Learning to turn...

[John Kelsey]

So for those of you who have taught people to turn, and also for those who remember your own learning experiences, do you have favorite projects you would recommend to beginning turners? What could newbies make that really teaches fundamentals of woodturning?

I’m asking because I’m looking for projects to feature in Woodturning FUNdamentals, AAW’s on-line quarterly publication for beginning woodturners. You can find out more about this in Kim Rhymer’s current thread, in AAW Information on this Forum, as well as in my own hi-there post in the Introductions section.

And if you haven’t seen it yet, please check out the current February 2018 edition of FUNdamentals on the main AAW website. I think you will see what we are trying to do, and maybe you will have something of your own to contribute. You can reply on this forum, or please contact me directly: editorkelsey@woodturner.org.

 

[hockenbery]

Hi John,
Glad to see you here on the forum and editing the Fundamentals.

Two items that helped me a lot :

1. hollow ball Christmas ornaments.
It is how I learned the fundamentals of hollowing. I had pretty good spindle skills but those got better doing the finials. After seeing an article by Bob Rosand in some magazine (not the AAW Journal ) I decided to make about 25 for family members and friends.
The ball forms greatly improved the curves on other turnings. My first club demo - I was asked to show how I do the ornaments. It is also the firtst thing I taught at Maryland Hall.


2 Spheres. They teach curves and jig building. I turn spheres with a bowl gouge using a cup and a wooden pin on the tailstock( Something I learned from Christian Burchard) the spheres really teaches curves. The sphere is a known curve and turning it sharpens your curve turning skills. In addition the method do holding a piece on the lathe with just pressure from a cup and pin is a great confidence builder. The sphere can be an end unto itself or an element of other turnings or furniture. When I do week long classes I usually work spheres into it between bowls and hollow forms. I have done quite a few club workshops with the ball in a ball. The sphere is project for all skill levels.

A few different uses of spheres
.

A couple of other thoughts-
Carving mallet is the first turning I do with beginning bowl students.

Gavels are a fun project for kids 8-80.
The gavel in the photo is one I did for our community association president.
a possible project. It has a cast pewter sleeve to scribe the name. I just cut up a cardboard cereal box and taped it around the gavel head with a chute taped on. Pour the melted pewter into the chute. Saw off the pewter that solidifies in the chute and turn thurn it make it look nice.
the pewter be melted in a can with a torch.

 

[Bob Sheppard]

So for those of you who have taught people to turn, and also for those who remember your own learning experiences, do you have favorite projects you would recommend to beginning turners? What could newbies make that really teaches fundamentals of woodturning?

John- for a good, basic spindle turning project, turning a tool handle covers all the bases. Roughing gouge, spindle gouge, and even a skew, if desired.
Plus having different handles on your tools makes it easier to pick one out of a pile.

 

[john lucas]

Candle holders of any shape. My friend starting calling them candle holders because he though candlestick meant they had to be tall and skinny. When I did a 4 hour class recently I had them use nothing but Hunter style scrapers and turn a short candle holder. It beads, coves and hollowed the end. Can't find the photo of the completed candleholder but here it is almost done. Platters are an excellent project. They can be done a lot of different tools so are quite easy; You can make them 4" or 20" depending on your skill and lathe. New turners always have trouble finding wood so Projects that you can turn from glued up wood or woods that are easily available at Lowes and Home Depot are good. I'm kinda biased but hand mirrors make an excellent project because of what I just mentioned. I turned a lot of lamps from glue ups when I first started. Would be glad to do a lamp turning article. I can't remember the last time I saw an article on lamps.

 

[John Kelsey]

Two items that helped me a lot :

1. hollow ball Christmas ornaments.
It is how I learned the fundamentals of hollowing. I had pretty good spindle skills but those got better doing the finials. After seeing an article by Bob Rosand in some magazine (not the AAW Journal ) I decided to make about 25 for family members and friends.
The ball forms greatly improved the curves on other turnings. My first club demo - I was asked to show how I do the ornaments. It is also the firtst thing I taught at Maryland Hall.
View attachment 24702

2 Spheres. They teach curves and jig building. I turn spheres with a bowl gouge using a cup and a wooden pin on the tailstock( Something I learned from Christian Burchard) the spheres really teaches curves. The sphere is a known curve and turning it sharpens your curve turning skills. In addition the method do holding a piece on the lathe with just pressure from a cup and pin is a great confidence builder. The sphere can be an end unto itself or an element of other turnings or furniture. When I do week long classes I usually work spheres into it between bowls and hollow forms. I have done quite a few club workshops with the ball in a ball. The sphere is project for all skill levels.
View attachment 24708

AL thanks indeed for these ideas. Re the hollow ornaments, I'm pretty sure making 25 of anything is a good idea - it helps burn the skills into your muscles and mind.
Re spheres, I'm really intrigued by the method you describe, I am not familiar with it. Do you have any photos?

