Name: Jonathon Charles Spafford

How young are you?
165 lbs old (175 lbs on Thanksgiving or Christmas or any other occasion where a good appetite is in order). My calendar age is approximately 17 years, 2 months, 5 days, 10 hours, 2 minutes, and 18 seconds... or thereabouts! So, in other words, I'm one of the younger guys here on the Creek.

Physical description:
Blonde/brown hair (enjoying the hair while it lasts, as a lack of hair is prevalent in my family - leastwise, with the guys ), green eyes, around 6' tall (maybe a bit less), and again 165 lbs (I like eating).

Where is home?
Right now I am living in Washington State in the little town of Camas... the town is right outside of Vancouver, WA. Camas is a really nice little town that hasn't seemed to change a whole lot over the years. I have lived here for 14 years... my family moved here from California when I was three because my dad got a job transfer! Other than California, I haven't lived anywhere else. I have traveled a little bit in the U.S., but there aren't too many other states that I would enjoy living in. Washington is truly a beautiful state and I really enjoy living here!

Family information (tell us about your spouse, kids, grandkids, dog, etc):
Let's see here... don't have a wife, so I can't give you much information about her. Don't have kids so can't help there either. And I'm told that you can't have grandkids without having kids, so again no info... oh, and I don't have a dog! I do have, however, two great parents and, IIRC, like seven sisters and a little brother (I have a hard time counting that high). I also have a cute little girlfriend. She is kinda short and rather chubby and loves coffee... oh yeah, and she doubles as a little sister (see attached pictures).

sputterball 01.jpg sputterball 02.jpg

Do you have a website?
No website... if I get into selling my turnings I might consider setting one up, but I don't really have a lot of time to run a website right now. Whenever I want to show off my work to friends, I send them over here to the Creek.

Vocation (what do you do for a living, and what have you done previously; are you retired):
I don't have a job right now... I am still working on finishing up with school! I would love to sell some of my pens and other turnings and I might try sometime, but I don't see that as a permanent job for the future. As for future vocational plans, I have thought about becoming a paramedic... but I can't stand injuries! I would love to do something with art and I am looking at possibilities there. Another thought is law enforcement (hey, someone’s gotta do them high speed chases )... I might enjoy being on state patrol, but I still need to talk to some folks and find out what it's like. In other words, I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

Hey, me neither!

Shop Overview:
Got a good size three car garage (have no idea how big it is). I have a third of that eaten up by a lathe, bandsaw, and loads of wood. Oh yes, I also have a nice size storage table (aka table saw) invading the space. It's my dad's, so I can't use the storage space as freely as I would like. My basic tools would be my lathe (of course), the actual turning tools and turning accessories, the bandsaw, and the bench grinder. My dad has a whole lot more tools, but I don't use them much. He has got a drill press, compound miter saw, jointer, planer, tablesaw, several routers, skill saw, jigsaw, a couple drills, loads of clamps, and probably some that I've forgotten about.

As for other interests in woodworking, I've tried making longbows. Those are fun to make (not so fun when they break, though) and I made a couple, but haven't gone very far with that. I want to try it again sometime, though. I used to try carving when I was younger, but I didn't know how to sharpen my knives properly so I kinda gave that one up. An offshoot of that was carving golf balls (which is actually what got me into turning). Golf balls have a rubber core and I learned how to carve caricatures into the rubber. The trouble was that they were very hard to get open with a hacksaw, which is what I was using. So my dad bought me a lathe. After getting the lathe, I started turning wood and it wasn't until a couple months ago that I actually tried to cut a golf ball open. Other interests in the woodworking realm (which I haven't even tried yet) is rustic and period furniture. I don't like all the power tools and mass production techniques that go into all the furniture that we buy today... I like the handmade furniture. So if I ever got into this, I would prefer to use a limited amount of power tools.

Other Interests: Got a lot of those. I love literature, but I don't read as much as I would like to. I primarily read Classic works, but I do enjoy others. I also do a bit of writing. I write both prose and poetry (yeah, don't laugh). With prose, I really enjoy writing stories, though I primarily write essays, reports, and research papers because they are more popular as school projects (oh, well!). With poetry, I am right now going through a Japanese haiku phase, so that is all that I have been writing. So far I have written around 60 or so of those. Other forms I've played with have been free verse, cinquains, and some miscellaneous poems with various rhyme schemes... I haven't written a sonnet yet, but I'm working towards that!

I also like art... I'm not very good, but I would love to take some classes to hone my skills. I have really only played around with pencils (standard and colored), but I would love to learn watercolors someday.

I also really like photography and am very envious of those people that can take all those beautiful pictures of nature (like our own Shane Whitlock, who is also a very talented turner). I have played around with photography very little and as of yet don't know how to shoot manual, but I intend to learn.

