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TTIT
8th April 2010, 03:04 PM
I know there's a few here like me that tried turning once at High school then took around 30 years to follow it up - so what happened to your high school masterpiece?????
Mine was in Granny's lounge for about 20 years but came back to me when she carked it and then it got lost in the murky depths of a cupboard somewhere for a few more. I rediscovered mine on the weekend and was nearly going to bin it - but thought someone here might get a laugh out of it first :C. Started out as 4x4 redgum verandah post - I must have made a lot of dust before I decided to stop hacking :B:B:B

Ozkaban
8th April 2010, 03:34 PM
Neat idea Vern. Unfortunately, for some blatantly stupid reason, while I really enjoyed woodwork in year 7, I did 4 years of home science... It was only in the last couple of years that I came back to woodwork. So all of my high school masterpieces have been eaten :doh:

Looking forward to a very fun slideshow though :2tsup:

Cheers,
Dave

Reece
8th April 2010, 03:40 PM
it only took me 6 years to get my own lathe after i finished school, and my first masterpiece was a clock. the only turned parts were 2 pillars running down the sides of the acrylic clock face. it currently lives at the old girl's place in Bowen. i'lll try to get some photos of it and put them up here.

Sawdust Maker
8th April 2010, 03:43 PM
Vern
Lookin good
I never got to do woodwork as it came to my school the year behind me - I remember drooling over the tools though!

artme
8th April 2010, 06:12 PM
Mine was snavelled by a member of the light fingered gentry>:C:C

orraloon
8th April 2010, 06:35 PM
My standard lamp had pride of place in my parents lounge room and I was a bit embarrassed by my dad pointing out this great bit of workmanship to every visitor.
Dont know what finally happened to it.
Regards
John

tea lady
8th April 2010, 06:40 PM
I have my first piece of wheel thrown pottery. My mum gave it to me a few years ago. I didn't believe that it was mine but its got my name written on the bottom.:oo: Will take a pic later. Maybe over the weekend. I'm a bit busy at the moment.:cool:

bowl-basher
8th April 2010, 10:24 PM
My first was not at school but a lot later it was a rolling pin made from a bit of dunnage pinched of a truck .. it is still used today and i had to borrow it from SWMBO to take this pic I have offered to redo it but have been told to "leave it alone I like it as it is"
Bowl-Basher

cultana
8th April 2010, 11:31 PM
bowl-basher: nice to see you have attained the enlighten level of retirement. Enjoy the club so to speak.

Also haven't you learnt anything, never touch SWMBO's kitchen tools

cultana
8th April 2010, 11:33 PM
You are all scaring me..
Woodwork in school!! Ok we had an option of woodworking, engineering or art. Art was somewhat crazy as we had a guy called Charles Bannon, (For those not in the know, the father of the SA Primer John Bannon). It was also at the time of that family’s problems.
Well woodwork was off, all nasty dark side, and art definitely off.

So I did engineering. That was cool. I still have somewhere a drill press I made and a few other bits. We had a bit of flexibility after you did all the fixed exercises so I started of a nice brass cannon. I had it all designed, fast acting screw breach block like the big guns, recoil mechanism and carriage. I had the barrel finished and was starting in the breach block and someone decide it was too real. Bummer.:(

Anyway my engineering experience helped me do a small engine head shave, took 2mm of my Fiat 500 engine head. Yes did that on a lathe as well. Wow it went nicely after that. I had to change the fuel mix from standard to super petrol with a dash of racing fuel. :U

Sorry to say woodworking of any type came late in life when it became obvious that times it was safer to get outa the house..:D

TTIT
8th April 2010, 11:37 PM
My first was not at school but a lot later it was a rolling pin made from a bit of dunnage pinched of a truck .. it is still used today and i had to borrow it from SWMBO to take this pic I have offered to redo it but have been told to "leave it alone I like it as it is"
Bowl-BasherStill in pretty good nick too BB! I was asked to resurface one that was over 70 years old a couple of weeks ago - for the second time in its life :oo:. Felt almost criminal to take a slice off but it peeled beautifully with the skew and didn't even need sanding. I asked the owner how she got all the dents in it? "How else do you get crushed nuts?!" she says!!! Walked out the door with my legs abnormally close together :B

Frank&Earnest
9th April 2010, 12:52 AM
Well, Vern, the closest I got to technical education in high school was accounting. I don't have the original grad balance sheet, but I can show you a similar one if you really want to.:D

That's why I took up woodworking as a hobby, I needed to make something tangible ...

rsser
9th April 2010, 06:35 AM
We weren't allowed near the lathes. Only when the teacher wasn't in the room we'd sneak up and try to correct a botched flatwork cut on its disc sander.

We did things like picture frames, trays and chopping boards. A few years ago my folks did a major clean-out in order to move into a retirement village and gave me the cheeseboard back. They'd had it for about 35 years :oo:

Cliff Rogers
9th April 2010, 08:11 AM
I have a lamp somewhere, I think my Mum had it for a long time but I haven't seen it for years.

Tony Morton
9th April 2010, 09:05 AM
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

wheelinround
9th April 2010, 09:33 AM
No idea where my lamp went after I gave it to dad.

My Leaf tray hung around at home for many years also long gone I'd say.

I do still have the wooden Oregon cement float dad won that one and now I have it back it often gets used as a sanding block. That would have been made 66/67 I think

switt775
9th April 2010, 09:48 AM
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.

Ed Reiss
9th April 2010, 11:50 AM
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 :(

TTIT
9th April 2010, 03:37 PM
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:o Now thats gotta hurt when you see something you made yourself being sold as "antique" :C

Frank&Earnest
9th April 2010, 05:56 PM
:o Now thats gotta hurt when you see something you made yourself being sold as "antique" :C

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. :D

Big Shed
9th April 2010, 05:59 PM
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. :D

Might be the slow stock turns:doh:

NeilS
9th April 2010, 09:28 PM
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...:).

