Any Of You Changed Your Woodworking Skills And Went With Turning Most Of The Time

[Frederick Skelly]

I find myself drawn towards Turning rather than furniture and cabinet building.Starting to think I jumped the gun on what I wanted to do in the Craft. That make sense to anybody?

Sounds like you bought a bunch of stuff and now that youve had a chance to use it, youre getting a sense of what you like best, based on your current skills. I dont think youre alone in that experience. Id say follow your preferences and continue to refine your turning skills. Get as much enjoyment out of it as you can. Later on, you might want to develop skills for using the other tools you bought. If not, you can sell them and spend what you get back on something else that suits you.

Like I said - enjoy yourself - thats the real point of it. Post some pics of your work sometime!

Fred

[Lee Koepke]

I make (a little) money at both. My flatwork stuff sells better/faster than my round stuff, but right now both are doing decent enough. I find that turning wood reveals a beauty and dimension in wood thats usually hidden in flatwork. Turning relaxes me, whether I sell it or not. I am far from proficient at it, but still enjoy it.

I still do both because they offer different creative views and it keeps me from getting stagnant or bored with one version or another.

[Thom Sturgill]

I did the same thing and later sold the Planer and Jointer to my brother. I'm 64 and he's 71. Be both have done woodworking since we were kids and he's a luthier. I've just made a couple of instruments, but my dad did most of his life. I started buying tools a few years before I expected to retire and the lathe was the last major tool for a shaker project. I was hooked. I joined a club. I joined the AAW. I have enjoyed my shop time more than ever before.

Luckily I do not need to sell. A lot of club members sell to get that next tool they want, and sell too cheaply. Bowls and pens are the most common item to sell and some items like peppermills, ornaments, scoops, and honey dippers can do well. But I for one do not want to become a production turner.

I did not see the lathe you bought, but looking at the tools I would not have given them a second glance if they had been free. I doubt they will hold much of an edge for long.

[Alan Trout]

Alan,

I say follow your heart and passion. For me turning is a passion. Keep you flat work tools you never know when you will need to add cabinets to your turning studio.

[Alan Gan]

Sounds like you bought a bunch of stuff and now that youve had a chance to use it, youre getting a sense of what you like best, based on your current skills. I dont think youre alone in that experience. Id say follow your preferences and continue to refine your turning skills. Get as much enjoyment out of it as you can. Later on, you might want to develop skills for using the other tools you bought. If not, you can sell them and spend what you get back on something else that suits you.

Like I said - enjoy yourself - thats the real point of it. Post some pics of your work sometime!

Fred

I make (a little) money at both. My flatwork stuff sells better/faster than my round stuff, but right now both are doing decent enough. I find that turning wood reveals a beauty and dimension in wood thats usually hidden in flatwork. Turning relaxes me, whether I sell it or not. I am far from proficient at it, but still enjoy it.

I still do both because they offer different creative views and it keeps me from getting stagnant or bored with one version or another.

I did the same thing and later sold the Planer and Jointer to my brother. I'm 64 and he's 71. Be both have done woodworking since we were kids and he's a luthier. I've just made a couple of instruments, but my dad did most of his life. I started buying tools a few years before I expected to retire and the lathe was the last major tool for a shaker project. I was hooked. I joined a club. I joined the AAW. I have enjoyed my shop time more than ever before.

Luckily I do not need to sell. A lot of club members sell to get that next tool they want, and sell too cheaply. Bowls and pens are the most common item to sell and some items like peppermills, ornaments, scoops, and honey dippers can do well. But I for one do not want to become a production turner.

I did not see the lathe you bought, but looking at the tools I would not have given them a second glance if they had been free. I doubt they will hold much of an edge for long.

Alan,

I say follow your heart and passion. For me turning is a passion. Keep you flat work tools you never know when you will need to add cabinets to your turning studio.

I am only a member of a couple forums, my other most visited is BBQ focused.

I do some lurking on a few others. I hold out before joining in order to get a feel of the place.

I want to say something about this site, it is GREAT! People respond their thoughts honestly, directly and without judgement. This thread is full of many various views and every post has been presented in a very professional way, I really admire the vast amount of knowledge that resides here. My woodworking skills have improved because of the information I have found.

