• It's time to cast your vote in the January 2025 Turning Challenge. (click here for details)
  • Conversations are now Direct Messages (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Alan Weinberg for "Elm Burl Bowl" being selected as Turning of the Week for January 27, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Sense of hearing vs sense of feel

Odie

Odie

Panning for Montana gold, with Betsy, the mule!
TOTW Team
Joined
Dec 22, 2006
Messages
7,284
Likes
11,552
Location
Missoula, MT
The current discussion of noise cancelling headphones makes me wonder about how important a developed sense of hearing is with woodturning.....as opposed to a developed sense of feel. I'm inclined to think the latter is the more useful in analyzing the quality of the cut being produced......but, it looks like some might disagree with that, considering the importance they place on their hearing.

From my own perspective, I've developed my sense of feel to a high degree, and it's important to me. This is not pertaining to heavy cuts, but more finely executed finishing cuts. These delicately produced cuts give felt signals that can be tuned to the senses, and can lead to the best possible cuts......when that sense of awareness is acute.

-----odie-----
 
Your reflexes are more important, when you hear or sense a wood blank come loose from your chuck you are quick enough
to shut off the lathe or move out of the way compared to the sense of feel when the blank hits you, when that happens a
reduced sense of feeling is not a bad thing. ;)

Everyone's hearing will slowly fade over the years and there are many wood turners that have various degrees of hearing
impairment from working around woodworking equipment for decades which will take it's toll. I would say a developed sense
of touch/feel will provide more feedback information to your brain than your hearing will provide. You can usually sense quickly
when a tool needs sharpening, or if the tool cutting edge is addressing the wood correctly and how smooth of a cut you are getting
from the tool.
 
The radio is usually up loud enough that I can't hear much anyway..... I do so much by feel, just naturally...

robo hippy
 
I know that some attribute hearing loss to woodturning , but that is nothing compared to woodworking sounds....planer, tablesaw, mitresaw. Then there are the ambient sounds such as air cleaner, dust collector, stereo. All this and then add chainsaw. So I do not consider turning wood as doing much to my hearing loss and would rather hear what is going on on the lathe. By the way there is a additive effect of noise so yes all those "small" sounds do contribute to hearing loss over extended periods of time. I do not know what levels or to what degree.
 
How many people make that trip to the table saw or other power equipment without hearing protection and make that
quick cut to get the job done. Each time you do that it has an accumulative impact on your hearing, just like mowing the lawn.
 
I'm with you Odie. Noise cancelling sounds like a great idea on an airplane or if you're stuck in a loud place and want a nap. But in a shop? In my opinion: NEVER. Hearing protection: yes, when needed. Radio/music: if it doesn't interfere with safety or diminish acuity.

My dad taught me to listen to the shavings come off a handplane, the motor on a chop saw, the chainsaw cutting or bogging in a cut. Our ears tell us so much, and most of it is subconscious. From where I sit: we wouldn't deliberately impair our vision...

Interesting conversation on hearing versus touch/feel. I listened to an interview a while back on our paleolithic roots. Apparently we have nerves that are specifically for feeling vibration coming through tools. That's how we feel nuances, and these specific nerves are separate from those that define normal touch. Thanks caveman ancestors! :D
 
I wear military silicone ear plugs while doing any kind of WWing. My hearing loss is genetic. I want to save what I have left. I wear two hearing aids but I rely on hearing, that is, any change in sound from the lathe or any other power tool. The only bad sound I hear is from a hammer.......when I hit my thumb.
Edit: Sense of feel might come into play when we are turning and the tool starts acting in a odd way, like when the piece is loose and ready to go airborne.
 
There is something about the sound of a piece of wood being cut on the lathe. With a sharp skew, it is a hiss kind of like that solid hiss of snow blowing across the surface of the previously fallen snow. Something about the long shavings flowing off and the sound is not harsh, Scrapers can make harsh noises. Sometimes a serious skull wrenching harshness. A good sharp bowl gouge makes a similar noise as a skew. Hearing the cut is easily 50 percent of the way to know things are going right I have never had a loud noise from turning, much less an ear damaging noise.
 
