Paul Campbell

[Paul Campbell]

I've been dabbling on the wood lathe for the last 15+ years with my Nova 3000. Started making pen kits for friends and family which easily gets you hooked on the fun factor! I have a full woodshop but struggle to spend a lot of time in it...as I tend to get pulled in many directions. Might need to retire soon, just to find the time to get my projects finished. 🙂. We live on 20 acres and have a great supply of alder, wild cherry and endless fir trees. If we ever run short of lumber, we have many neighbors that are always glad to donate to a good cause. I still love running a chainsaw and swinging an axe, but when you have ~30 cords of firewood stored under cover it's time to start doing something else with that resource like chainsaw carving OR fun projects on the wood lathe.

Found a VB36 in Seattle last week and was super excited to get that added to the woodshop. I know that beast will outlive me BUT excited to start processing bowls and researching a McNaughton coring system, as that seems like a great solution to make multiple bowls from a good sized blank. I'm learning that I need to start turning early in the year if I want to have anything available for Christmas presents in December. Last year I turned a number of trees from scraps in the firewood shed and it was so fun + loved the joy it brought everyone.

The inspiration and knowledge shared on AAW is really impressive. As an introvert, I'm all about doing the research and trying to improve my skills by watching and learning from others (typically online and comments made here). Thanks for having me as a new member. Happy Holiday's everyone!!! Thanks, Paul

 

[Jim Reynolds]

Welcome, I'm confident that you'll feel right at home here. If you haven't joined a woodturning club, I strongly recommend you do so. The cost benefit ratio is in your favor. I can sing along to all the music in the introvert repertoire. I've benefited from professional instruction. Some things are really hard to learn without some hands on guidance and correction.

Welcome and safe turning!

 

[Paul Campbell]

Welcome, I'm confident that you'll feel right at home here. If you haven't joined a woodturning club, I strongly recommend you do so. The cost benefit ratio is in your favor. I can sing along to all the music in the introvert repertoire. I've benefited from professional instruction. Some things are really hard to learn without some hands on guidance and correction.

Welcome and safe turning!

Thanks Jim...solid advice. I was surprised to find a local woodturning club not far from work or home, so might have to break out of my shell and follow your recommendation. Looks like they have a ton of resources that I could tap into. Awesome. Thanks!

 

[John K Jordan]

Hello, Paul - welcome. Sounds like you are having fun! Love your little Christmas trees.

I was also going to recommend looking for a turning club but I see you've done that. Great! Some have a good mentoring program under the AAW umbrella for one-on-one instruction and fine tuning. 🙂

I highly recommend the retirement - I retired nearly 20 years ago and it certainly gave me more time for the farm, woodturning, and other activities! A few years back I built a shop down near the barn and included HVAC for year-round comfort. (I also recommend that!)
I love to teach and do turning demos.

We live on 27 acres and also have a LOT of wood. One of my hobbies is converting green wood into useful turning blanks and drying them - I've been doing that for over 15 years and now have an abundance of dry and drying turning wood. I mostly use a shop bandsaw with help from the chainsaw and occasionally from the Woodmizer. Good clean fun! I have turned some big green wood but mostly prefer turning dry. If you haven't tried the green processing and drying but want to take a look, I posted a thread here with a video I made for a zoom meeting demo:

Making useful turning blanks from logs

My “Logs to Blanks” video shows how I use a shop bandsaw to make useful turning blanks from log sections. I almost always turn wood so I include a little information on drying. I made this video during the Covid pandemic for a club Zoom meeting demo. It’s long, about 45 minutes, but it’s a...

www.aawforum.org

Look forward to seeing more photos of what you make. (Photos add to the joy of life!) Just for fun, here's one of mine - a Beads of Courage lidded box with some chip carving, made for a special little boy:

Cherry and Basswood


JKJ

 

[Paul Campbell]

Hello, Paul - welcome. Sounds like you are having fun! Love your little Christmas trees.

I was also going to recommend looking for a turning club but I see you've done that. Great! Some have a good mentoring program under the AAW umbrella for one-on-one instruction and fine tuning. 🙂

I highly recommend the retirement - I retired nearly 20 years ago and it certainly gave me more time for the farm, woodturning, and other activities! A few years back I built a shop down near the barn and included HVAC for year-round comfort. (I also recommend that!)
I love to teach and do turning demos.