 

[John Kelsey]

John- for a good, basic spindle turning project, turning a tool handle covers all the bases. Roughing gouge, spindle gouge, and even a skew, if desired.
Plus having different handles on your tools makes it easier to pick one out of a pile.

Bob do you have advice about the shape of the tool handle and what do you use for a metal ferrule? Da id Ellsworth has students make a three-sided handle as their introduction to multi-axis turning.

 

[John Kelsey]

Candle holders of any shape. My friend starting calling them candle holders because he though candlestick meant they had to be tall and skinny. When I did a 4 hour class recently I had them use nothing but Hunter style scrapers and turn a short candle holder. It beads, coves and hollowed the end. Can't find the photo of the completed candleholder but here it is almost done. Platters are an excellent project. They can be done a lot of different tools so are quite easy; You can make them 4" or 20" depending on your skill and lathe. New turners always have trouble finding wood so Projects that you can turn from glued up wood or woods that are easily available at Lowes and Home Depot are good. I'm kinda biased but hand mirrors make an excellent project because of what I just mentioned. I turned a lot of lamps from glue ups when I first started. Would be glad to do a lamp turning article. I can't remember the last time I saw an article on lamps.

John, we've got a candle stand from Walt Wager in the current FUNda, but I'd like to know more about your hand mirrors. Can you post a photo?

 

[robo hippy]

Well, fish whacker/bonker/carver's mallet/priest (from the UK because it administers last rites to the fish)/Irish potato masher, spurtle. spinning tops, rolling pins. I will probably think of others... I think bowls were probably my second project. No idea why some think they are difficult and shouldn't be taught to beginners, but skills with any of the tools transfer to other tools...

robo hippy

 

[Bill Boehme]

John, we've got a candle stand from Walt Wager in the current FUNda, but I'd like to know more about your hand mirrors. Can you post a photo?

John Lucas has a bunch of mirrors in the gallery: John Lucas Mirrors

 

[john lucas]

Yes I have made just about every style hand mirror you can imagine and few you can't. It makes a wonderful project because it's a platter and a spindle. You can do just about anything you want to the face of the mirror. Inlay, coloring, texturing, segmenting. off center etc. If I learned something from someone somewhere I have added it to a hand mirror. this is just a sample.

 

[John Torchick]

John started turning mirrors when he heard Humphrey Bogart say, "Here's looking at you, kid."
I have had occasion to attend some of John's demonstrations. Plus, he has some good, informative videos on Youtube.

 

[Bill Boehme]

John, your Mayan Calendar mirror is one of my favorites and seeing it reminded me of this Argyle Sweater cartoon from last year. I like Scott Hilburn's wry sense of humor.

 

[john lucas]

thanks Bill. Great cartoon. Obviously I lived past 2012 to make more mirrors. And then just for fun there are these.

 

[Perry Hilbert]

I was 12 yrs old and, with extremely close Father supervision, made a maple rolling pin for my sister and after that, a black walnut gavel for my 6th grade teacher. My father actually laid out the lines of the gavel and then I basically shaved it down and rounded the corners and sanded. Dad showed me how to mount bowl blanks on a face plate and I made quite a few bowls, but out of real soft wood like poplar and teak. Even a couple pine boxes. Of course that was before I knew how hard it was to turn pine. I just did it.

 

[hockenbery]

AL thanks indeed for these ideas. Re the hollow ornaments, I'm pretty sure making 25 of anything is a good idea - it helps burn the skills into your muscles and mind.
Re spheres, I'm really intrigued by the method you describe, I am not familiar with it. Do you have any photos?

John
If you have access to the 2010 Hartford techniques videos. My Ball in a ball demo is on volume one.
The first 10 minutes is turning a ball.

In workshops students use cups mounted in chucks and mostly the pins are wood with a 1.5” hole that fits the minilathe centers with on wrap of masking tape.

Photos of the whole process are in slides I use in the demo introduction.
Slides from swat 2014 give a good visual but few words.
http://swat.hockenbery.net/Turning_a_ball_the_easy_way.pdf

A quick overview of 3x3x3.5 to an almost 3” ball. Photos are of different balls stopped at a stage that I use for show and tell before I adopted the ipad and PowerPoint to tell a more cohesive story. first 5 are the ball evolving between centers following a simple layout. Sort of training wheels for curves. Lower right is the ball rotated 90 degrees held in a cup by a flat point center with a leather top. Here most of the nuns are turned away.