Each of you should ask your spouse how acute your hearing is? :D

And the top ten responses are:

Each individual has different "Cochlear Dead Zones" frequency of hearing ability. While one person can hear a particular sound (frequency) another person may have a difficult time hearing that particular sound.

There is an entire industry based upon "Vibration" accelerometers that are used to monitor and diagnose a variety of problems that can appear over time on any type of mechanized equipment. A sign wave sample can quickly be sampled and with training a person can read the sample sign wave and diagnose a problem or identify a particular signature that is turning into a problem. We use thousands of these sensors on various driven equipment and pull readings on a regular basis and have technicians review the data and formulate preventative measures and repairs on equipment before they fail. With a sample sign wave I can determine motor problems, bearing problems, bent shafts, miss-aligned shafts, belt problems, chain problems, gear-box issues, etc. etc.
 
I can relate to hearing loss and mostly due to loud noise while working on paper machines in an Ontario paper mill when going to high school where you had to talk to whomever by yelling in their ear, no ear plugs then, and in later years fighting forest fires and around helicopters where there was a steady "waap waap" and still no ear plugs. Hearing aids used for the last 20 years but always remove them when in the shop. Be aware, hearing loss "sneaks up" with noise and time. If your wife/partner has to repeat themselves or yell more than once, it usually means "trouble"........... hearing trouble too!
 
My wife swore that my hearing is going. Told her not to expect me to hear what she says when I am upstairs and she is downstairs with the tv blaring. When growing up, if we wanted to talk to some one, you went to wherever they were and got their attention first. I noticed my in-laws do the same as Mrs. They just talk to you when you might be out mowing the grass. I don't know how many times, I had to stop farm machinery and go to Mrs. and say what? I can't hear you when I am on the tractor with the haybine running, the dog is barking and and I am 200 ft away. It is simply not humanly possible. So to make her happy, I had my hearing checked. I do have a slight hearing problem but not nearly as bad as even the examiner expected for my age. I can sit outside and hear geese in the distance, hear deer trying to sneak through the woods, I can hear a thunderstorm 15 miles away. I cannot hear some one talking at a normal inside voice when she is inside and I am outside. Even my daughter said she occasionally just starts talking to me when I am out in the barn feeding the animals. If she sleeps in on her day off and I go to the barn before she wakes up, she will just say something too me, ( and I am not there) and then wonder why I did not hear her. The loss I do suffer is at the very lowest frequencies, And I have always had a degree of tinnitus, even as a preschooler. So I do frequently have to say "What did you say?" but it has little to do with hearing loss.
 
If you are getting hearing loss with woodturning, you're doing something wrong! Protect yourself during the beginning rough cuts, but after that it should be a fairly quiet event. Hearing the cut is very critical to me. When taking a beginning class from John Jordan, he barely had to be in the room to know someone was doing something wrong. A command of "raise that handle" would come out of no where. After a while, we all knew who the offender was.
 
Heard a noise while turning this morning. Found the quill had somehow worked loose. It had been tightened and the lever tightened. I figure there are gremlins in the shop. Cranked the quill and 60 degree live center snug up against the mandrel. Problem solved.
 
There are a number of wood turners that are limited with certain abilities.
We all learn to use the ones we have and compensate for any we are lacking.
There are a number of blind wood turners and many that are hearing impaired.
 
I use both hearing, sight and feel when woodworking. I do however wear ear defenders when using the noisier machines in the shop especially the thicknesser. I do have a slight deafness when the wife talks but that is another matter, my main indicator is the TV as both myself and the wife find that the volumn set at a suitable lever for both of us o if either of us find that it needs to be set higher then we will start to realise there is a problem.
 