.....

TTIT
9th April 2010, 11:11 PM
Does the wheel still exist Neil???

wheelinround
9th April 2010, 11:27 PM
:whs: and does she still use it ??

masoth
10th April 2010, 01:13 AM
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

Sawdust Maker
10th April 2010, 10:10 AM
...

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...:).

.....

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

NeilS
10th April 2010, 10:17 AM
Does the wheel still exist Neil???

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


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...:U

.....

NeilS
10th April 2010, 10:34 AM
happy 40th

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

Thanks Nick.

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

.....

Ed Reiss
10th April 2010, 12:04 PM
No, hasn't been out or in use for over 30yrs now, so we have also stopped weaving our own clothes...:U

.....

must be a bunch of really wooly sheep roaming around :doh:

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:;:D

rsser
10th April 2010, 01:24 PM
Congrats to Ed and Neil.

Good and faithful servants clearly :wink:

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.

BobL
10th April 2010, 03:14 PM
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

The only think I still have from high school is the sheoak marking gauge I made in year 9l - and I still use it too. It's the only thing I have to show for 3 years of high school Metal Work and Woodwork. I also made heaps of useful stuff at night school welding classes in the 1970s, like light truck ramps, axle stands, an MC engine stand, BBQ, open fire grate and various tools but I have none of those left- begged stolen or borrowed and never retruned.

Manuka Jock
10th April 2010, 05:46 PM
Mum still has the fruit bowl that I turned at high school , sitting on top of the china cabinet .
Today I would call it a roughed out blank ,
a blank lovingly sanded and french polished by Dad :)

NeilS
10th April 2010, 09:47 PM
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:;:D

And to you and yours, Ed.

.....

haggismuncher
11th April 2010, 12:10 AM
It isn't turned,
but my "bookshelf" has survived 35 years, 24 houses and an emigration by bicyle to the far side of the world (it went ahead in a cardboard box).

I have promised the kids in my woodwork class that I'd bring it in so they can see the standard of work their teacher produces.

Might get around to finishing it soon, or maybe I'll get my 3 year old to do that when he is a bit older.

Thinking of old pieces of work, the one other piece I brought out from Scotland was a 30cm x 30cm x 30cm box. It was my grandfathers, he was a keen woodworker, but over the years the layers of gloss paint had built up hiding the finger joints. For most my childhood we kept boot polish and a mountain of brushes in it. Sunday night was all 9 boys lining our shoes up and polishing them, one brush to put the polish on one to take it off. Do people still polish shoes?

I decided over the school summer holidays to renovate it, as I carefully stripped back this family heirloom, a motif began to appear. Maybe it was going to be the Gordon Clan crest lovingly carved by my grandfather 100 years ago when he was 24.

As the layers came off there was a sign of colour and a picture of a palm tree, rather odd I thought. Then the unmistakable words came through "Californian Syrup of Figs".

Guess who had forgotten his grandfather had also been a shipping clerk and probably picked it up at work to store the boot polish and brushes in? :doh:

Chris

wheelinround
11th April 2010, 09:14 AM
:lolabove::rofl:hoot mon

Sawdust Maker
11th April 2010, 03:34 PM
great story Chris :2tsup:

My aunt had a fat pig chopping board my cousin had made for her
she used it so much she had worn/cut/whatever right through it

I traced around it and made her another. (but I think she kept the original)

Harry72
14th April 2010, 04:25 PM
I'll game Vern:U, excuse the dust and the 25yr old finish!

Its about 10" in dia, it reminds me of a bad memory my friend put his hand into a bandsaw cutting out his laminated blank round. He managed to cut 3 fingers in half longways... he didnt listen to the teacher:doh:

nine fingers
14th April 2010, 08:08 PM
Vern , I attended Camperdown High School, Harry Weaving was the head master, I didn't like him and he felt the same about me. One thing I forgave him for was the woodwork prize in1951.
Presented with a book, Building Modern Furniture, still go it on the shelf.
Attached are a couple of pages from it . cheers John

Sawdust Maker
16th April 2010, 10:01 PM
I'll game Vern:U, excuse the dust and the 25yr old finish!

Its about 10" in dia, it reminds me of a bad memory my friend put his hand into a bandsaw cutting out his laminated blank round. He managed to cut 3 fingers in half longways... he didnt listen to the teacher:doh:
ouch :bandaid:


Vern , I attended Camperdown High School, Harry Weaving was the head master, I didn't like him and he felt the same about me. One thing I forgave him for was the woodwork prize in1951.
Presented with a book, Building Modern Furniture, still go it on the shelf.
Attached are a couple of pages from it . cheers John

I see he like you so much he personally signed it :doh::o

TTIT
16th April 2010, 10:33 PM
I'll game Vern:U, excuse the dust and the 25yr old finish!

Its about 10" in dia, it reminds me of a bad memory my friend put his hand into a bandsaw cutting out his laminated blank round. He managed to cut 3 fingers in half longways... he didnt listen to the teacher:doh::o:C Ouch! Not a nice memory but I feel better now I know I'm not the only one hoarding junk from my youth :;:B


Vern , I attended Camperdown High School, Harry Weaving was the head master, I didn't like him and he felt the same about me. One thing I forgave him for was the woodwork prize in1951.
Presented with a book, Building Modern Furniture, still go it on the shelf.
Attached are a couple of pages from it . cheers JohnI didn't like my teacher much either but he wasn't as generous as yours - or my work sucked :think: - food for thought :U