Flat Wood Working vs. Turning

[Rich Riddle]

At an art show in Anacortes, Washington a group of turners were letting "normal" folks try out turning and a lathe. They asked if I wanted to turn. I don't even use the old Walker Turner lathe in the shop. Then one said, "Oh, you're one of those flat wood guys." It was quite humorous though he seemed to be thinking it was an insult and apologized. Is turning more challenging in your opinion?

[Doug Hepler]

Rich,

No, I do not think that turning is necessarily more difficult than flat work, but it is different. It will feel more difficult if you have achieved a certain level of confidence and skill as a flat woodworker. Learning to turn feels like going back to square one. This was my case. I was an accomplished furniture maker "flat wood guy" before I started turning, except for turning table legs.

I find that turning is very different than flat work in many ways, especially because you are shaping wood freehand, so to speak. When you are turning there is no line to cut to, although you can make a template to help you see when you have removed enough wood. It's harder, say, to get four matching round table legs than four matching tapered legs or cabriole legs. Turning and sharpening turning tools is more balletic than sharpening flat chisels and plane irons.

Now I am somewhat accomplished as a turner although my work mainly depends on my flat wood skills rather than my skill at the lathe per se. I do segmented work (segments and staves) and bowl from a board, which require joinery skill. So, I distract the eye from seeing my turning mistakes with interesting designs. I can get the finished surface I want much more frequently in flat work than with my turned work. I'm still learning. One mistake can put a helluva gouge on a turning, in a heartbeat.

Tool presentation, especially of skew chisels, is 100% skill. It's probably harder to learn to turn with a skew than to learn how to use a plane correctly. A catch feels much more dramatic on a lathe than on a flat surface, but both cause do-overs. But lots of people never touch a skew when they are turning. They turn with scrapers, which is much easier to learn. I'll bet those demonstrators were selling a scraper of some kind.

So a long answer to what was probably as casual question. Just my two cents. If you want to learn how to turn, start with spindle tuning and go for it. Its another slippery slope but its fun to learn new skills.

Doug

[John K Jordan]

At an art show in Anacortes, Washington a group of turners were letting "normal" folks try out turning and a lathe. They asked if I wanted to turn. I don't even use the old Walker Turner lathe in the shop. Then one said, "Oh, you're one of those flat wood guys." It was quite humorous though he seemed to be thinking it was an insult and apologized. Is turning more challenging in your opinion?

I think it is impossible to generalize and compare the two. I've done a little of both and my shop is set up for both (although I enjoy turning more). Both "flat" and "round" can encompass everything from trivial to amazing, requiring skills from beginner to master level. The thing that makes one "side" form a simplified opinion of the other is mostly ignorance from lack of experience.

I was teaching spindle turning to one woodworker with no lathe experience when he said in frustration "this is a LOT harder than I ever imagined it would be!" I suspect the typical turner with no flat experience would say the same thing after trying to make a board flat with a hand plane!

Turning certainly is far quicker than building fine furniture. Think how long it takes to make one piece! A few years ago someone on a turning forum commented they had a show that weekend and needed to make a few more pieces the day before. The flat wood guys got a kick out of that.

JKJ

[Rick Fisher]

I wouldn't say turning is harder, its a skill not unlike all woodworking. Cutting a straight line with a handsaw is a learned skill. Once you have it, its not really a big deal. Turning is just another facet of that ..

[Brad Barnhart]

Turning is a learned skill, like any other part of woodworking. It comes down to what you want to turn, & how willing you are to learn it, then proceed with it. I'm a scroll sawyer by choice, I reckon, but my shop is set up to do about anything I care to do. I've been studyin' the lathe for a little over a year now, & am learning. My plans are to incorporate the lathe in with some of my scroll projects. So far, its been workin' perty well. I don't own all the fancy high dollar sharpening jigs yet. I'm learnin' to sharpen freehand. I'm getting better, but still have a lot to learn, & a few more lathe tools to invest in. Learning on my own, & askin' a few questions here has kept me goin' in the right direction. But to compare flat work to lathe work isn't even a fair comparison. IMO. There's a learning curve on them both. You just have to figure out what works for best for you.

[Wayne Lomman]

You can't split wood working into turning and flat work. That was just plain ordinary prejudice and ignorance. All woodworking is multi-dimensional. Aaaargh!

