turning with your eyes

[john lucas]

I was laying in bed and couldn't sleep because my mind was going 100 mph which is not uncommon for me. I got to thinking about how I turn. One of the differences between new turners and experienced turners is that we use very subtle movements to control the tool. Sometimes it's a very small almost minute adjustment of the tool that makes all the difference in how it cuts. So I was thinking about this and realize that i turn with my eyes, not my hands. Well obviously your hands do the work but when your sneaking up on a cut you stare at the edge that's going to be doing the cutting and you say to your self I just need to rotate the tool a hair to pick up that cut. You move the tool and watch the edge and your eyes tell you when your hands rotate it enough to make the cut.
I think it's a lot like surgeons who use the robots to do the work. They are watching a magnified monitor and their eyes are telling their hands to move in incredibly small increments to move that tool just a few thousandths of an inch. I noticed the same thing when I was turning my ultra miniature goblets looking through a 20 power microscope. My smallest goblet was only about .010" wide which meant to turn the bottom of the goblet bowl you were rolling a bead that was about .005" going down to the stem. My hands were able to move in increments that small because my eyes were telling me what to do. Just to give a comparison so you know what I'm talking about my smallest goblet is .023" which is about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
When turning forms generally you watch the form instead of the tool. I may be cutting on the side closest to me but I'm watching the shape on the backside and my eye is telling my hands what to do to continue that shape as the tool moves along. That only comes from experience and the more practice you have the better you are. That's why I'm a big fan of spindle turning. It teaches you to do all these shapes more or less in miniature compared to bowls and hollow vessels. So when you can do those smaller shapes well you have learned the coordination between eye and hand that helps you do the larger shapes.
Does that make sense to you. I hope so. Obviously sharp tools are a must to be able to pick up a cut with these incredibly tiny movements so it's well worth practicing to sharpen and to do it often.

 

[Odie]

Very perspicacious of you John......😀

I am up in the wee hours of the morning very regularly these days. I'm now completely retired, and no longer training a replacement at the machine shop. My time is completely my own now, and loving it! I seem to be evolving to this because I'm still working, but full-time in my own shop. I'm on my feet all day long and this old body isn't as spry as it used to be! I usually come in from the shop, have a bite to eat, then crash!.....then I'm awake for a few hours in the middle of the night.....I'm usually spending my time at this hour of the night reading.

Back to your topic. Your observations are right on the money......turning with any precision absolutely involves a coordinated effort between hand and eye. Thank you for the inspiration to contemplate this aspect......the darkness of night and all is quiet, seems to be a part of deep thinking, doesn't it? 😉

I have seen some of your miniature turnings before.....and, they are incredible! 😎

ko

 

[Tom Albrecht]

I am not sure about the robotic surgery, but I have always understood that the robotic movement is geared down in time from the human surgeon's hand. So, in effect, if I were using the robotic surgery equipment to turn the mini goblets, and you were turning them by eye, as you do, I would have a huge advantage. Which makes you a pretty amazing turner, which you are.

 

[John Torchick]

Interesting observation, John. Forum folks, I have seen some of his micro turnings and it is amazing what he does with a lathe and extremely small tools. If memory serves me, he made one turning tool out of stainless steel wire.

 

[Raul McCai]

wow. That's small. There have to be a slew of wood species that are not well suited to that sort of thing; like Oak - I'd imagine.

 

[john lucas]

Yes, anything that gives away the fact that it's small won't work. I never saw the funny line in the handle until it was done. That's the sort of thing you run into when turning miniatures.

