segmented turning vs solid wood whats your calling

[Mike Tilley]

While it was fun turning some wet wood yesterday and trying to learn something new i think that segmented turning is my calling. Even though most of the time you can finish a solid piece of wood faster than you can a segmented turning the construction and design of the segmented piece adds a little bit of a challenge to the piece.
I'am just now starting to turn some wood from logs and just yesterday turned my first green wood and had to ask fellow creekers what to do next and got some good advice hope it works for me.as i still have some walnut and cherry log to try to make something out of.
After putting danish oil on that piece this morning i finished a segmented vase that i had been working on for a few days so that is where this post came from.
So what draws you to your type of turning? or is it just the vortex

[Roger Chandler]

To date I have done solid wood......but I plan to learn segmenting........ I want to do both! Time is a factor for me, so I have to do projects at present that are not stretched out over days or even weeks.........hopefully, I can do some segmenting along as a side project while other things occupy my time in the future.

Nice work, Mike!

[Tom Winship]

Mike,
There are days I like segmented and days I just want to climb on the lathe and turn something else. I know this; I will never be a master at any of those but still like to do even flatwork. Yesterday, I cut out some ring toss toys on my scroll saw for a charity.

I've been through the handsaw and handplane restoration thing. It seems that wood working is a journey with lots of hills, valleys, and turns. One of the most rewarding things recently is that my 46 year old son has taken up woodworking (again after high school).

My roundabout answer is try to do it all to some degree of success.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Mike - you have to turn what is fun for you! While I have a lot of respect for folks that can envision and then create a segmented turning.. I, personally, do not have the patience. I like solid wood, the natural flow of the grain and any of the imperfections (history) the wood has to offer. If you enjoy segmenting - then there are a lot of very talented folks here on the Creek that will be able to guide you! Have fun!!

[Jamie Donaldson]

Turning styles often reflect the personality or traits of the maker, and using Malcolm Tibbett's definition, some of us are are chunkers and others are chippers! I'm a chunker, and don't have the patience to assemble a zillion little colored chips of wood into an integrated whole. I rather enjoy the revelation of opening and shaping a single chunk of wood, each unique to some degree. Although my Dad and Grandpa were engineers, I'm a bit dyslexic, and for me the fact that chunkers don't have to practice much math is a blessing!

[Darren Jamieson]

I as well beleive there is a certain amount of satisfaction in both. Segmented work really catches my eye but I also know that the shape is pretty much defined by the way the rings go together but to take a log and useing the tool alone try to shape it to what your mind is thinking is really something as well. So to me they can both be rewarding but you need to be in the right frame of mind do do either or they just won't come out right.

[Reed Gray]

Turning styles often reflect the personality or traits of the maker...

Jamie, I thought it was called 'idiot syncracies'. I don't consider myself 'artistic' enough to attempt segmented works, though I have plenty of wood to work with if I wanted. I have trouble planning ahead, and it is easier/simpler to put on a blank and see what happens, than to make a plan and have it turn out for me.

robo hippy

[charlie knighton]

i am a chunck woodturner, i guess my wallhangings would be considered chunck also

[Michelle Rich]

I have been a segmenter, solid turner, chairmaker, negative space inventor/designer, wall art turner, flat woodworker,stained glass artist, and many many more concepts have been made in my studio. i cannot stick to one thing. I must explore all avenues. I suppose I am to some folks erratic, and can't stick with one thing, but to me, there are so many options, I want to explore as may as I can before I kick the bucket!I think it is the nature of being an artist.

[Thom Sturgill]

I'm with Michelle on this. I grew up with a father who made violins and guns (both metal work and stocking) in the basement and learned wood and metalwork (lathe) while in school. I also painted some and tried my hand at clay sculpture. When I returned to woodworking I bought power tools and then went through a phase of re-conditioning old planes,saws and chisels. THEN I rediscovered the lathe (wood this time).

I have yet to take up segmenting other than a couple of stave constructed vessels, but it is definitely on the bucket list.

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

As long as you're having fun, what does it matter? If we all liked only doing the same thing, it would be a pretty boring society.

[Robert Henrickson]

I tend away from segmenting, but recently have been doing what is in effect a couple types of segmenting albeit with relatively few pieces. In turning, I try whatever rouses my interest, so I do a wide variety of things. At present I have a chair, plates, misc spindle things, and some segmenting in progress. It's pretty much a given that I am unlikely to have a 'signature piece'.

The description a fellow grad student long ago had for my academic career even to that point applies equally well to my woodturning:

"An admirable breadth of interest, or a deplorable lack of direction."