I enjoy music! I can play the piano and, get this, the penny whistle (that there's real rocket science for ya ). I have been taking piano for 9 years and I really enjoy playing, though I am not as talented as I could be... oh the humiliation of playing in a recital and seeing an eight-year-old play a song that you just played last week. I primarily play "classical" or rather music out of the four traditional time periods (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th Century). My favorite music though is Celtic... I just love the genre and I listen to a lot of it. I would love to learn to play the lute, mandolin, uilleann pipes, and the violin... but I got way too many hobbies right now, anyway.

Another hobby of mine is rocks/minerals. I love collecting rocks and right now I have a great stash of them in the garage (and bedroom)... nothing in there like gold or platinum or diamonds, but I have fun with them! My dad, however, is starting to make me choose between my stash of rocks or stash of turning wood

I like history... I love the history of civilizations and finding out how man lived throughout history... I also really like the history of warfare throughout civilizations. I have studied primitive living/primitive survival a bit and it is fascinating to study. I also enjoy learning about carpentry in different civilizations back when their tool selections and precision equipment seems so limited.

Another thing I enjoy is cooking. I do a little bit of that when I can... but my biggest hobby would have to be eating I do that all the time

How many lathes do you own?
Got only one lathe right now... it is a Jet mini without the variable speed. I don't recommend VS, anyway, for a starter lathe as it only takes less then 30 seconds to change the speed manually; and when beginning, nobody's in a hurry! The Jet is a very stout lathe and a popular favorite. You may seem to be limited because of the diameter that you can mount, but in reality you really aren't limited very much. Yeah, you can't turn all the big stuff, but there is so much that you can turn! I have turned bowls, platters, weed vases, mushrooms, lamps, wands, necklace pendants, honey dippers, spoons, spatulas, pens, whistles, goblets, buttons, etc. I have seen countless other things turned by people on the little lathes... so they are really good starter lathes. The Jet is my first lathe and I didn't buy it - my dad got it for me. It really is an awesome workhorse. Maybe someday I'll save up and get a mustard (ok, ok, Mr. Hoyt - maybe a mayo ), but I'm perfectly content with this one right now and I'm working on perfecting the stuff that I can do on this size lathe before upgrading... just enjoying myself and taking it slowly!

How many turning tools do you have? Store bought; home made; favorites?
Off the top of my head I think I have 12. I have a Hamlet 1 1/2" roundnose scraper and a Hamlet 1/2" bowl gouge. I also have a set of Crown tools: a 1/2" skew, 3/8" spindle gouge, 3/16" parting tool, 1/2" roundnose scraper, and a 1 1/4" roughing gouge. I have a Christ Stott super-thin parting tool and some sort of spearnose scraper that I was given. I also another 3/8" spindle gouge made by Sorby, I think. I have a Sorby chatter tool and I have a Woodcut straight hollower.

No home-mades yet, but I intend to try someday to make my own. My favorite would probably have to be between my bowl gouge and my skew chisel. I love the nice curlies that you can get off of the bowl gouge and you can hollow out pretty fast with it. I also like the skew chisel... after you learn to use it properly it is an awesome tool and it leaves an awesome finish on the wood.

How long have you been turning, and what got you started in the first place?
I think that I've been turning about three years or so. Like I mentioned before, I got started when I got into carving golf balls. A lathe was an easy way to get the balls open, so my dad bought me one. After I got it and set it up; I stuck a big square piece of oak on there; revved the speed up to max (over 3000 rpm); picked up a skew chisel; positioned my rest precisely three inches away from the wood; and jammed the skew chisel straight into the spinning wood; (*insert enormous "ker-bang" here)... I think we caught this event on video, somewhere!!

Well get it up on YouTube, boy!

After that bit, my dad got me Richard Raffan's book "Turning Wood" to get me started. I got into a local AAW chapter and started going to seminars by popular teachers (Jimmy Clewes, Bonnie Klein, Trent Bosch, Eli Avisera, Soren Berger, Ray Key, etc). I kept reading and watching movies from my club and kept making shavings... as they say, the rest is history. I'm not the best turner, but I do enjoy myself!

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?
As long as it isn't anything exotic (like salmon or garlic or rosemary ice cream), you give it to me and I'll take it! If you really want a particular favorite, I might have to say Tillamook Mudslide or Baby Ruth, but that is a very hard decision!

What do you enjoy most about turning?
I really like watching the shape evolve from a piece of wood into something beautiful... I really like taking an ugly gnarly piece of wood (one that any other form of woodworking wood reject) and seeing the beautiful/unique wood emerge from beneath... it's like opening Christmas presents I also like the challenge of trying new things and new forms!!!

What do you enjoy the least about turning?
Catches, tearout, and blow-ups... need I say more?

What was your first completed turned project? You get bonus points for a picture of it.
A bonker, of course... actually the first thing (on the right) more resembled a baluster spindle with different shapes in it (does that still qualify as a Bonker)... the second thing I turned (on the left) was undoubtedly a Bonker! I do still have my first bowl, but I don't show it to anyone

sputterball 03.jpg

Where do you get your digital photographs developed?
Same place where I get our DVDs rewound

Hang on... gotta turn the page