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Joe Pelonio
08-06-2007, 2:05 PM
Normally I don't frequent this section much but this weekend I discovered something interesting. At a gallery on the waterfront in Port Angeles, WA there was some work on display by wood turner Don Porter. I have not seen him here on the Creek, anyone know of him?

He does beautiful work and I was surprised at the size of some of his bowls.

When I got back to my parents' home my stepfather told me he has met Don, in fact bought an old Caterpillar bulldozer from him. He says that he's made a lathe that will turn entire tree stumps to make giant bowls, and makes his own tools including some 6-8' long.


This is the gallery, no pics of his work though:

http://artwaterfront.com/artists.htm
Ralph Lindberg
08-07-2007, 9:19 PM
The name rings a bell, does he live up in the San Juan's? I have a vague recall of a turner there that was turning that way.
Joe Pelonio
08-08-2007, 10:15 AM
He lives between Port Angeles/Sequim/Port Townsend area, actually not far from the San Juans.
John Bush
08-08-2007, 11:41 AM
I remember seeing an episode of TOH or NYW or Roy Underhill, that featured a turner in the San Juans who had converted a very large metal lathe to a bowl turning lathe, then use a big router mounted on an arm to "machine" the 4'+ diameter blanks from rough to balanced. I'm not sure if much hand tooling was done but it sure looked like fun. His stack of blanks looked like a stump farm. I just got a new PM4224 and am interested in learning more about turning in general and large bowl turning specifically. What do you guys know of relative to hands on learning?
I have heard of a turner in Sedro-Wooley(???) that gives classes, and the turners club in Redmond/Woodinville. Thanks for the info. John.
Ralph Lindberg
08-08-2007, 1:49 PM
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I have heard of a turner in Sedro-Wooley(???) that gives classes, and the turners club in Redmond/Woodinville. Thanks for the info. John.

John, your best bet is to get in touch with the one of the local chapters of the AAW (http://woodturner.org/community/chapters/members.pl?submit=Chapter+List#WA)
Ralph Lindberg
08-08-2007, 1:53 PM
I used some memory, and some Google, he is active in the Olympic Peninsula Wood Artists (http://woodartisans.net/index.htm) club. I can't recall if he is active in the local chapter of the AAW, but we meet some 50 miles from where he lives, so it just might be too far for him to come to the meetings.