I am a new turner

[Darrell Duvall]

I had to retire from being a trim and cabinet carpenter for health reasons but I didn't want to stop working with wood because I have so many left over pieces of oak, maple and other woods from staircases and custom cabinets.

I just bought a used Powermatic lathe and a bunch of tools from the son of an old man who died. I am getting it set up in my shed. I have some large windows that face north. Is it better to work with natural light or artificial? I have several light bulbs in the ceiling but overall this old shed is pretty dark except in front of the windows.

It came with a bunch of chucks in different sizes and boxes full of jaws, long ones, short ones, real wide ones with rubber stoppers on them for gripping bowls and platters he said. Right now I am just trying te get it organized and stored in some cabinets and drawers I have.

How do you store your tools? The man I bought them from had them sticking up in buckets sitting on the floor. He knew which one was which by what color was on the handle. He had different buckets for different kinds of tools. One bucket was scrapers, one was bowl gouges, one was spindle gouges and so on. I barely know which one is which and looking at the ground ends which are all different makes me wonder why he had so many different shapes on his bowl gouges. Lots of different sizes and lengths also. I have more than 90 tools to figure out. Some are easy, skew chisels, scrapers but all the different gouges make my head spin.

I bought his grinder on a platform with jigs on it to sharpen tools and I think I have figured it out. The sharpening is not a problem but trying to figure out why he has so many shapes on his gouges is.

He also had some tools which his son said were carbide tipped. Some are round and some are square. These tools have double grip handles. What is that for? To choke up like a bat? Why would you need to do that? They seem to tear up the wood pretty bad no matter what speed you run the lathe at. The gouges give me better cuts. So do the scrapers. The skew chisel seems to be easy to use just like a knife while whittling but I can't do much more than cut things round and smooth with it. Right now I am turning pine and oak 2x2 and 4X4 pieces left over from construction jobs. My shed is full of leftover wood like I said which is why I bought the lathe to use it up for toys and stuff. I don't have anything much bigger than 6X6s cut from the ends of newels. I have a barn full of oak and walnut and poplar in all kinds of widths and sizes. I turned a couple of oak bowls with bowl goughes and scrapers. Started out with the chuck screw in a hole and turned a recess for on of the chucks. They are okay but nothing like I see on here more like shallow saucers but my wife liked them.

I know I have a lot to learn and I am not afraid to ask stupid questions so be patient. I only know one thing for sure and that is I don't know it all.

I have lots to learn and I am going to meet a man who does turning who is going to give me lessons. I was hoping to learn a little before I met him. How about books? Any books that might help?

I really need a lot of help on this. I understand wood and tools but this is different than anything I have done. I have seen people turn spindles and newels and such and I am amazed.

[Roger Chandler]

Darrell........the very best thing you can do at this point is to find a turning club in your area.........get in with it and allow the more experienced turners to help you learn what tools do and how to present them.........it could save you many months of frustration and perhaps keep you from being injured by your lathe. Lathes can be dangerous if you do not know tool presentation, correct chuck/spur drive usage and tool rest positions, and speed issues .......all these are very important!

No question is dumb........you will learn by asking and observing and be light years ahead if you will get some mentoring from some experienced turners. The AAW has a website and you can find the chapter nearest you if you will look it up.

Also, you do not mention your location here on your page, so fill that in, and some turners in your area might see it and offer assistance in learning........the turning community is a great bunch of folks, by & large, so you will find a welcoming atmosphere!

[rick pixley01]

Completely self taught can be painful. Join a club, find a mentor, and do lots of research. Utube has loads of videos. If you try it on your own there will probably be a lot of frustration too, which may turn you off from an enjoyable hobby. Get friendly with tree trimmers in your area and love woodpiles, nothing more fun than turning green wood. Have fun and welcome to our addiction.

[Michael Gibson]

I agree with the previous posts, there are a surprising amount of clubs out there, go to the AAW site and you should be able to find a club near you. Next take lessons it will save you a lot of time, frustration and money. Keep us posted on your progress. Michael

[Jim Hipp]

I am also new at this and I found a lot about how different turners use different tools and the possibilities of turning looking at You Tube videos. There are some really good instruction in some of them.

[charlie knighton]

welcome to the votex Darrel and Jim......I will add protect yourself with dust protection and faceshield....enjoy

[Dale Gillaspy]

Natural light is always better than artificial, IMHO. You also might consider the trajectory the piece will take if and when it breaks or flies off the lathe. Windows can get expensive. As for sharpening and using the jig, you didn't say what it was, but the Oneway is very popular. If so, there is a ton of information out there on sharpening. I'd start with www.thompsonlathetools.com He has some great information. As for the carbide tipped tools, check out easywoodtools.com The double handle sounds like their design. Reallly just a design feature in the handle. I use them sometimes for heavy roughing. They have some good videos on their website as well. As far as storage goes, there are as many ways to store tools as their are turners. You will find you will gravitate to a few that you use about 90% of the time, and can organize them accordingly. The only thing I would say about You Tube is that there is some great information, but also some not so great, and some even dangerous. Welcome, and have fun.

