Thread: A dare !!!

Took woodworking in school one year, then wasn't allowed because that was vocational training, and I wasn't vocational material.

What I thought I learned was that I wasn't good with hand tools. What I REALLY learned was that I wan't good with dull hand tools (chisels, planes, saws). Put me off woodworking for over 30 years.

Not allowed near the lathe, but I did steal some time on my older brother's lathe at home (despite his offer to remove my arms if I ever touched it). As far as I know none of my efforts have survived, although I did.

We didn't have a lathe in the wood shop class, so, like Ern, it was pretty much flatwork,,,until the shop teacher caught me using the bandsaw to cut out a handgun shape and was banned from shop after that...unfortunatly no pic of it as it was confiscated

Originally Posted by Tony Morton

Went onto a secondhand/antique shop in Walcha recently and spotted some wooden goblets that looked familiar shore enough had my name on the I'd sold them up there in 75/76 $2.50 each now $15 . Mum still has a standard lamp I made on the Makita lathe one of the first things I made will get photos for the records .

Cheers Tony

Now thats gotta hurt when you see something you made yourself being sold as "antique"

Originally Posted by TTIT

Now thats gotta hurt when you see something you made yourself being sold as "antique"

Not really. I have learnt a long time ago that in Australia what comes into the shop as "second hand" goes out of the shop as "antique". Must be the American influence.

Originally Posted by Frank&Earnest

Not really. I have learnt a long time ago that in Australia what comes into the shop as "second hand" goes out of the shop as "antique". Must be the American influence.

Might be the slow stock turns

Don't remember doing any woodturning in high school. If I had, I may have got Bruce Leadbetter who grew up in the same small country town on the far north coast of NSW.

Did a little bit of turning, in a fashion, before I went to high school. We made our own yo-yos (out of beautiful camphor laurel) and then painted them with silver frost so they looked proper. Not sure how we learned to turn. Maybe from watching Bruce's father who had the local woodworking factory.

Haven't got any of those early efforts but I do have a pic of a spinning wheel that I turned a few years later when I first went teaching in a high school (if that counts) and had access to some lathes. See attached photo - that's my lovely wife-to-be spinning.... we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary at the end of this year....

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Does the wheel still exist Neil???

and does she still use it ??

My school had Sheet Metal Work, Turning and Fitting, and Woodwork (no lathes) and I did four years of each - none of the peices I made are in my possession. A bit sad really because I got high marks in each subject.

soth

Originally Posted by NeilS

...

Haven't got any of those early efforts but I do have a pic of a spinning wheel that I turned a few years later when I first went teaching in a high school (if that counts) and had access to some lathes. See attached photo - that's my lovely wife-to-be spinning.... we celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary at the end of this year....

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happy 40th
I've got some really old sheets with that same pattern as that dress

Originally Posted by TTIT

Does the wheel still exist Neil???

Yes, but not where I could get to readily to take another photo.

Originally Posted by wheelinround

and does she still use it ??

No, hasn't been out or in use for over 30yrs now, so we have also stopped weaving our own clothes...

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Originally Posted by Sawdust Maker

happy 40th

I've got some really old sheets with that same pattern as that dress

Thanks Nick.

Reckon that dress was probably made out of the same sheets...

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Originally Posted by NeilS

No, hasn't been out or in use for over 30yrs now, so we have also stopped weaving our own clothes...

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must be a bunch of really wooly sheep roaming around

Congrats on the 40 Neil...lovely picture of the wife.
Ours is also this May 29. Didn't think we'd make 4 let alone 40

Congrats to Ed and Neil.

Good and faithful servants clearly

Here's my 'boomerang' cheese board. 25 x 15 cm. Jarrah (prob) around Mountain ash at a guess.

My first turning was a redgum candle holder; a squat thing for a fat candle. Dunno where it went. I learned soon that I didn't know how to turn, and had no idea of design, so I scraped something with coves and beads that was pretty ugly. I used Sorby CS tools that I tried to sharpen using a sandstone wheel in a hand-powered grinder.

A mate departing for a better life in Qld had sold me a kit of pulley-driven ww machines he'd had from his father. Basically an electric motor with 3 pulleys that sat on a hinged board on the side of a table, and an assortment of bench machines to run off it. A tiny saw, scroll saw, buzzer, sanding disc and a lathe. That had 2 steel rods for ways, a screw-on drive dog and dead tail centre. The experience wasn't fun and I dropped it after that one piece. Took years before I went into doing it properly.