Joshua Dinerstein
10-24-2008, 12:51 AM
So I was out in the garage tonight putting in my requisite skew practice. Coming along nicely BTW... I have played with about 70% of 2x2 stock and started to get some seriously nice burnished surfaces regardless of what cut I am working on. Well the planing cut still leaves me a little uneven but I will keep working at it. Oh, and it is almost time to grind my skew again. Alan Lacer's comments about removing the hollow grind through honing are now very clear to me. I can see it happening and it is cool to see first hand and actually understand what he meant. (I will see if I can take a picture that shows it and post it up here...)
But I had worked my first spindle of the night into a cylinder and then done V-cuts and turned them into beads. I was thinking about what to do with it next. Peel it down as I have done in the past to start with a smaller diameter cylinder or ??? When I thought I would try switching over to my fingernail ground spindle gouge and see if I could make some coves with it. I had been using it for about 10 minutes when I had the DUH! moment.
Practice really is the key with turning. Here I was actively practicely with the skew to try and "master" it. Why wasn't I doing the same thing with the spindle gouge?!!? I had had all these nasty spirals and catches when trying to turn something real a few months ago so I start playing with edges and cuts and trying to see what I could do to smooth the cuts.
Since I was still using the super soft 2x2 pine practice blank, with my safe-driver center, it was really interesting. No fear of catches or of ruining something real. If I used the tool "wrong" I would get just a seriously shredded surface. Use it right and sliced rather than ____ (fill in the blank here...) and it was a nice clean surface. Not skew nice but still quite nice for so soft a wood.
I also through trial and error figured out what was causing my spiral cuts from before. Once I caught on I could see exactly why. I had the gouge turned over to far and as a result it wasn't entering the wood cleanly with almost instant support. Instead it was entering at an angle on the blade itself. Hence the spiral... It just automatically starts in the sprial.
Anyway I know is a little but dumb to realize after all this time that I should have found a way to truly practice with these 2 types of tools. But hey... better late than never! :o
Joshua
But I had worked my first spindle of the night into a cylinder and then done V-cuts and turned them into beads. I was thinking about what to do with it next. Peel it down as I have done in the past to start with a smaller diameter cylinder or ??? When I thought I would try switching over to my fingernail ground spindle gouge and see if I could make some coves with it. I had been using it for about 10 minutes when I had the DUH! moment.
Practice really is the key with turning. Here I was actively practicely with the skew to try and "master" it. Why wasn't I doing the same thing with the spindle gouge?!!? I had had all these nasty spirals and catches when trying to turn something real a few months ago so I start playing with edges and cuts and trying to see what I could do to smooth the cuts.
Since I was still using the super soft 2x2 pine practice blank, with my safe-driver center, it was really interesting. No fear of catches or of ruining something real. If I used the tool "wrong" I would get just a seriously shredded surface. Use it right and sliced rather than ____ (fill in the blank here...) and it was a nice clean surface. Not skew nice but still quite nice for so soft a wood.
I also through trial and error figured out what was causing my spiral cuts from before. Once I caught on I could see exactly why. I had the gouge turned over to far and as a result it wasn't entering the wood cleanly with almost instant support. Instead it was entering at an angle on the blade itself. Hence the spiral... It just automatically starts in the sprial.
Anyway I know is a little but dumb to realize after all this time that I should have found a way to truly practice with these 2 types of tools. But hey... better late than never! :o
Joshua