The following has appeared in various on-line bulletin boards, as well as in club newsletters. While it is in the context of what kind of tools to buy, it really chronicles (how's that for humility!) how I got into turning and the first series of steps that I took. It is unapologetically loooooooong. I hope you enjoy it! Here it is, the beginnings of my woodturning journey!
Recently, there have been several posts here (on www.woodcentral.com) regarding what turning tools to buy, what lathe to buy, what chuck is best, etc. Most of these are from relatively new tuners, an indication of the explosive growth of the craft in recent years (credit the retiring baby-boomers for that), and one question that often comes up is whether the person should splurge now and buy the best they can afford , or start small, see if they enjoy it, and then move up.
There has been a lot of good advice given on this rather difficult issue, and I have gone through most of the posts at least 3 times (at my age, one of the pleasures of life is that you forget things, and so you get to enjoy the same thing for the "first time" again and again—I really had to stretch for that silver lining for the loss of memory experienced by every baby boomer!)
A similar question was debated a few years ago on rec.craft.woodworking, and recently, I came across my response, which Fred Holder was kind enough to publish in his newsletter. On re-reading it, I found that a lot of the comments I made then also apply now, and so I thought I'd share it with you. If you read it before, you can skip it, unless you are also an aging baby-boomer :-). If you haven't read it before, you may come to the end of this posting and decide you were better off before! But, here is what I wrote a few years ago, with very minor revisions:
Let me apologize in advance to all of you for being long-winded. In my defense, I grew up in India, where all the exams were essay-type, and it seemed that the way that the teachers judged your work is that they took the papers to the roof of the building, tossed them over, and graded them on the basis of which ones hit the ground first! Just pretend that Edith Bunker has taken up turning, and is telling Archie about it, with all the digressions she was famous for (can you see Archie strangling himself with his necktie?) For our friends across the pond, remember "The two Ronnies", and how one of the Ronnies would settle down in this huge chair, and start telling a story that meandered all over the place, but eventually got to the finish.
The question is whether one should recommend to newbies (and also those who have been turning for a while and wish to expand their arsenal of tools) that they buy tools that are not the best, in fact, may be downright inferior, or whether they should spring for the best they can afford. The answer, as is the case for most of the interesting questions in life, is "Yes" and "Yes". Yes, they should buy inferior tools (I do not mean unsafe), if it is all that they can afford, because if they didn't, they would miss out on the opportunity of finding out whether they like the craft enough to progress further (and spend more money—or make more tools themselves with all the guidance they can get from the Internet).
On the other hand, they should buy the best they can afford, because, if they bought inferior tools, they may get frustrated with them, or may not be able to do the things that they can with better tools and equipment. (Actually, an interesting aside is that, ironically, for the sake of your mental equanimity, you should buy better tools for a chore that you don't want to do, than for a hobby that you love doing—think of that one for a second).
So which is it? I could argue either case (probably due to my Jesuit training), but, my answer, based on my personal experience, is a resounding "Yes". Clarification: The purpose of a good Jesuit training is to come up with answers that mystify at first blush, and hope that by the time you get to the end, the listener/reader will have forgotten his confusion, and you don't have to explain what you said! :-)
I started turning because of SWMBO (there's a statement subject to a multitude of interpretations!)
For some reason she wanted me to take the adult education night course in woodworking at the local high school. Why, I still don't know, given that I had exhibited absolutely no aptitude for doing anything remotely like it. In fact, I have the hands of a klutz! Couple that with impatience, and you have someone who should not be doing any craft that requires manual dexterity and a willingness to take ones time to do it right. My memories of woodworking were from school in India, where we traced designs onto a piece of plywood, and then tried to cut it with a hand-held fret saw (emphasis on "tried"). Given my natural inclination, I would push too hard, break the blade, and so spent much more time changing blades than in actually cutting! Speed, speed, speed—that's what's important (was my attitude). It is the same trait that makes me a failure as a cook. If a recipe calls for baking for 30 minutes at 250 degrees, I always think that you should be able to get the same result in 15 minutes at 500! After all, the heat content is about the same. I know it doesn't work that way, but there is always a part of me that says, "Maybe this time". It's the same reason that I quit Chemistry as a major in college. Every time there was an explosion in the lab, the other students and the teachers would look at each other, shake their heads, and say "Chavda" (in India, we followed the British custom of referring to one another by our last names). So, I quit Chemistry, and became an accountant—no one objects to an accountant that wants to add up numbers in a hurry! I switched from that profession to marketing when I came to the States, but that's another story!