[Geoff Crimmins]

I think turning is one area of woodworking that is difficult to teach yourself, and where a some hands-on instruction in beneficial. For me, I was able to read how to use a table saw and a planer, and then use the tools with no problems. I then read a book about turning, went out to the lathe, and couldn't figure out why I was getting so many catches. I finally had to track down a local turner to teach me how to do it right. On the flip side, I had been focusing on turning for a couple years when I decided to make a medicine cabinet for the bathroom. I drilled all of the holes for shelf pins on the wrong side of one of the boards. Working with flat wood definitely requires more focus on which piece goes where, where to cut the mortises, and that sort of thing. So I think both types of woodworking have their own, different challenges. I don't think the turner you were talking to meant any offense or was implying that turning was easier or more difficult than working with flat wood. I think he was just joking about the fact that sometimes turners "forget" that flat boards exist and some people like working with them.

[Jim Becker]

Flatwork and turning do go hand-in-hand in many situations and each has both shared and divergent skill sets. I enjoy both, although I haven't actually used my lathe in some time now just due to the nature of the projects I've had time for. I will say that turning can be "mesmerizing" just due to it's nature and encourage anyone to give it a whirl, pardon the expression.

Jim
Community Member

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If you have interest in turning and want to learn more, we have a great turning discussion area here at SMC where all turning subjects end up for organizational purposes.

Jim
Forum Moderator

[Rich Engelhardt]

Is turning more challenging in your opinion?

I'll let you be the judge here....

IMHO, any goof with the tools and a set of plans and the time and money and room to work can churn out "flat work".
99% of that is monkey see/monkey do. Well, maybe 90%.

Selecting the right wood and things like bookmatching doors fall into that 10% that's not monkey see/monkey do...


This however - takes a talent few people have - or will ever have - and one that can't be learned, it has to be there from birth.

(That's not my work, it's the work of my ex-brother in law. He's got an enormous talent for all things wood related)

[Steve Schoene]

Well, back in the days when all wood working was hand work--like in the 18th century, the professions of woodworking were clearly divided into turners and joiners and cabinet makers. Carving was also often treated as a separate discipline with carved work farmed out by the cabinet makers who created the carcasses.

[Art Mann]

About the only things I can think of that are common to turning and other woodworking is that you are working with a carefully chosen piece of wood (though not necessarily the same) and you are using some of the same types of finishing materials. It isn't very meaningful to me to compare such hugely different things. The same can be said of power tool woodworking and hand tool woodworking, although, in this case, the end result may be similar.

[Tim McCarthy]

I live in Oak Harbor, WA and I'm a "flat work guy". My best friend is a turner. The big difference that I notice is in finishing. I've told him that having the piece spinning in front of you and being able to finish that way is "almost like cheating".

[Mike Henderson]

I did some turning early in my woodworking career, and still do turning for furniture. The problem I encountered with turning things like bowls is that there isn't much use for them. Pretty soon you have bowls all over the house and your friends run away when they see one in your hands - for fear you'll try to give them another one.

I think I got pretty good at turning. It's just that I couldn't do anything with what I made. I think people who enjoy turning, enjoy turning. That is, they enjoy the process and don't much care about the finished product.

The reason I enjoy furniture is that I'm making something useful, something that will serve a need for generations to come.

Mike

[Turning pens would be perhaps the worse thing for me. They're extremely easy to do - they don't take any real turning talent - and there's not much originality that you can add during the turning phase. Some people turn thousands of them. For me, that's too much like working on an assembly line doing the same task over and over.]

[Rick Fisher]

Woodworking includes joinery, finishing and planning. It can be as simple or as complicated as you choose. Turning is the same. You can turn wine bottle stoppers or hollow out segmented bowls where one catch means garbage ...

[Wayne Lomman]

As already noted above, all woodworking is multi-dimensional. I would go further and point out that you are not on the right road to good woodworking until you can think and design in 3 dimensions simultaneously. The lathe, saws, spindle moulder, router, planer, thicknesser etc etc are all equally crucial in creating a finished piece. This discussion is somewhat like arguing over whether the guitarist is better than the vocalist in a band. You needed both Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in Led Zeppelin (and John Paul Jones and John Bonham). Cheers