 

[john lucas]

Yes I do have small tools. The skew I used to turn this mirror handle is .060" in diameter. I have skews down to .008" It's really fun turning the beads on this handle with a skew. Not scraping mind you but using the bevel just like you would on a larger skew.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I have also thought about the same topic, John. I didn't couch my thoughts in terms of turning with my eyes, but it all boils down to the same thing. The thing that occurred to me is beginners are often taught hand position when holding a tool to make a certain type of cut. The result is that their eyes get drawn away from keeping their attention focused on how the cutting edge and wood are meeting and, instead, are fixated on achieving perfect hand position. I tell beginners that the back end of the tool isn't where the action is taking place and if they keep looking there they'll miss seeing the rapidly approaching spectacular catch caused by not keeping their attention at the front end of the tool. I tell them to keep the cutting edge where it needs to be and their hand position will automatically take care of itself. I also point out that they shouldn't be concerned if their stance and hands aren't precisely like some big pooh-bah does it. Everybody's ergonomics are slightly different. Turning stance improves with increasing confidence.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Yes I do have small tools. The skew I used to turn this mirror handle is .060" in diameter. I have skews down to .008" It's really fun turning the beads on this handle with a skew. Not scraping mind you but using the bevel just like you would on a larger skew.

Wow, John, that's the biggest dime that I have ever seen. 🙄

 

[Douglas Ladendorf]

The thing that occurred to me is beginners are often taught hand position when holding a tool to make a certain type of cut.

This was vexing to me at the start. I was trying to keep track of what hand was supposed to do what and I could never remember it all. It was a bit of a breakthrough when I realized that I needed to focus on what was happening where steel met wood and the hands would take care of themselves. I look forward to the time when I can feel the cut better.

Doug

 

[John Torchick]

Wow, John, that's the biggest dime that I have ever seen.

Inflation has done that. 😉
Bill B., that is certainly great advice. Watch the cutting edge of the tool and not the handle. Thanks for the reminder for us newbies.

 

[hockenbery]

Wow, John, that's the biggest dime that I have ever seen. 🙄

John is a Master of digital photography. 🙂
Hie also does quite well at the micro miniatures.

He put the turning in the foreground to make the dime appear smaller
.
Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

..... He put the turning in the foreground to make the dime appear smaller ....

The old bass fisherman's trick ... the first liar never stands a chance. 🙄

 

[Bill Boehme]

This was vexing to me at the start. I was trying to keep track of what hand was supposed to do what and I could never remember it all. It was a bit of a breakthrough when I realized that I needed to focus on what was happening where steel met wood and the hands would take care of themselves. I look forward to the time when I can feel the cut better.

Doug

I think that we've all been down that road. I definitely have. I was one of the poor slobs who went down that path alone and somewhat figured it out on my own, but mentoring helped accelerate my progress from dumpy fat bottomed dog food bowl to learning how to think outside the bowl. The really great thing about face-to-face interactions that is so much better than just reading or watching videos is that you are able to get feedback from a mentor to help you solve problems. In the end though, it's still up to the individual to reach that "ah-ha moment" when the light bulb comes on.

BTW, Odie, I don't want to sound like I am beating a dead horse, but since we are talking "herd" ... if you allowed yourself the luxury of wasting a bit of time mingling with some of the herd animals for a couple days, you might find (maybe to your surprise) that the herd consists of mostly mavericks that happen to have at least one thing in common ... a love of using their own individual skills and ingenuity to create things in wood. I say that most woodturners are mavericks because creative ideas are always being challenged by differing points of view. The social interaction and sharing of ideas is like a forum on steroids ... seeing other peoples turnings in 3-D and being able to hold and feel them in your hands as opposed to looking at a flat snapshot ... speaking in person to Reed and Al and John as opposed to reading through typos and deciphering what auto-corrected sentences actually meant. My fingers and brain run at different speeds so when typing and reviewing, I am sometimes amazed at what I wrote a opposed to what I was thinking. Often, I don't catch my mistakes because I am reading what I wanted to write and not what I actually wrote.

Also, thanks for the new word -- perspicacious. Don't know if I'll ever actually use it, but it's handy to have a few $5 words in your back pocket.

 

[John K Jordan]

Forum folks, I have seen some of his micro turnings and it is amazing what he does with a lathe and extremely small tools.

I've seen some of those tiny turnings too! Amazing. You really need a magnifier to see some of the goblets. John L. said a single pore in the stem is disaster. (Sure are a lot of John's around here!)

I thought my tiny goblet was pretty small until I saw some Sir Lucas did!

