Machine of Satan

[Pete Bradley]

I've been an amateur woodworker for some time. I've taken side trips into old machine restoring, neadertools, and bandsawing my own lumber. Turning seemed like a logical next step, so when I found an old Rockwell 12X36 on sale, I picked it up.

Most new machine skills have come easy, but not so with turning. I find that I routinely have problems with tearout, ranging in severity from poor surface finish to honkin' big chunks flying through the air. I also find that rolling cuts regularly wind up in a nasty spiral catch as I'm finishing the roll.

I started experimenting with materials and found that the green white oak that I have been practicing on isn't very forgiving compared to maple. I sharpen my tools with a 320 grit 6X48 belt sander, which gives me a quick but not razor sharp edge.

I have to think that there might be some obvious tricks of the trade that I'm overlooking, so I throw my ineptitude at the mercy of the SMC turning junkies. All suggestions on learning to turn welcome.

Pete

[Andy Hoyt]

I'll take a stab at a piece of this.

Dump the oak - stuff is nasty / nastee / nastie no matter how you spell it.

Grab the maple and perform what's known in the parlance as a "do over".

Grab the maple and perform what's known in the parlance as a "do over".

Repeat after me:

Grab the maple and perform what's known in the parlance as a "do over".

Grab the maple and perform what's known in the parlance as a "do over".



Practice Pete - again and again. Waste the wood. Do not intend to produce annything but the same cuts over and over.

And if the catches result in a "whoa moment", spend some time intentionally inducing them again and again. Just like training a hunting dog to the gun.

Eventually you'll figure out techniques to avoid and those to adhere to.

Then grab soem more maple.....

[Bernie Weishapl]

Pete just follow what Andy said. Dump the oak and turn the maple.

[Curt Fuller]

Hi Pete,
Like the wise, old one, Andy, says, practice is the ticket. But I'll also throw in my 2 cents on the sharpening of the tools. I too used a belt sander to sharpen at the start of my turning entanglement. It works to a degree but a grinder with a 100 grit wheel makes it so much easier and the tools are sharpened much more consistently. A sharpening jig helps too but isn't necessary and if you learn to get a good edge and bevel without a jig you'll be a faster sharpener in the long run. The reason I mention the sharpening though is that if you don't have a good sharp tool, be it a gouge, scraper, skew, or whatever, you tend to force the tool. You have to put more pressure to get it to cut and that causes catches and makes it much harder to control what you're doing. Good luck.

[Jim Underwood]

My biggest recommendation is to try to find the nearest woodturning club, and hang out with them. The AAW has a listing on their website of all of their chapters.

In my opinion, there's no better way to learn than from "hands on" experience with your turning brothers. Just today, our club had a turning day at the shop I work in . I learned quite a bit from the guys, and shared my meager experience as well. I hope everyone learned as much as I did.

The next biggest recommendation is to go down to the bookstore or Amazon or wherever is most convenient, and buy "Woodturning, A Foundation Course" by Keith Rowley.

Rowley will explain why catches occur and give you the correct technique which helps you avoid them... He'll tell you the difference between scraping and cutting, and the way to approach the wood with different tools, and why. It's the most concise, understandable book on turning fundamentals I've ever seen. (And I have 12 books on the subject, plus read several more.) Good stuff, worth whatever you pay for it.

Don't give up, it does get better. I'm used to turning spindles with a skew, and I'm *tolerable at it after a year or so of messing with it. But I'm not very comfortable using a spindle gouge (go figure:rolleyes: ). So today I turned some tops for the first time. And I used a spindle gouge exclusively for that project. I still (after five tops) haven't quite got the hang of it, but it's coming along...

Having a blast....

[Jonathon Spafford]

You need to get "Turning Wood" by Richard Raffan... after reading that I found that my turning improved majorly. Also practice... and, as was said, a wood like maple and cherry are really good for that. Poplar is also a nice soft wood to practice beads on. Oak is great wood, but not for beginning. Oh, and make sure that your lathe isn't at a very high speed. Catches and spirals are much scarier at higher speeds and you'll get a lot of those when you are practicing new techniques.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Pete..........you've gotten some awfully sage advice so far! Use the maple....properly sharpen your tools and pactise! It gets better. Keep at it!

[Bob Opsitos]

I'll make the ubiquitious recommendation for Bill Grumbine's video. I have several woodturning books, and Bill's video was far more useful. Books are good, and worth having, but watching Bill's video and visually seeing what good cutting looks like and hearing what good cutting sounds like, are invaluable.

Bob

[Paul Engle]

Pete, Bob got the idea right, if it sounds like a screamin me me on your last nerve:eek: = wrong
If it sounds like a Pratt and Whitney 9 cylinder radial at full throttle and full feather :D = you got it... oh yea practice practice practice

[Gary DeWitt]

Pete, your profile only lists you as from "New England" so I can't reccomend an AAW (American Association of Woodturners) chapter near you, but here is a link to their site with all the clubs listed and contact info:
http://www.woodturner.org/community/chapters/members.pl?submit=Chapter+List
If you happen to be out of range of one of them, my next suggestion is to watch videos of others turning. Here is a link to a by-mail rental service similar to Netflix but technically oriented. I have used the service, and it works well.
http://smartflix.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=118_28

Good luck, and welcome aboard.

[Myron Gillespie]

Hey, Pete...

Having had beginning experiences much like yours, and being a relatively new turner, I'd have to agree with all of the above. One point I'd offer that I didn't see in the other posts is a mistake I made when I started. I pushed the tool (forcing it) into the wood. I learned to lighten up and the catch problems went away. Also read a bunch of "How to Turn" books and found none had everything I needed but all had something. Also like you, I started with Oak. It was cheap (free) and very easy to find; but it's difficult to work properly and frustrated me. I use it reguarly now but I wish I had started on something easier to turn as the experts who have posted above have already noted. P.S. Join a group if you can. Turners are generally very nice folks and VERY helpful in an encouraging way.