My lathe is super quiet. You can't even tell its on. Fast forward to a deep hollow form, turn it on, and start cutting with a hollowing bar. The noise that comes out that will give you hearing loss. If you guys dont think so, I either have super hearing or I'm doing something wrong. I have 30 % hearing loss in one ear. I will never know if it is because of a lifetime of hunting, or the lathe. Probably a combination of both. My noise cancelling Bose bluetooth earbuds let me hear the lathe, someone talking to me and I can hear the gouge cutting. ... , I can hear if you come across something like a knot, a crack, maybe I feel that more than hear... Not sure how many of you against the noise cancelling have tried the $299 Bose ones... If anything my hearing has been enhanced, sort of like a Marvel comic hero... All I need is some Xray vision now, trying to do a tiny finial my bifocals just didnt cut it...
 
I would assume cutting any material on a lathe has the ability to create sound at different frequencies that we may not be aware of while turning. Certain metals I turn on the metal lathe at various speeds will create high frequency sounds that make the neighborhood dogs bark when I am turning with the shop doors open in the summer months.
Softer materials seem to process in the lower frequencies and as you move into the harder materials the frequencies seem to increase in levels of frequency. Noise cancelling technology has been used for several decades now and will most likely be a technology/product we should all start looking at if you spend a number of hours each week turning or using power equipment.
 
Mike Johnson said:
I would assume cutting any material on a lathe has the ability to create sound at different frequencies that we may not be aware of while turning
Click to expand...

Quite a few people can hollow by sound and achieve pretty consistent wall thickness using sound.
I have never been able to this. It may be due to a high frequency hearing loss I learned about in my out processing physical in 1973.
 
Mike Johnson said:
I would assume cutting any material on a lathe has the ability to create sound at different frequencies that we may not be aware of while turning. Certain metals I turn on the metal lathe at various speeds will create high frequency sounds that make the neighborhood dogs bark when I am turning with the shop doors open in the summer months.
Softer materials seem to process in the lower frequencies and as you move into the harder materials the frequencies seem to increase in levels of frequency. Noise cancelling technology has been used for several decades now and will most likely be a technology/product we should all start looking at if you spend a number of hours each week turning or using power equipment.
Click to expand...
@AlanZ described nicely how the noise canceling ear buds enhance your awareness and hearing. A friend visited me and ask me how come I wasn't yelling, lol, now I can hear them, and me, the lathe, the cuts, yet unwanted noise is filtered out... Sweet...
 
odie said:
The current discussion of noise cancelling headphones makes me wonder about how important a developed sense of hearing is with woodturning.....as opposed to a developed sense of feel. I'm inclined to think the latter is the more useful in analyzing the quality of the cut being produced......but, it looks like some might disagree with that, considering the importance they place on their hearing.

From my own perspective, I've developed my sense of feel to a high degree, and it's important to me. This is not pertaining to heavy cuts, but more finely executed finishing cuts. These delicately produced cuts give felt signals that can be tuned to the senses, and can lead to the best possible cuts......when that sense of awareness is acute.

-----odie-----
Click to expand...

I understand what you are saying, Odie, but just to clarify terminology, we can't "develop" our innate senses of hearing, feeling, vision, smell, taste to be greater than what they are, but I'm sure that you mean that we can train ourselves to be more aware by paying closer attention to what our senses are telling us. However, I disagree with your premise of a comparison of one sense being more important than another. Our senses each tell us different things and work in conjunction to give us a complete picture of our environment. We learn to listen for sounds that warn us of of a flaw in the wood or a dull tool or an audible vibration. We feel for a fair curve or a defect or a dull tool. We can teach ourselves ways to somewhat compensate for a reduction in one or more senses. Getting the "best possible cut" is a subjective thing that comes from our creativity and the execution involves not only the feedback that our senses are sending to our brain, but also our muscle motor skills and their physical limitations. The tools that we use are also a part of the big picture if we don't know how to use them or if we are using the wrong tool for a particular task or if we using dull tools, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top