Hi, all-After learning to turn mostly from YouTube videos and 1 WoodCraft Saturday beginner class, I really need some 1-on-1 to unlearn some bad habits and quit using my carbide and NRS as crutches for poor technique with the bowl gouge. So doing some sleuthing on here, I found local woodturner and mentor Martin Isetts. After weeks of back and forth e-mails due to covid and my crazy work schedule, we finally got together at his house yesterday for an intense lesson on doing a bowl with just 1 tool-his Ellsworth-ground bowl gouge. Funny thing is, he's just a few streets away, and we're also sort of related in a weird, distant way (long story).
He set us up a green holly blank to turn with only 1 tool; he wouldn't let me cheat at all, and 3 hours later, I'd turned the smoothest bowl I've done yet, with the best proportions, and made more progress in 1 afternoon than I have in 9 months-what a revelation in just the fundamentals. Martin is a wonderful, patient teacher who just kept asking me what I would do at each stage before demonstrating and watching/critiquing my practice gently-he didn't even count the one horrible catch that almost ruined the bowl!
And turning on his amazing One-Way 1640 was a revelation in how smooth, powerful and precise a lathe can be-no comparison to my Laguna. Maybe "one day I will own a OneWay"-I wonder if they need a new ad jingle? Anyway, he is coming to my shop tomorrow-my God, I've got to CLEAN UP!-and plans on giving me more lessons-I think a lidded box is next.
I wish I had done this sooner, "but covid." It seems that "Yeah, I got the 2nd dose too" is the new ticket to freedom for a growing number of people. I am now thinking of setting up for one of Ashley Harwood's classes down in Charleston, SC, only about 3 hours from here. The journey continues. Aaron
He set us up a green holly blank to turn with only 1 tool; he wouldn't let me cheat at all, and 3 hours later, I'd turned the smoothest bowl I've done yet, with the best proportions, and made more progress in 1 afternoon than I have in 9 months-what a revelation in just the fundamentals. Martin is a wonderful, patient teacher who just kept asking me what I would do at each stage before demonstrating and watching/critiquing my practice gently-he didn't even count the one horrible catch that almost ruined the bowl!
And turning on his amazing One-Way 1640 was a revelation in how smooth, powerful and precise a lathe can be-no comparison to my Laguna. Maybe "one day I will own a OneWay"-I wonder if they need a new ad jingle? Anyway, he is coming to my shop tomorrow-my God, I've got to CLEAN UP!-and plans on giving me more lessons-I think a lidded box is next.
I wish I had done this sooner, "but covid." It seems that "Yeah, I got the 2nd dose too" is the new ticket to freedom for a growing number of people. I am now thinking of setting up for one of Ashley Harwood's classes down in Charleston, SC, only about 3 hours from here. The journey continues. Aaron