Vaughn McMillan
09-05-2006, 3:50 AM
While in New Mexico visiting family following my mom's passing last week, I had a chance to meet a gentleman by the name of Hillard Gerhardt. Hillard is a WWII vet, and a retired building contractor (among other things). He and his wife have been church friends of my folks, and my dad has wanted me to meet Hillard for a long time. Dad and I took a trip out to Hillard's place in the mountains...got to spend some quality time together, visit with a wonderful guy and his wife, and make his day by dropping by to see his shop.
Hillard does a variety of woodworking, including scrollwork, intarsia, and woodturning. I thought I'd share a few snapshots I took of a few segmented turnings in his house.
This HF depicts the four seasons...
46199
Obviously some Southwest influences...
46200
This is probably Hillard's favorite piece. It's about 32" tall and 28" to 30" in diameter at the widest point. I don't recall the exact number of pieces; it's somewhere in the 7500 to 8500 piece range.
46202
He tells a great story about blowing this piece up midway through turning it. As I recall, at that point he had been working on it for something like 17 months. He spent two days combing through the woodchips on the shop floor finding all the pieces to put them back together again.
46201
The wall thickness throughout is about 1/2". For as big as it is, this piece is surprisingly light in weight.
46203
His lathe is an older Delta...I don't know the model number but it had somewhat of a cabinet below the bed, and it had a lot of iron and steel in it. The rest of his shop is a collection of older, but still strong equipment (mostly Jet).
Hillard has Parkinson's disease, and in most settings his right hand is pretty shaky. Interestingly though, when he's in the shop, he's steady as a rock for the most part. It's like there's a switch that turns the shaking off when he steps into the shop. However, he tells (in a humorous way) about how "the Parkinson's" sometimes makes his hand shake from side to side, but that's OK most the time on the lathe. It's when all of a sudden it goes forward and back (which he illustrates by emulating a sword thrust) when the catches can be a problem. He loves to talk shop, and his stories were a lot of fun to listen to.
- Vaughn
BTW, my mom was ready...it was a good thing in the grand scheme of things. ;)
Hillard does a variety of woodworking, including scrollwork, intarsia, and woodturning. I thought I'd share a few snapshots I took of a few segmented turnings in his house.
This HF depicts the four seasons...
46199
Obviously some Southwest influences...
46200
This is probably Hillard's favorite piece. It's about 32" tall and 28" to 30" in diameter at the widest point. I don't recall the exact number of pieces; it's somewhere in the 7500 to 8500 piece range.
46202
He tells a great story about blowing this piece up midway through turning it. As I recall, at that point he had been working on it for something like 17 months. He spent two days combing through the woodchips on the shop floor finding all the pieces to put them back together again.
46201
The wall thickness throughout is about 1/2". For as big as it is, this piece is surprisingly light in weight.
46203
His lathe is an older Delta...I don't know the model number but it had somewhat of a cabinet below the bed, and it had a lot of iron and steel in it. The rest of his shop is a collection of older, but still strong equipment (mostly Jet).
Hillard has Parkinson's disease, and in most settings his right hand is pretty shaky. Interestingly though, when he's in the shop, he's steady as a rock for the most part. It's like there's a switch that turns the shaking off when he steps into the shop. However, he tells (in a humorous way) about how "the Parkinson's" sometimes makes his hand shake from side to side, but that's OK most the time on the lathe. It's when all of a sudden it goes forward and back (which he illustrates by emulating a sword thrust) when the catches can be a problem. He loves to talk shop, and his stories were a lot of fun to listen to.
- Vaughn
BTW, my mom was ready...it was a good thing in the grand scheme of things. ;)