We live on 27 acres and also have a LOT of wood. One of my hobbies is converting green wood into useful turning blanks and drying them - I've been doing that for over 15 years and now have an abundance of dry and drying turning wood. I mostly use a shop bandsaw with help from the chainsaw and occasionally from the Woodmizer. Good clean fun! I have turned some big green wood but mostly prefer turning dry. If you haven't tried the green processing and drying but want to take a look, I posted a thread here with a video I made for a zoom meeting demo:

Making useful turning blanks from logs

My “Logs to Blanks” video shows how I use a shop bandsaw to make useful turning blanks from log sections. I almost always turn wood so I include a little information on drying. I made this video during the Covid pandemic for a club Zoom meeting demo. It’s long, about 45 minutes, but it’s a...

www.aawforum.org

Look forward to seeing more photos of what you make. (Photos add to the joy of life!) Just for fun, here's one of mine - a Beads of Courage lidded box with some chip carving, made for a special little boy:

Cherry and Basswood
View attachment 70264

JKJ

Hi John. You sure do some beautiful work and I enjoyed your video. I too have an 18" Rikon bandsaw and love it. I have a 1" or 1.25" carbide blade which has been great for resawing BUT like you're 1/2" blade setup in case I need to round out some wood bowl blanks prior to turning them green on the lathe.

I wish I had a bandsaw mill like your Woodmizer but have just made do with my chainsaw mill. Getting the logs out of the woods has been a little tricky due to their size, weight and remote locations BUT way more manageable once they are 2" thick. My wife wants me to build a 10' dining table for family reunions and I've got a few slabs (alder + wild cherry) that will be ready in the next year or two.

Woodworking is great for the soul and helps to recharge from everyday stress. Thanks for reaching out and keep up the great work.

 

[John K Jordan]

Nice stickered stack. A chainsaw mill is a respectable device! We have no alder here but plenty of cherry, walnut, red/white oak, black locust, ash, sassafras, persimmon, y. poplar, and more. I like cedar when I can get it.

Got the tractor and sawmill soon after acquiring this place. I use skidding tongs with a chain on a hook welded to the top of my tractor bucket. I found that if I drove the tractor backwards I had a lot more mobility. With a short chain I can lift the leading end off the ground to make skidding a lot easier.

Although these days I mostly use the bandsaw to make turning blanks, the small manual Woodmizer (LT15) is great for farm and fun. (I refuse to turn this into a job.) I have enough track sections for 16' logs. I also devised an easy way to saw very short log sections which made some woodturner friends happy - give them chunks with the pith removed and flattened on two sides. This guy liked to turn bowls.



For woodturning use, I'd often saw 2", 3", and 4" slabs, air dry for a year or more, then cut into turning blanks, seal, and finish drying indoors. Most of the wood I use for siding, posts, beams, and such for barn, horse shelter, outbuildings,

For a long time I used the tractor with forks to set logs on the sawmill, then offload the slabs back onto the forks to move to the stickering stacks. Still was a LOT of work for one person. (as I'm certain you are aware!) Then I saved for years and bought an excavator with a thumb - man does that make working with trees and logs easier! Moving, loading, placing them gently on the mill. Still manual work to offload and stack...

I don't cut trees for the wood but take them down when needed, say when widening a road or if they are too close to buildings, or if a tree comes down in a storm. Or if they are tall trash pines their days are numbered... And occasionally haul logs here when someone else is taking a tree down.

I eventually got a tracked skid steer and attach a grapple as needed - makes picking up and moving big diameter wood so easy (and it covers ground 10x faster than the excavator!) Makes cleaning up brush and limbs easy. Between that, the excavator, tractor, and a dump trailer I can get almost anything done that I want to do - and the new machines have cabs heat and air since I'm elderly and feeble! - I am so spoiled now.

When we have to take down trees I almost always dig up the stumps and grade the ground and replant. It's amazing what you can do with a little diesel power and some patience! The y. poplar stump below was way too heavy to lift but I could easily roll it. One that size might take me a couple of days to dig out of the ground (I leave extra height for leverage to break it loose). Some I've had to dig ramps on all sides 8' or deeper to get underneath the roots, then fill the hole and compact.



Sure is fun to play in the dirt! Life is good.

JKJ