Anyway, to get back to night school—I prevaricated for several semesters, on the grounds that I traveled a lot as a consultant, and would often be out of town on Tuesdays when the class was held. Eventually, SWMBO reminded me that there was a reason for her title, and that it was a real title, and not an honorary one! So I signed up.
And I loved it! There were these machines, and they could do things fast!
Seriously, though, I had an enthusiastic teacher, a variety of equipment to learn about and to use, and a whole new set of skills to pick up. It was wonderful. Oh, and by the way, all my business clients were informed that for the 20 weeks of class, I had to be in Philly on Tuesday evenings—no exceptions.
Well, initially I used all the equipment that was there, making various things for the house and the garden using primarily the table saw, the bandsaw, planers, drills, etc. But slowly, and for no real reason, I gravitated to the lathe. I was "playing" on the lathe, initially with no specific end-result in mind.
I would laminate pieces of pine shelving together to make large enough blocks (I did not know about turning green wood), and turned them into bowls and vases. The lathes that we had were the most unstable things created—in retrospect, they were truly meant for light spindle turning. If the wood was even slightly out of round, the whole thing would start walking across the room. In fact, one often had to recruit the assistance of a fellow-student to hold down the lathe while you initially turned the wood—sort of a human sandbag!
Furthermore, I found out (later) that I was trying to turn bowls and hollow vessels using spindle-turning tools—the kinds of sets that you see on eBay, made from carbon steel, shaped wrong in many cases, and SMALL! So I was using the wrong equipment on a lousy lathe, and it cost me all of about $40 a semester. And it was great! I was having the time of my life. I was doing things that I never thought I could do—heck, I had'nt even conceived of the possibility of doing them, and, over time, I was doing a fairly decent job of them!
So, that's where my emotional "Yes, use whatever you can afford to try it and see if you like it" comes from. It is just as possible that I might have been turned off by the frustration of using inferior equipment, but I think that turning is insidious—for some of us there is something about it that gets into your system, and if that happens, you're going to stick with it no matter what. Nowadays, when my friends want me to show them how to turn, I warn them of the danger of getting hooked.
Well, now for the flip side of the argument, i.e., the reason to buy the best tools you can afford (but I'll add a caveat).
I went to that night school for several years, as our house does not have a basement, so there was no place to put the lathe. Then, as a birthday present, SWMBO sent me for a long weekend class with David Ellsworth. The funny part is that I had no idea who he was. He was recommended by another turner, Bill Hunter from California, who said that David was a great turner and a wonderful teacher. So I went to Quakertown, PA. Where I learned that I had been turning bowls and hollow vessels using spindle-turning tools (and no, I was not doing end-grain hollowing!) When David pulled out the standard bowl gouge and his swept-back gouge (he hadn't named it his "Signature gouge" yet), I was impressed—this was a big piece of steel! Lesson #1—stand further away from the lathe than I was used to, if I wanted to avoid gouging the wood inadvertently! Talk about a steep learning curve. And then when it came to hollowing using his tools and riding the lathe—that's when I realized why the tools I had previously used to hollow kept on being knocked out of my hand.
As an aside, just to show the diversity in the class, there I was at the bottom of the class in terms of ability, knowledge, etc. (heck, I did not even own a lathe!), and also present in the class was Trent Bosch!
Well, to make a long story short (Hah!), I realized after the next night school semester that I had to get my own lathe. So I discussed it with David, and ended up getting a Woodfast, plus several tools that he recommended. And, of course, I started to produce objects that I hadn't even imagined before.
So, is there a benefit to recommending that newbies buy good equipment—absolutely, if they can afford it. If not, go with whatever you can, even if you have to do what I did,
which, in effect, was to borrow it!
