Woodturning....The Good Old Days

[Wally Dickerman]

I was there. I call it the dark ages of woodturning.

Okay, you have a hardwood blank, 14 x 14 x 5 inches. You want to turn a salad bowl. But wait.....It's 1980. The bowl gouge has been invented but it hasn't been marketed in the U.S. So no bowl gouge. The 4-jaw chuck won't be available until about 1990, so you don't have that. High speed steel isn't in general use for turning tools, so your tools are carbon steel. Tools available are for spindle turning anyway. You'll have to use those, or design and make your own bowl turing tools.

Instructions? Books available are mostly on spindle turning. Woodturning classes are just about non-existant. There are no videos, and certainly no woodturning websites. If there are any clubs they are usually for woodworkers, not woodturners.

Lathes are designed for spindle turning. No shortbed bowl lathes, no sliding or swiveling headstocks, no electronic variable speed controls. Motors are usually low HP, and very few lathes have a swing of more than 12 inches.

So tell me, how are you going to turn that salad bowl? Or any bowl?

Woodturning has come a long way in the past 25 years.

Wally

[Allen Neighbors]

Is that a 'blank' or a 'plank'? There are two dimensions given. Can you elaborate, Wally?

[Wally Dickerman]

It's a bowl blank Allen...14 x 14 x 5 inches. Thanks. I'll edit the post.

Wally

[Harvey M. Taylor]

WOW I am glad I am too young to remember that far back. After all I am only 82 and counting. Max

[Jim Becker]

Wally, what you did was get to know David Ellsworth. LOL

But seriously, you bring up a great point that today's "bowl and vessel" passion just didn't exist not so many years ago.

[Jack Mincey]

I started turning in 1974 and the way I would have to turn that bowl is as follows. Glue a waste block to one side of the blank with a piece of brown paper towel between the waste block and the blank. It would have to be cut as close to round as possible on the bandsaw. We had a monster old bandsaw in my high school shop. I would then screw a face plate to the waste block that had both right and left hand threads in it. I would then mount the bowl on the outboard side of our old rockwell school lathe using the left hand theads of the face plate. Turning was done on the right side of the bowl using a free standing stand with a 1/2" round nose scraper. I have one of those old stands at my home shop now. It works great to hold my dust collector hose at the lathe. After sanding the bowl a lot, one would use a wood chisel to seperate the waste block from the bowl if this didn't already occur while turning.:D I turned several 14" platers in this way, but never did a bowl over 12" back in high school.
Jack

[Curt Fuller]

Maybe with the exception of some of today's hollowforms, the work you guys did back then is every bit as, if not more beautiful than what you see today. I would guess it was like everything else, you depended on a little extra elbow grease, a lot of ingenuity, patience and craftsmanship. The process was as important as the results.

[Wally Dickerman]

The face plate was the standard way to fasten the bowl to the lathe. Sometimes used with a glue block, but usually screwed right to the blank. That's still the most secure way to do it.

I made a number of tools for hollowing bowls. All of them scrapers. One of my favorites was made from half a car leaf spring. I took it to the local blacksmith. He cut it in half and tempered if to hold a good edge. It wasn't much different than today's 1 1/2 in x 3/8 HD scrapers. I modified a 3/4 inch forged spindle gouge for smoothing cuts. A bit grabby but it worked. My favorite was a scraper, 18 inches long hard steel,1/2 x 1/2, with a long handle. Tucked under my arm it really worked for hollowing....Guess what, I still use a tool like that for part of the hollowing in a hollowform.

Good quality sandpaper was hard to find. Since most of my hollowing was done with scrapers, I used a lot of the coarse grits.

My third lathe, purchased sometime in the 60's, was a Delta with the spindle threaded on the outboard side. I had a tool rest floor stand. It was a pain in the butt to use but it worked. The lathe had an inboard swing of 12 inches, but I turned bigger stuff on the OB side.

Wally

[Steve Schlumpf]

Wally, it's hard to believe the amount of progress, at least as far as tools, that the world of turning has made since the mid 80s. The first time I turned was in my 1963 shop class and I turned a potato masher! I do not remember there being any options for what we could turn - other than spindles. I do remember it being a lot more fun than anything else!

[Jim Kountz]

Whoa Steve from your pictures I would not have thought you were in school in the early 60's. Sometimes mid 70's or so was my thought. You're holding up quite well my friend!!:cool::cool::D:D

[Frank Kobilsek]

Wally

Two years ago I went to the estate auction of a 96 year old woodworker, Mr. Zimmerman, that was moving to 'assited living'. I bought several boxes of turning tools and maybe 2 tons of dry lumber. All Cherry, Walnut and hard maple nothing under 2 inches thick and much of it 12" or more wide, great platter material, each piece marked when cut and where, by whom, how dried and his own little figure rating. It took two trip to haul everything I bought home and I only spent $219.

I have since come to use the shallow wide spindle gouges that were in the boxes of tools as a finish cut tool for long sweeping curves or long cylinders. A light touch with a hone can really really put a great edge on a carbon tool.

Maybe as our resident historian (you started it with this thread) you can tell what the thinking was regarding carbide tools way back when. I have a set of Craftsman 'D' turning tools all what I'd call scrapers and parting tools.

I really should take a bowl to Mr. Zimmerman and ask him the questions. He really was/is something. He turned, he carved, he scroll sawed, he built furniture, his home along with being quite the inventive guy in his work.

Frank

[Dick Gerard]

Wally,
As part of the upcoming 25th anniversary book for AAW, I submitted 2 chapters: the first on the formation and early years of AAW and the second is a look ahead to what we might see in another 25 years. And you are correct, we have certainly seen a lot of changes since the early 80's, but I predict that the next 25 will be just as exciting. At least I hope so ... and I hope I am around to write a third chapter about the state of woodturning in the year 2060 ...