One good turn...
Dad was a patternmaker so I've always been around tools, worked with wood, etc. Turned a baseball bat and other spindle stuff on his old Powermatic when I was a kid. When I became "A Man" and got my own house first thing to do was set up shop with whatever I could afford. And that wasn't much. I'm a musician and I built a LOT of speaker cabs, amp racks, cases and other boxes in that shop in the last 25 years, a lot for $$, a lot for me. Always wanted to build furniture but couldn't afford the materials much less all the equipment. Now that the kid is through college I'm spending all my "band money" on the shop. All new tooling in the past three years and more to come.
The one thing I had always wanted though was a lathe. I consider it to be the potter's wheel of woodworking. It's the one piece of machinery on which even a beginner can make something nice. It's such a "zen thing" applying the tool to the material and just watching what comes out. So last summer I bought a little Penn State MIDI cause I didn't know if A) I'd be any good at it and B) if I would enjoy it as much as I remembered.
Well. You all know how that goes. It turns out (sorry) that A) I'm not too bad at all and B) I like it so much that now I have to pull myself away from the lathe to work on my furniture projects. The wife and I are already talking about woodturning as a retirement income enhancer and that won't come for another 10-15 years.
I'm currently saving for a 16" swing model. No room in the shop for a big PM.