From about 10 years ago. I need to try this again now - the tops are WAY out of scale.


I think the hand/eye connection finally sunk in for me one day when I realized things had become easier and my cuts were suddenly smoother. The books all said to look at the profile instead of the tool but I was too dense to believe it for a long time.

JKJ, in East TN

 

[Barry Crowder]

First of all, sorry for resurrecting a dormant thread. I joined recently and was catching up on some content and this thread caught my attention.

I have also thought about the same topic, John. I didn't couch my thoughts in terms of turning with my eyes, but it all boils down to the same thing. The thing that occurred to me is beginners are often taught hand position when holding a tool to make a certain type of cut. The result is that their eyes get drawn away from keeping their attention focused on how the cutting edge and wood are meeting and, instead, are fixated on achieving perfect hand position. I tell beginners that the back end of the tool isn't where the action is taking place and if they keep looking there they'll miss seeing the rapidly approaching spectacular catch caused by not keeping their attention at the front end of the tool. I tell them to keep the cutting edge where it needs to be and their hand position will automatically take care of itself. I also point out that they shouldn't be concerned if their stance and hands aren't precisely like some big pooh-bah does it. Everybody's ergonomics are slightly different. Turning stance improves with increasing confidence.

I'm happy to see this stated here. When I started turning, I watched a lot of videos that talked about hand and body position, but others that talked about the cutting (or scraping) angles, bevel support, etc. For whatever reason, I tended to pay a lot more attention to the cutting edge contacting the wood rather than the body mechanics. It's not that body mechanics don't matter, but they're supposed to support the cutting, not the other way around.

An analogy that is currently on my mind is a baseball player learning to hit the ball (I have kids in little league). They of course need to have a good grip, stance and swing, but when they're standing at the plate, it doesn't matter if their mechanics are perfect; unless they see the ball, they're quite unlikely to hit it. So at baseball practice, the kids work on their mechanics, but the coaching when they get to the plate is clear--see the ball, hit the ball. [And while we're at it, watch MLB and see that lots of good hitters have very different mechanics when batting, just like many talented woodturners have very different ways of turning wood.]

I generally believe that our brains can really only focus on one thing at a time. We are, of course, able to do more than one thing, but our conscious attention is on only one thing in any single moment. The way to do more complex task is to practice focusing on some tasks until they become mostly automatic. For woodturning, I might do a practice run with the lathe off to prime myself for the necessary mechanics. But when I turn on the lathe, my mental focus is at the point where the tool is contacting the workpiece. As I gain experience, I don't have to do the dry run to practice the body mechanics, but I will always need to focus on the cutting edge.

Just adding my .02. Thanks for the great discussions on this forum.

 

[hockenbery]

When I teach beginners I stress turning the surface.
I emphasize how the cutting edge should contact the surface and move through the cut and how the tool is held is not important so long as the cutting edge is working as it should.
Beginners have so much to learn so I try not to overload them with body motion, foot position etc. It is my belief that a student who learns to cut a clean surface will eventually be able to teach themselves to cut curves. I don't even talk about grain direction until they are getting decent cuts.

With advanced beginners and intermediates I shift the focus to training the eye to watch the development of the curve and using coordinated body motion to cut smooth and flowing curves. Advanced beginners have the control of the tool to cut effectively with confidence without thinking too hard about it so they can concentrate on body motion and footwork to bring their curves alive.

The curves make the turnings.
I work a lot with green wood. The same curves that add beauty to the turning are the curves that let wood move to dry without cracking.

Al

 

[john lucas]

I think in my initial thread I was stressing that you can make very fine movements using your body while you watch the cutting edge. I probably should have stressed that this if for detail cuts. I could not agree more that when turning larger shapes it is absolutely essential to watch the shape, not the tool. Again I think you are turning with your eyes in that situation as well. Watching the shape develop teaches you to move your body in the smooth arc needed to get the cut. If you watch the tool you don't see the curve. When turning very fined details I think it's the other way around. Well somewhat anyway. You do need to watch the shape of a small bead develop but the tool is so close you are watching both.