Now for the caveat that I had mentioned re buying the best equipment. When I had discussed buying the lathe with David, he had mentioned that I would have to level the lathe, and described how to do so by using a bolt on the leg that wasn't quite in contact with the ground. Well, somehow that got translated in my mind to having to make the lathe horizontal, while what he meant was to make sure that all four feet were in contact with the floor. So I made it "level" based on my definition, and, no matter what I did, that lathe would shake at the slightest provocation. I tried everything: added a wider base at one end, weighted it down with sand, got a center-steady. And made sure that it was horizontal on both axes! I was seriously thinking of somehow bracing it to the wall, when a turner at the club I had joined asked me if I had tried to shim it. And then he said the magic words "You know, it does not have to be horizontal!" Light-bulb time! I did what he had suggested, and the lathe has worked like a dream ever since. My point (yes, there is one) is that you can have the best tools, but that is no guarantee that you will not mess it up royally! Would I buy a different one today? Yes, but it does the job, and the shortcomings in the results are due to me, and not the lathe.
I consider myself very fortunate to have been "forced" to turn. Whether using the right tools or the wrong tools, it is hard to describe the satisfaction and joy that I derive every time I take a log and transform it into something else—all fellow-turners know what I am talking about.
And then, when other people admire your work—well, that is just the icing on the cake.
A couple of years ago, I started to donate my pieces to the local library for them to sell. The library system in my township is a wonderful example of how government works! The township pays for the building, the utilities, the salaries of the library staff, the ground-keeping costs, etc. In fact, although budgets have been slashed drastically this year, it pays for everything. Except for the books (and CDs and movies). Those have to be obtained through community donations. So, in effect, the way the government thinks is that they'll give you everything you need for a library……except for the key reason why people go there in the first place—for that, you are on your own, buddy.
As a result, the library has to conduct donation drives. Well, a few years ago, I started to give my work to the library, and it was a win-win-win situation—they got the proceeds, I got a tax deduction, and, hopefully, someone got to enjoy my work. It was great when my first few pieces sold! It wasn't a lot of money, but it was still fabulous. What was just as wonderful was going to the library one day, and seeing some of my pieces, and next to them was a sign the librarian had put up which said something about "Made by a local woodturner and artist". Now I make no pretensions about being an artist—someday, I hope to be a good craftsman, but, even so, that sign used a term to describe me that I had never ever associated with myself.
This year, there was a craft show at the library where I took a table, and it was great to have people come up and say something like, "You know, I bought one of your pieces as a wedding present for my cousin, but after I took it home, I liked it so much that I could not part with it, and so I kept it!" I think that one of the proudest moments of my life occurred when a father with his two young kids came to my table. The boy wanted to know what each piece of wood was, while the little girl took a quick look across all the pieces, narrowed down her choices to three, examined them and discussed them carefully with her father, and selected one, which they bought. It was obvious that they were picking a gift for someone, and, as I wrapped up the piece, I asked the father whom it was for. When he said, "It is a birthday present for my wife", I had to fight to keep my emotions under control.
So, to get back to the issue we started with (if you can remember it), yes, one should buy the "best" tools that one can afford. And yes, we can borrow everything like I did initially, or buy the starter sets and a starter lathe!
But finally, the most important thing is not which tools to buy, but to use them, to enjoy what you can do with them, and, to get help in using them, either in person through classes and demonstrations, through videos (that you can borrow from clubs or rent from stores if you have to), or through the Internet. Just do it—get yourself some free wood, and make something out of it! I remember a few years ago, going to an extremely well-known craft store that carries a lot of wood turnings, and being accosted by one of the salespeople. We got talking, and I mentioned that I was a turner in my spare time. She said that she, too, was studying turning, and had been for several months. I asked her what kinds of turnings she did. It was then that she reiterated that she was studying turning, and clarified that it was from books, and that she had never touched a lathe yet, but hoped to do so sometime soon!
The best tools in the world cannot equal the willingness to try things despite the knowledge that you are almost certainly going to fail. The joy lies in learning, and in progress, and in the final success, no matter how small it may be.
Now, quit wasting time reading this drivel, and go turn something!