City Turners

[Paul Gilbert]

Russell Neyman stated in a previous thread that he suspected that woodturning was a hobby pursued primarily in rural settings. Rather than hijack that thread I will post my reply here as I suspect that there are a whole lot of cityfied folk who would take issue with that statement.

I live is a bedroom suburb of Dallas, TX and am a member of the Dallas Area Woodturners chapter of AAW. The vast majority of the turners in our club live in the metroplex and would be classified as Urban. The same goes for our sister club in Fort Worth.

I guess that it comes down to semantics, but if you define Rural as some one who can walk out his back door into the woods and fell a tree of his choice, I will bet that is a small minority of woodturners. On the other hand if you define Urban as the Cliff Dwellers in Central City apartments, then I agree that they are also a tiny minority. My bet is that most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

[daryl moses]

LOL, I can step out the back door and fell a tree, shoot my gun or take a pee and I can guarantee nobody will see me.
Born and raised in the city but have lived most of my adult life in the sticks, wouldn't have it any other way. [unless I move further out in the sticks]

[Thomas Canfield]

My current and previous shops were located within the city in a neighborhood of homes. The freestanding shops are in the back yard and about 20 steps or less from back door. Very handy. One does have to respect the neighbors when using the chainsaw outside, but then it is only a little more noise than the lawn equipment (mower, edger, and blower). I like the small yard, no water well or septic tank issues. My current wood pile is a little out of hand and needs to be reduced. Any visitors to Fredericksburg, TX, send me a PM and you can probably drive away with some different "free" local wood.

[Keith Westfall]

Neighbours on both sides and across the alley. Double detached garage in the back off the alley. Luckily it seems to be well insulated as i can run my dust collector, CNC/Tablesaw, Lathe, Sanders, planner, etc., and it is quieter outside than the neighbours air conditioner next door.

Can't leave the door open, but then I really don't want to as I hate everyone seeing what I have in my shop - a bit paranoid I guess.

Always been in the city and never any problems.

[Marvin Hasenak]

We have 3 places, house in town in Abilene, TX, a ranch in Runnels county and cabin in Ruidoso, NM. I have shops in all 3 places, in Abilene it in in my garage, in Ruidoso a 8x12 shed in the backyard connected by a 12x12 to the house. At the ranch, everything I need is on 2 portable carts inside of the cabin, if I get the itch to turn I roll it outside and turn under a covered patio. If it is cold, I scratch the itch and leave every thing inside and find something else to do.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Neighbors bordering on all sides and I turn in my shop. Winter is my favorite time to woodwork as I have gas furnace in my well insulated shop.

[Jon Nuckles]

My shop is in an old industrial building, converted to artists' studios, in a very urban area of Chicago. I recently moved to the first suburb north of the city and hope to move my shop as well. It will still be urban by the terms of those posting above.

[Alan Trout]

Yep, my studio/shop is on the north end of downtown San Antonio which is the seventh largest city in the US. So I would say that I am an urban turner. I can walk out by shop door and be on the San Antonio River Walk is about 5min on foot.

[Brad Barnhart]

I reckon I'd have to consider myself a rural turner. I live in the far NW corner of Kansas. Our community is roughly 2000 folks, & we are 100% agricultural here. There is no danger of walking out my back door, & felling a tree here! Our shop is 30 feet from our back door, across the street. We rent a retired beauty shop that has 260 square feet of work area, & I have some room for wood storage in the back room, where the compressor is. The ceilings are a little over 7' tall. Central heat, & a window a/c. It's small, but comfortable. Most of my woodworking is scroll work, light furniture repair, & turning. I'm no longer able to build much of anything big or heavy. The floor is carpeted, which is ok. Helps to keep the dust to a minimum. My big tools are on casters. Everything else has its spot. There is even room for beds for both my dogs.��

[Reed Gray]

Best city turning story I heard was from the guy who made the Nichols lathes, I think his name was John, but I can't remember. His lathes were the biggest and most heavy duty at the time, till Oneway came around. He sold one to a guy in New York City, who lived in one of those fancy condo high rise buildings.... Me, I am in a 70's suburb/tract house area. The guy who lived here before made hot rods in the detached 24 by 36 pole barn. Much nicer than my other house where I was in a 400 ft. sq. garage that was packed so tight, I needed to open a door or window if I needed to pass gas....

robo hippy

[terry mccammon]

I live in an urban suburb, shop in the basement. Our turning club, which has around 150 members are nearly all Chicago suburb people, but some are in the city proper. Of the city folks most are either in single family homes with a basement shop or rent/own a near by commercial space. One fellow lives in the suburbs and invested in a three story building that had apartments above and retail space on the first floor. He made the retail space into his turning shop.

[Justin Stephen]

I turn in a medium-sized bedroom in downtown DC about 9 blocks from the White House and have a 3520B, full-sized table saw, 14" bandsaw, etc. I typed a more lengthy description in the other thread but I do make it work.

[Wes Ramsey]

I live just outside Mountain Home, AR city limits just 10 minutes from the White River and 7 minutes to Walmart and the borgs. Even if I was IN the 'city' I would still consider it rural :rolleyes: I have a variety of trees on my property I can cut at any time, and do. 3 years ago I cut 24 trees out of the yard, mostly oak and cedar, and now that I have a planer I will start digging into the pile of lumber we sawed from the trunks. There are 5 other houses on my street and each one has a respectable shop. Tractors, chainsaws, barking dogs and crowing roosters are all normal sounds here. Multiple rifle shots are common when hunting season is close, but I can't help but smile when I hear (or fire) just a single shot - you know that someone either shot a deer or some critter that needed killin'.

[John Grider]

I live almost a half a mile from my nearest neighbor and 2 miles from pavement. My house and shop are in the woods with enough cleared land to build them. The shop is 26' x 36', free standing, 100 feet from the back door. The nearest Home Depot is 95 miles and the nearest Woodcraft is 150 miles. Rural?

[Paul Williams]

I live in the center of a suburb, but I have 2.3 acres carved out of a "natural park" that is basically forest. The back of my lot is forested. Perhaps the best of both worlds.

[Russell Neyman]

It's great that you've picked up the ball and run with it, Paul. The question arose from a discussion I had with other turners at our meeting last week, when we were wondering why there are, perhaps, five thousand plus woodturners in the Puget Sound region. We thought that it might have to do with the abundance of turnable wood (maple, madrone, various fruit trees) here. I'm not saying that 'city folks' don't turn; just that the mindset and resources are different outside of heavily forested regions of the country.

I'd like to see more photos of the shops' exteriors. Just curious about it.