[Thomas Canfield]

Welcome to the vortex. Starting out, the suggestions about getting some help from a turning club or turner in your area is at the top of the list. I would also recommend starting out with a few basic tools (3/8" bowl and spindle gouge, parting tool, skew, and round nose scraper, or similar) and one chuck to get the basics down and then add additional tools as the need arises. Starting out with simple forms for bowls and some spindle exercises will help you develop your skill since it does take some time to learn the coordination of eye-hand-tool to get good results. Also start with green wood for bowls and cheap wood for practice (even construction grade 2x for practice pieces). One can learn a lot about sharp tools and tool control by turning bowls out of 2x6 scrap lumber. It sounds like you do have a lot of toys to work through to determine the type of turning you want to do. Good luck and do have SAFE fun.

[Paul Gilbert]

It sounds like you hit the jack pot! Buying the estate of what sounds like a dedicated tool junkie, you probably will go months ): before you start adding to your collection. The Powermatic (I am assuming that it is one of the yellow ones - 3420 a or b) has a sliding head stock. That allows one to turn from the end of the lathe. Set up the lathe so it is easy to move the head stock down to the end of the lathe and turn your bowls standing at the end of the bed.

Good light is critical for those of us that are over the hill and don't have the eagle eyes we once had. Get a good portable goose neck light so that you can see into the interior of your bowls and hollow forms. I have a two bulb fluorescent fixture hanging over my lathe bed and one of those halogen job site lights shining on the end of the lathe. The window will come in handy with a box fan behind you blowing dust out the window.

[Jeffrey J Smith]

Darrel: Welcome to the vortex - sounds like you've got a head start on tool adiction.
While most above is great advice, I'd like to add a couple of things - nothing can really take the place of good hands on instruction, I've found that the books and DVDs by both Richard Raffan and David Ellsworth are great foundation tools.
I would caution you though, and I'm pretty sure it's self evident, that not all you see on YouTube is good practice. Safety is critical when you're sticking a stationery tool in the path of a quickly spinning chunk of wood. Use a good face shield, setup dust collection and protection, and learn to stay out of the line of fire as much as possible. The AAW has good information on both safety and technique on their website.
Clubs are great, demos and symposiums can expose you a lot of different techniques. Have fun

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Welcome! Like the others, I echo finding someone to learn from. Nice score! You are well on your way.

About YouTube. Be careful on some of those videos. Some people post some dangerous methods, so if you load up something that you think that may look dangerous, it probably is. Stick to the "famous" people and you'll be fine. MOST of the videos are fine. There was just a couple I watched that made me cringe.

[Darrell Duvall]

I had my first lesson yesterday. This man from a nearby town came over and spent most of the day with me. He used to turn a lot but has not been able to turn for a while because he was sick. He used to teach at woodturning schools. He said he is a member on here but doesn't visit mcuh anymore.
We spent a couple of hours going through all the stuff I bought. I have boxes of stuff I haven't even unpacked. Found some more chucks now I have 10 Vicmark and Nova chucks and 31 sets of jaws. he said that should be enough for a while. I have a hollowing rig which is for making hollow forms but that is way down the road. It is a Powermatic 3520B and it is in like new condition.
He explained all the different buckets of tools. One bucket is bowl gouges of different sizes and grinds for different purposes. Another bucket is spindle and detail gouges of various sizes. Also some spindle roughing gouges which he said never to use on bowls. I have a bucket full of scrapers of all different sizes and shapes. Parting tools, Skew chisels and texture tools are in other buckets. He said the bucket system was new to him but if I could get used to the color coding it was a good way to know which tool was what. He said the tools from Sorby, Packard, Taylor, Thompson, Glaser, D-way. Powder Metal and others. He said they were all good brands and good steels. He said I got a good deal on all this stuff.
So we ripped a bunch of 2by6 pine into squares and cut them into one foot long pieces.
He showed me how to mount them on the lathe between centers, the spur and live center and then he had me round them up with the spindle roughing gouge. Then he had me round them up with bowl gouges and spindle gouges and skew chisels just so I could see the difference and know that it was possible to do more than one thing with a tool.
After that we did bead and cove exercises. He called it making bumpy sticks. We turned at least 25 bumpy sticks. I used different tools and different sizes. He said practice was important to learn skills. We did some work with a skew but I could not cut a square shoulder on the pine with it like he cut. He said more practice.
Then we mounted a few squares of pine on the lathe with screw chuck and he showed me how they could be rounded up just using a bowl gouge. Then we cut the corners off some more with a bandsaw and rounded those up. He showed me how to turn a simple bowl.
So for this week he gave me a homework assignment to practice rouding up 2by2s and making bumpy sticks with different sized tools. He showed me some pictures of candlesticks and such and said that was spindle work. I knew that because I was familiar with balusters and spindles and newel posts. I have installed lots of them over the years. He said I should try to make miniature balusters out of pine as practice since I was familiar with them. Might be easier said than done.
He also showed me how to sharpen with a Wolverine jig but I had pretty much figured that out.
I am going to get some more lights installed and put some 3/4 tongue and groove plywood on the floor to get my feet and the lathe off the concrete. I am also going to move one of my small dust collectors out of the barn and put it in the shed and have it blowing out through the wall. I have some old cabinets that I will move in also to store all the stuff. I am going to put in house fan to pull air in through the windows to cool the place off until I figure out if I can aircondition it.

[Mike Peace]

Welcome to the vortex and sounds like you are off to a great start with the lessons. A popular book for beginners is Woodturning: A Foundation Course by Keith Rowley.