Student and wood gloat.

[Jack Mincey]

I've only been at my present school teaching shop since Christmas. In that time a few of my students have become fair turners. The first picture is of a walnut bowl one of them finished last week. It could have been sanded better, but we don't have any good sandpaper left for this school year. It is finished with a coat of BLO. The second picture is of one of the two loads of maple I got out of the large maple that I cut two weeks ago. It was just over 39" in dia. for the first 10' of the trunk. I couldn't get the stump wood since it is full of barb wire up to 4 feet off the ground. I did get one side cut down to a few feet from the ground, but hit wire twice that messed up a few teeth on my chian. That was the reason for my old chain saw in the picture, I used my husky 61 for the rest of the sawing. The tree was over 80 years old according to the rings I was able to count. The center of the tree was punky down to 8 feet off the ground so it was at the end of it's long life and I'm glad that a good number of bowls will be made out of it's trunk. I've hauled most of it to my school shop for my students to use in their turning. The wood we've turned so far has a few rays in it and some has a cluster of burl eyes in it here and there so it was worth the work that went into cutting up the gaint tree with the 20" bar that is on my husky 61.
Jack
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/flyrod444/100_1587.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/flyrod444/100_1594.jpg

[David E Keller]

Nice bowl and a nice haul.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Nice bowl and a really nice haul for sure.

[Randy Gazda]

Jack:

Nice bowl and nice load of wood. Sorry, to hear the shop is out of sandpaper. You might put a request out on the forum, I suspect someone is sitting a box of sandpaper they would donate to the students. I don't know that for sure, but might be worth a try. By the way isn't Klingspor located in that part of the world, maybe they would donate some.

Glad to hear you are teaching a new generation of turners.

[Greg Just]

Nice bowl and I see a lot of good turnigs from your haul of maple. It is sad that you can't get any sandpaper - aren't taxes high enough? Bet you get a lot of satifaction teaching the students to turn and seeing their improvement.

[charlie knighton]

thanks for sharing

[John Hart]

You teach bowl turning in Shop???:eek:

Sheesh...all I got to do was a cutting board.

I think that is great! On both gloats. :)

[George Guadiane]

Great job, nice bowl, great gloat!

[Steve Schlumpf]

Jack - be sure to let your student know that he/she did a great job on the bowl! Nice form and I really like the subtle ogee shape to the outside curve.

Congrats on all the Maple! Your students must be thrilled to have so much quality green wood to turn! Bet the shavings are flying!

Sorry to hear about the sandpaper issue. Hope something can be done to help out the school!

[alex carey]

I also picked up turning in high school, 4 years ago I never would have thought id grow to love seeing burls on trees so much.

[Jack Mincey]

Thanks everyone, I'm pleased that some of my students have grown in their turning skill so quick. As far as the sandpaper goes I will just have to request more for next school year. I have over $500.00 in my shop account at my old school, but I can't spend it at this school and I haven't had enough time to bank any money at it yet. I get $1200.00 a year to run my shop program. It is always tight, but this year I had to spend over half of it on tools for the shop I'm at now. Since turning really dosn't fit in a modern Carpentry program I have to come up funds to buy stuff for turning somewhere else anyway. I've used turning to motivate my students over the last 5 years and it has worked wonderful. Even if I was to get the funds it would take to the end of the school year to get through all the red tape of ordering it also.
Thanks again,
Jack

[James Roberts]

Jack, nice bowl (pat that student on the back for me) and great wood gloat.

On the issue of funds for supplies, have you considered applying for a grant from AAW? Certainly can't hurt to try, this seems like something right up their alley.

[Baxter Smith]

Nice bowl and great experience for the kids!