Good day everybody
I am located in Kelowna BC Canada. Approximately directly north of Spokane Wa, Ive been woodworking since elementary school. My Dad was a German trained finishing carpenter. He had a nice workshop attached to the house, which I was allowed to use, hand tools only. There was an old crappy lathe in there, but no one used it, my dad didn't even like it. Shop class in high school I was able to finally work with one but our instructor was not very knowledgeable and I didn't learn much. So one day about 22 years ago, I was in the bookstore and found a book "50 turned boxes" by Chris Stott and after looking through it I thought, I can totally do this... I didn't have a lathe or chisels. Luckily a few months before, my neighbour Carl, had been given a lathe and a set of chisels. It was sitting in his carport. I told him if he didn't start using it soon that I would steal it. A month went by and I grabbed it and set it up in my garage. He didn't even realize it was gone for a half a year. So I had no idea of how to use the chisels, i basically used everything like it was a scraper. I also had no idea how the sharpen, I tried for the longest time, using oil stones. There I was, with no clue, and started making turned boxes.... using wood from peoples firewood piles. I glued the blanks to a scrap and screwed that to a face plate because I had no idea where to get a chuck. I learned from reading books and magazines, Youtube was still a few years away from being invented. That's how I started, and still today, my favourite thing to turn are boxes. I have turned a wide variety of things, hollow vessels, bowls, rolling pins, christmas trees.... I went to the Portland symposium in May, and loved it! I came away inspired and my head was exploding with ideas and concepts. Whew that's quit a bit to read through, to thank you and Im super happy to be part of this association.
I am located in Kelowna BC Canada. Approximately directly north of Spokane Wa, Ive been woodworking since elementary school. My Dad was a German trained finishing carpenter. He had a nice workshop attached to the house, which I was allowed to use, hand tools only. There was an old crappy lathe in there, but no one used it, my dad didn't even like it. Shop class in high school I was able to finally work with one but our instructor was not very knowledgeable and I didn't learn much. So one day about 22 years ago, I was in the bookstore and found a book "50 turned boxes" by Chris Stott and after looking through it I thought, I can totally do this... I didn't have a lathe or chisels. Luckily a few months before, my neighbour Carl, had been given a lathe and a set of chisels. It was sitting in his carport. I told him if he didn't start using it soon that I would steal it. A month went by and I grabbed it and set it up in my garage. He didn't even realize it was gone for a half a year. So I had no idea of how to use the chisels, i basically used everything like it was a scraper. I also had no idea how the sharpen, I tried for the longest time, using oil stones. There I was, with no clue, and started making turned boxes.... using wood from peoples firewood piles. I glued the blanks to a scrap and screwed that to a face plate because I had no idea where to get a chuck. I learned from reading books and magazines, Youtube was still a few years away from being invented. That's how I started, and still today, my favourite thing to turn are boxes. I have turned a wide variety of things, hollow vessels, bowls, rolling pins, christmas trees.... I went to the Portland symposium in May, and loved it! I came away inspired and my head was exploding with ideas and concepts. Whew that's quit a bit to read through, to thank you and Im super happy to be part of this association.
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