I wanted to thank, Fred, Lee, Thom and Alan. The last 4 posts are so positive, understandable and heartfelt. Really Thanks to everyone that has responded, many good views and personal opinions have been posted.

Such a Great site you have here, Thanks for letting me hang out.

[Joe Meirhaeghe]

I have to agree with Alan Trout here. I did flat work for about 30 years & really enjoyed it. Then I was introduced on how to turn deep hollow vessels. I've developed a passion for deep hollowing and gave up flat work about 6 years ago now & haven't looked back.
That being said I still have all my flat work power tools, table saw, shaper, jointer, thickness planner, drill press, radial arm saw, mortice machine, band saw ect.
I don't see me going back to flat work but I've got a lot of nice machines and if I should chose to go back and do some flat work I'm well equipped to do so. I figure there not costing me any thing sitting idle & If I ever wanted to replace them some where down the road it would cost me more than what I could get out of them if I sold them now.

[Dan Jechura]

Turning is time consuming. When is was young and have a familiy, work and take care of a house there was no time for a lathe. I did flat work, house repair and Boy Scouts. Now that my familiy is grown and moved out, done with scouting ( 28 years) and tired of working on the house I picked up turning. I sell a few, give a few, keep alot and burn a few. To me it's rewarding. I see the end result. In my job I do not see the end result of my work. I have been turning all most 4 years and I think I have finished my 250 th bowl. Another 300 in the ruff and drying. Local wood is cheep for me, $20 a truck load and a bowl, or free for the taking.

[Jim Underwood]

Wood is supposed to be FLAT.

If that is so why did the good Lord make it ROUND?
:-)

[Justin Stephen]

Almost every turner, when they're starting out, thinks they can turn some art and sell it for a lot of money. Heck, many woodworkers think they can make furniture and sell it for a bunch of money. Before you quit your day job, try to sell some of your turnings to people, other than family. You'll find it's a very tough business. You'll also find that there are few people "with money to burn". And those who do have money are looking for art.

On the other hand, some people will buy anything made out of wood that seems handcrafted. I recently got re-married and a relative of my wife's bought us a large wooden bowl she had gotten at some craft festival as a wedding present. Either the relative had no idea I was a woodturner or had some crazy notion that getting a woodturner someone else's bowl was a good gift. The good news is that it was turned from a lovely piece of butternut. The bad news is that it is a simply dreadful creation, without any stretch of consistent wall thickness at all and obvious signs of it being finished with a tool in desperate need of sharpening. Yet, I think it is safe to say that this relative probably spent a pretty penny for it. Oh well.

Otherwise, you can turn some small, simple things and sell a lot of them for a low price. But that would be so boring it's hard to imagine. Doing production line turning - by hand - would be absolute agony for me.

Agreed. There is a shop near me that would probably sell my work if I asked them to, and at a reasonable commission. But production turning just doesn't sound like fun to me.

There are a LOT of turners who thought they could turn pens and make money. Way too many of them thought that - I'll bet there's very few who do more than make a few bucks occasionally selling pens. Certainly not enough pens to support themselves, and maybe not even enough to pay for the supplies and equipment.

It is true that I see at least one (and usually more than one) penturner plying his or her wares at every large crafts fair that I go to. A big part of the problem is that they are selling something that is on its way to becoming only marginally more mainstream than a buggy whip. The whole market for nice pens, made of wood or otherwise, has waned substantially in the past couple of decades and will continue to do so.

When it comes to turning, I sort of went about things in the opposite direction as most. While my father was/is a woodworker and even owned a lathe (which I think I only ever saw him use once), I never had any interest in woodworking of any kind until I was in my late thirties. It was woodturning that first caused me to gain an interest. I took a class and I was hooked. It was only later, when I started doing segmented turning, that I started acquiring and using other nice tools. Now, I only rarely turn anything that starts with a chunk of green wood. If there is gluing and clamping involved, I find it more enjoyable.

Besides, isn't acquiring a workshop full of tools the real objective?

[Mike Golka]

Keep all the tools and give segmented turning a try. The best of both worlds.