Visual of the octogonal cross section above. In a perfectly layout the center line on each face lies on the surfac elf the sphere


I make the cups and flat point centers from wood.
They are also available from Rubber chucky but one does have to turn a recess in on of the cones
Nit sure how I made a line on the photo.

 

[Bill Boehme]

..... Visual of the hexoganal cross section above. In a perfectly layout the center line on each face lies on the surfac elf the sphere
View attachment 24731

Very good, but one typo ... the figure is an octagon and not a hexagon.

 

[hockenbery]

Very good, but one typo ... the figure is an octagon and not a hexagon.

Never trust an even number to be correct

Glad some one was attentive
Txt

 

[Bill Boehme]

It would be good to leave it during a demo with the promise of a prize for the first person to find the error. But, on the other hand, some people would be fixated on finding an error and completely miss the demo.

 

[Dean Center]

John,
I have 2 suggestions. I help with the woodworking club at our high school and have helped several dozen high schoolers with their first projects. We start them making a top or a honey dipper. The tops are fun because the kids can do them 'quickly' and when they spin them, it really hits home that they succeeded in making something. The honey dipper is my favorite because it uses almost all the spindle turning cuts and then makes a nice gift for the kids to give someone. (There's a hand out for the honey dipper in the student turning section.

One other project really appeals to me for beginners--a scratch awl. The project covers a huge array of cuts, fixing, and measuring skills, but is still pretty simple to make. Plus, at the conclusion, the turner has a tool they can use for the rest of their life. We decided not to put that in our school curriculum due to concerns about what the administration/school board would think about having the kids make 'shivs'. (I still eventually have the more dedicated turners make one, but they don't sharpen it at school and they have to take it home right away)

Dean Center

 

[John Torchick]

I was told to take a piece of wood, put it on the lathe and turn off any wood that doesn't look like a sphere. Thanks for the photo and the setup description.

 

[Mike Johnson]

Similar to the scratch awl project a ferrite rod with a wood handle is a good beginner project. And 90% of the people have no idea what a ferrite rod is and what it is used for, most people guess they are turkey call strikers.

 

[Fadi Zeidan]

“Beginner” can be many things. Are you talking about someone who never turned before, or someone who knows some basics and wants to expand, try new things? I am a 2 year beginner for example.

Some ideas

1. Natural edge bowl is something intriguing for beginners, depending what a beginner is
2. Regular bowl, and how to get consistent wall thickness
3. Candle holder, of various shapes and lengths. I liked to turn tea candle holders
4. Boxes are always interesting and teach many skills
5. Calabash bowls

Specific topics, not full projects would expand on the above. Articles tend to be short on details when covering full turning. It could be series of articles that completes the picture.

1. Ideas to integrate, turn bottoms
2. Wall thickness again, especially the bottom
3. How to achieve clean cuts and clean tear outs
4. Sanding
5. Chucking wood, what to look for
6. Wet vs dry

 

[Mike Johnson]

For a beginner you want a project that can be turned and finished in one session so the beginning turner can see what can be accomplished on the machine. Trying to teach all of the basics to a beginner is a challenge depending on their age, skill sets and knowledge.

 

[Bob Sheppard]

John- Here's a pic of 3 handles I've turned. The nice thing about turning a handle is that there really isn't right shape. If it feels comfortable in the hand, that's good. For ferrules, I've bought brass ones from Craft Supply & Packard, but I've also used copper couplings for ferrules.

 

[John Kelsey]

Thanks so much to all you guys who replied, you've given me lots of good stuff to work with and I think you will see the results in the forthcoming issues of our on-line quarterly FUNdamentals

 

[Sean McEntee]

The first thing I learned to turn was a simple pen. We started with a 1x1 blank, drilled a 5/32 hole all the way through and turned a full length pen. We pulled the nib and inkwell from a Bic Stic (biro) and put it in the hole.

Inexpensive, quick, and a pretty good pen.

 

[Jason Waguespack]

John I also put this in your introduction welcome
(it's not a project for beginners but info for beginners)
John congrad on your new (retirement) WF editing job. I'm a beginner newbe turner getting my Robust Scout lathe in this week. Been wearing out the WF area on AAW. There are no turning chapters near me so all my woodturning learning will be from WF and you tube videos and AAW and AAW forum. Planning on going to SWAT in Waco, TX this August. There's one thing (at least for me) that I think need addressing on WF is tool rest height and tool chisel (handle) angle for riding the bevel angle. Like for spindle / bowl first contact cuts are about 10 o'clock with tool rest at 9 o'clock I think. More info on what tool rest height should be at for different turning tools. Hope this makes sense. Like the way it was addressed in the last WF issue (Feb 2018) with the candlestick project. Also pictures help a lot. Again welcome to your new editing job and THANKS in advance.