woodturner Olivier Gomis (and his videos)

[Steve Tiedman]

Hi Folks. From the recent Stratos lathe thread I'm been watching some of the videos from French turner Olivier Gomis.

Yes, he's turning on the German-brand Stratos lathe, and from viewing his huge projects (such as his segmented chair) he is certainly using every last bit of capacity the machine offers. Here is a very large segmented project built from 30,000 pieces. See his other videos as well. He also makes flat board furniture, videos for those as well

View: https://youtu.be/MqfvvO2n-Mc?si=KqJJBDx7Ljw9h_15


Is he working in a shop with tens of thousands of dollars in machinery? Yep. Is he utilizing shop-built jigs and fixtures galore to assist in his construction? Yep. (And in a table video admits he loves building jigs.)

His actual turning tool work is fairly basic stuff, what looks to be some basic Hamlet gouges and some carbide ring cutters. But I think the tools he depends on the most are his imagination, and his patience to spend hundreds of hours in careful prep work and follow-through (which he represents in the videos), followed closely by shear bravery to stand at a massive machine in front of a massive build-up of glued small parts to make something rather special. Watching his process has been fascinating to me. All the time I'm hoping I don't witness a catch, or a weak joint coming apart, that brings down the whole works in a dangerous and tragic explosion.

As for me, I am content with making much smaller, modest work at my Vicmarc VL200 and Oneway 1224. I'll thrill-seek vicariously through others like this young man, Olivier Gomis.

 

[robo hippy]

Well, Malcolm Tibbets would smile at this. For me, I could, but I won't, mostly because I am not that patient.

robo hippy

 

[Steve Tiedman]

Me, either. Fun to watch his process though. He does a good job of condensing the whole process with quite a bit of sped-up video, but keeping the video length manageable to prevent boredom.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Really cool video angles, including one from the inside of the form. I liked the clone thing at 2:50.

 

[Steve Tiedman]

I still can't figure out the view from inside the spinning vessels. The vessels have solid bottoms secure to a chuck, so I don't think he's sneaking a probe scope through the headstock spindle. Itty bitty drone flying inside? Lots of air turblance and flying debris for that.

 

[Dave Landers]

I still can't figure out the view from inside the spinning vessels. The vessels have solid bottoms secure to a chuck, so I don't think he's sneaking a probe scope through the headstock spindle. Itty bitty drone flying inside? Lots of air turblance and flying debris for that.

At 7:40 you can see there's a hole in the headstock-end (and very briefly again at 14:40 when it comes off the lathe, and again 23:22 during assembly). So I do think it is thru the headstock.

 

[Steve Tiedman]

At 7:40 you can see there's a hole in the headstock-end (and very briefly again at 14:40 when it comes off the lathe, and again 23:22 during assembly). So I do think it is thru the headstock.

Ah, thanks Dave, I'll revisit and watch for that.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

I have seen that video before and the same thing caught my attention. At the beginning of the video he is flattening a small board on the jointer without any kind of push stick/jig so it makes me wonder when he will mangle a hand or finger.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

I have seen that video before and the same thing caught my attention. At the beginning of the video he is flattening a small board on the jointer without any kind of push stick/jig so it makes me wonder when he will mangle a hand or finger.

I saw that. Later he used a planer (or was it a drum sander). I was curious why he was using the jointer if he had a planer.

 

[Kevin Jenness]

I saw that. Later he used a planer (or was it a drum sander). I was curious why he was using the jointer if he had a planer.

Jointer establishes a flat face, planer mills parallel to the first face. Run a twisted board through the planer, get an even thickness twisted board.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

I saw that. Later he used a planer (or was it a drum sander). I was curious why he was using the jointer if he had a planer.

It is normal practice to flatten boards with a jointer first then use the planner to make the sides parallel, where as the planner will allow some twist or cup to make it's way through the planning process. The larger industrial planners can flatten cup in a board that will either split the board or the cup will return.
Note Kevin's answer came up before I posted my reply but is the same explanation maybe worded better.

 

[Adrian Wilson]

I have seen that video before and the same thing caught my attention. At the beginning of the video he is flattening a small board on the jointer without any kind of push stick/jig so it makes me wonder when he will mangle a hand or finger.

I didn't have a problem with the size of that board. He had the guard in place.

On the equipment: when I first saw a couple of his videos, I am pretty sure he had a business selling equipment: definitely he was selling Stratos, and I think some other lines too. He may have given that up, I didn't see any links in any of the new videos.