunday school classes.
We are always looking for woodturners to join me on the next trip down! :) I plan to go back in July to build cabinets for nutrition center and to do some more bowls, it's hard to teach when you speak NO spanish:rolleyes:

I am not sure what kind of wood we turned, they grow trees for fence post down there, this is one of those type of trees, it was very similiar to poplar, but very heavy dense wood, it turned fairly easy. I took chunk out of bow edge, when worn out tool rest slipped.
see pics on zip file, I hope they came thru alright, I am new at this.

[David Christopher]

Paul, those are some good looking bowls and for a good cause..keep up the good work....wish I could go but Im on active duty right now and cant but maybe next year

[Thomas Canfield]

Paul,

That sounds like an incredible mission trip to be able to do both cabinet work and teach turning. I have found that 4 words do a lot to get work done along with some gestures with my very limited Spanish:
1. Aqui (here)
2. Aya (there)
3. Bueno (good)
4. No bueno ( no good)

OK that is 5 words, and my speling is not probably right, but you get the message. The big thing is doing it with a willing heart and working attitude. There is a lot to be learned from them also in their culture and work habits.

[Paul Rains]

I have lived most of my life in SE KY, so there are people here in Lexington sometimes who say....ungh to my dialect? :D

the students that went with us on this last trip laughed at me, they said my spanish is me saying it again LOUDER and more animated! LOL.
Must be football coach in me!

I have bought me one of thoes language programs, Mei Hablos Espano, un moi puco (spelled the way I attempt to say it) :). I am looking foward to going back in July, hopefully I can get up with fellow member and cabinet guru Mike Fuson and get some pointers on doing cabinets for nutrition center. Or is that El Nutritiono Centero ;)

[Scott Conners]

Paul, if you can afford it the Rosetta stone programs are pretty impressive, I've had a chance to play with them and the learning rate is incredibly fast.

[Paul Rains]

too much, I looked at it hard, but I have to spend too much on turning tools and supplies!:rolleyes:
Plus I need supplies for cabinets, so I will have to make due with speaking loudly and playing charades.

[Paul Rains]

I figured out how to put pictures in a Gallery, if anyone is interested in seeing more pictures and captions of what you are looking at, click my name and go to albums.

[Jon McElwain]

That's a great trip - great mission as well. Did they learn the bowls for utility use or for selling to tourists or something like that?

I had the chance to take a similar trip a couple years ago. A church in Puerto Cabeza, Nicaragua was building a restaurant to be run by their orphanage in order to create revenue for the orphanage and associated school. We went down to help out, and I ended up helping build chairs and tables. The tables had turned legs, so I got to turn a pile of 4"x4" wood that looked like a cross between rosewood and mahogany. Looks like you had a pretty nice lathe for them to work on. This one had a wood bed with salvaged head and tail stocks. The tool rest was held in place by a dead 3 hp GE motor hanging by a piece of rope off the bottom of the tool rest!

[Paul Rains]

Here I was whinning about belts breaks, stripped threads on tools rest, rust, etc.. what a whimp! Everything is relative, looks like you had some obstacles to overcome. What a wonderful reason to do some turning and teaching though. Takes something good and makes it even better. Great pictures.
They are going to sell their goods to tourist, in future I would like to raise enough money to purchase full size lathe so that they could do some larger turnings. We will see how they take to it. They do some really nice pens already, we took down over 500 kits. They can get scrap would for pens fairly easy, getting logs for NE bowls is tougher because of conservation laws. But if they catch the wood turning bug, I am sure they will start finding the logs to saw up, much like we do.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Paul those are some good looking bowls. Looks like you had a great time.

[Jon McElwain]

Everything is relative, looks like you had some obstacles to overcome.
getting logs for NE bowls is tougher because of conservation laws.

The guys turning down there did some fantastic stuff. They are not doing bowls or anything like that, just table and chair legs and such. Sort of feel guilty about having such a nice shop here in the states, and only for hobby use. They have one old makeshift lathe, three or four lathe tools - plus a couple ground out of car leaf springs and such, a really old contractor style table saw, grinder, a few power tools, and electricity for a few hours of the day. This is a production shop down there and they've got a bunch of guys trying to make a living on that stuff.

We've got it good gentlemen. If you've got so much as a decent pen lathe on the back porch, you've got it good...

Have you considered teaching them segmented turning, or even laminating flat lumber to make bowl stock large enough for turning larger stuff?

[Paul Rains]

yes, I am thinking that could be a nice fit, with scrap wood,
however I have not done this type of bowl myself, but plan to.
I don't know how you can get accurate cuts on mediocre tools, they have contractors table saw. They use Struper tools, which I think makes Black and Decker look like DeWalt or Powermatic:D. I am open to suggestions in this area. OR someone to load up with me next February;).

One of the neatest things about teaching the young boys how to turn was thier expressions of satisfaction of doing something nice with their own hands. TREMENDOUS sense of pride and accomplishment with those guys, more than I expected.

[Jon McElwain]

Take a 6" grinder or a variable speed 8" down with you if you can manage it. They usually have lots of "dead" cars in those places, and lots of tools can be made with leaf springs, u-bolts and such. good steel for tools and they can make them themselves. scrapers can be very versatile and will do well with the variations in grain. laminated wood might be possible with the tablesaw and a sharp jack plane...

[Tim Scoville]

Nice work Paul. Lots of challenges working stuff like this in undredeveloped countries. I've done some work in Cambodia over the last 27 months - turning, bandsaw boxes, tables, chairs, scroll saw puzzles, intarsia. Did a natural edged bowl this last time out and the young men seem to like the form. I brought a refurbished Jet benchtop lathe and it is still going pretty well (knock on wood).

Tim

[Paul Rains]

Do you have pictures?