Did anyone catch the latest (?) episode of Woodturning Workshop (Tim yoder's show)? Stuart Batty, a master turner from the UK, took over the lessons for the day... man, that guy is a beast on the lathe! He does production turning, and it shows in the speed (and agility) with which he removes wood.
He did an offset winged bowl... if you remove the time he stopped to talk about what he was about to do and replace it with the time edited out for operations like swapping chuck ends, it pretty much evens out... and he cut that bowl from blank to sanding-ready in a bit more than 20 minutes!
To watch him come in to the wing from the side and take just a hair's width all of the way to the center, well... I kept waiting for a catch every time he approached the wings, seeing that bowl fly off of the lathe and impale the cameraman. The final thickness appeared to be in the 1/8" range, and when Tim asked him about the use of calipers, he replied he's been doing it so long the only time the calipers come out is when he is going ultra-thin or ultra-deep... I estimate the bowl to be about 6" deep, and I have no doubts it was consistent throughout.
His use of a standard chisel (reground, of course) as a scraper was interesting, and I was surprised to hear him say he only got 15-20 seconds worth of turning before needing to put a new edge on the tool. Tearout was extremely low with just the gouge.
Speaking of gouges... the most amusing/surprising part was watching him start a cut inside the bowl (riding the bevel), but then moving his hand away from the tool rest. He truly did let the bevel ride the wood in, almost to the point of working one-handed.
Best WW/Yoder episode I've seen so far
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Originally Posted by Harry Robinette
