Fun with firewood

[David Castonguay]

First post by new wood turner. Long time flat wood worker.

I have been lurking, reading posts and trying to absorb all of the collective wisdom of the board members. The forum has been a terrific source of inspiration and information. Retiring to Vermont in 2016 I buy firewood by the log truck load and then cut and split to feed our two wood stoves. This gives me an inexpensive source of wood to practice my turning skills as I start to turn bowls.

Lathe is a Powermatic 3520b that I picked up at auction (for a steal) when a local school closed their wood shop. Following advice gleaned from the forum I purchased a 5/8 v bowl gouge and fluteless gouge from Doug Thompson. YouTube turning videos have given me insight. While it is impossible to name all of the forum members whose posts have opened my mind, I would like to raise up Reed Grey's instructional videos and Doug Thompson's advice.

I've completed 10 bowls and would like to share. All were turned green, edge wrapped in shrink wrap, and warped as they dried. Finished with walnut oil.

My wife does complain about all the time I spend sitting in the chair and studying the forum. She says that I am looking at, "wood turning porn
again."

Thanks to all of the forum members for the invaluable help for new turners like me.

Ash, and spalted beech.383391383392383390

DOC

[Tim Boger]

All fine looking bowls, sounds like you'll be getting plenty of exercise while going through your wood pile.
Tim

[Thomas Canfield]

Looks like you are having fun. Have you tried turning the green wood thick (10% of diameter) and packing in paper bag with shavings to dry or seal with Anchorseal to dry and then return. Turning thick pieces is good practice for tool control since you are not that concerned about the shape or finish but can work on them also. You might also try cutting a piece or two with bandsaw to see the thickness profile to help you learn on areas to work. Good variety of wood and shapes.

[David Castonguay]

Thanks so much for the replies. Yes, I am having fun.

Thanks for the suggestion, I plan to try some twice turned bowls with some of the remaining firewood. I have some space in the barn where I can store the thick, green bowls in bagged shavings to dry.

I have a bunch of "warm weather projects" to do: A couple of pieces of furniture, house painting and lots of vegetable gardening to occupy my time over the summer. I'll continue to turn some green wood to final thickness, but want to try some bigger bowls that will need to be twice turned.

There is a turning club in Vermont, but their meetings are several hours away. I'm going to try to attend a meeting later this spring to get some hands on instruction and advice.

DOC

[Alex Zeller]

Nice. I'm kind of in the same boat as you (and a couple hours north). I've done a fair bit of woodworking in the past but never actually turned a thing yet. In fact it was only last week that I gave up looking for a used lathe and ordered (back-ordered) a Grizzly 22" x 42" lathe. I can always cancel it if I find something while waiting but so far the best I have found was lathes like a PowerMatic 90. I really want a larger swing since I have large trees and I want to wait on learning how to turn outboard so I've passed.

While I like doing wood projects the cost of all the equipment I would need meant a large investment. I'm lucky as my next door neighbor is probably one of the best I've ever seen and he has no problem with me using his equipment but turning is something he's rarely done. His shop is full of industrial equipment which can be intimidating to learn on and I'm not the type of person who uses other people's stuff without giving more back in return. So with lots of hardwood (Maple, Cherry, Yellow Birch, Beech, Ash, etc) that's mostly going into the woodstove I figured I would do something that has always interested me.

Like you there are a few turner's clubs around here but they aren't close, maybe an hour and a half away. I do have a woodworker's school minutes away that teach both beginners and intermediate courses but I want to have a lathe first so I can repeat what I'm taught. So I've been lurking and learning as well as making bowl blanks. I probably have about 75 sitting around now. This is part of last weekend's work. It's a mixture of cherry and yellow birch that ranges from 10" to 18" in diameter.

383465

While I love seeing what people can do who've been doing it for a long time it's just as nice seeing what someone who's just getting into it can do as well.

[David Castonguay]

Alex:

You are welcome to visit....despite the old Vermont saying: "You CAN get there from here."

My shop is in an old, unheated barn, (that typical of this part of Vermont is up in the air) but when the temps got into the 30's and the wind wasn't howling too much I could make the few bowls I just showed.

Besides the big cost of the lathe, the cost of turning tools, grinder, Wolverine jig can add up exponentially. I teach private lessons and so that income is what funds this part of my woodworking hobby. When I get some money together, I order a tool. It has been a good move to buy just one bowl gouge, one fluteless gouge both from Thompson and a small set of scrapers. Small, medium and large bowls have been able to be turned without investing in a big rack of tools. It forces me to concentrate on applying techniques that I observe in the YouTube videos.

I went to one meeting of the Upper Valley Woodturners: http://uppervalleywoodturners.com/ They were wonderfully friendly and helpful, but the scheduled meetings have not fit into my current calendar. They are closer to you than to me so you might look into attending.

It's a fun, sometimes frustrating journey towards creating art.

DOC

[Alex Zeller]

Thanks for the offer. I have a 16 x 30 hunting cabin on my property that is just storage. The walls are insulated but not the roof. The previous owners heated it with a wood stove but I don't think that would be wise idea with sawdust flying around. It would fill up quickly if I was to get a cabinet saw, planer, and jointer but a lathe and a few other tools would fit nicely and allow plenty of room for drying bowl blanks. It's up on piers (makes for a nice place to store things like the wood splitter under) with steep steps which makes getting things in and out of it kind of a pain but making new stairs wouldn't be hard to do change that. For now I think I'll just set the lathe up in my basement or upstairs in my garage next to the house so I can play around when I get a few minutes. The basement stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer so that's where I'm leaning towards. But for now, until I get a lathe I'm not going to spend a lot of time doing trying to learn.

I have most of what's needed for basic turning but the lathe. I have three turning tools, all Crown, that include a 1/2" bowl gouge, a parting tool, and a scraper that has a radius on one side. I have a couple sets of calipers. I have a 14" bandsaw with a riser block, a dust collector, a grinder with a sharpening stone (I have sharpened lots of drills bits over the years), a couple chainsaws (including a large one that can cut anything I could ever want), a tractor to get any wood out of the woods, a solar kiln that I made with some large sheets of glass but never really used that I've started turning into something that I could dry rough bowls in.

I'm missing is a 4 jaw chuck. I'm leaning towards a Vicmarc vm120 but haven't ruled out the Hurricane HTC125. From what I read once you pick a brand of chuck you kind of stick with that brand as you start collecting jaws. Both of the two I have picked out ar kind of large (but I want to turn larger bowls) so I can see getting a smaller version to pair with it. I want to start off with using the face plate as i'm learning, start with the basics. I'm thinking that making a vacuum chuck vs buying one. It could be a nice project. But it'll have to wait until I own a lathe before trying to make one. I already know that it's going to be a money sucking hobby but I'm ok with that.

[David Castonguay]

Sounds like a great plan! Feel free to private message me if I can be any help at all.

DOC