A note on turning delicate/lumpy stock

**karlkuehn** · 23rd July 2007, 02:31 AM

After reading some of the posts below, I thought I'd let you in on one of my little secrets about turning delicate and/or dangerous stock.

It may be a little bit of cheating to you lathe purists, but sometimes when I'm turning something odd that may blow out (or up), I like to rough it out with an angle grinder while the lathe is turning. I use 60 or 80 grit hard discs with a hard rubber backer disc, and they can be bought for $20 or so from Harbor Freight or even Ebay. It allows you to at least round off all the potentially grabbing parts and quickly get the blank roughed down to safety. I use it on burls and inlace materials as well. Can't tell you how many acrylester blanks that threw chunks of themselves across my workshop before I tried this. The picture below shows how I do it. The wood in the picture is cocobolo, and was on my lathe when I took the demonstration pic. For normal stuff like that, nothing beats a sharp turning tool.

Obviously, extreme care should be exercised when using this method. I have removed the guards from my grinder just as a force of habit - I built boats for years, and when grinding on curves and such while laying upside down in a foc'sle you need to be able to use 100% of the grinding circle. The spinning grinder will lay you open pretty quickly if you're not used to how they buck and move, not to mention you can do some pretty serious reshaping of your lathe and mandrel parts if you have an oops. The dust is also quite plentiful, and I hold my shop vac hose in one hand and the grinder in the other to cut down on it. I need to invest in a lathe dust hood, I guess.

Yeah, I'm a little bit nuts, but there's just something satisfying about using two power tools at the same time. Actually, with the vacuum, that's 3 tools! GruntgruntGRUNT!!

**Penpal** · 23rd July 2007, 11:45 AM

Noticed you were on line and I can only use so much time on the net would like to say your contributions are fascinating to me ,the pic of your angle grinder and lathe is wonderfull.I have decided recently to use a similar means using an angle drill,much safer with a 50mm 2inch that is disk system prompted by the toughest thing I have experienced Sugar Palm from Thailand,it makes tool steel blunt as you watch.I will post a pic soon the drill has variable but slower speed unless you possess a variable speed control unit.

All the best Peter

**karlkuehn** · 23rd July 2007, 12:06 PM

Thanks, Peter! I gotta say, I've learned more in a day or two on this forum than I have in six months of blundering my way through trial and error methods. It was only this afternoon that I noticed that this was an Aussie site after reading how many 'mates' had something 'good on them'. Thanks for having me, nice to see that there are wood nerds the world over.

I like the idea of the 2" wheel. Mine is 4 1/2" and doesn't leave me much room for error. I was just using it a minute ago on some cracked black cherry burl and saw a few sparks fly at one point. Needless to say, I fear my tailstock is slowly becoming more streamlined that it was out of the box.

Good point on saving the edges on tools. I've noticed that I'm spending a lot less time honing and a lot more time turning. Sanding disks last a long time and are cheap. $40 turning tools make me a little nervous on the hard stuff.

**bdar** · 23rd July 2007, 10:37 PM

Karl you definately think outside the square mate, Like Peters method with the 2" disc you can also get the 1" disc for bowls. Yeah there are people everywhere that love timber Karl and it is amzing to look at the diversity in careers that each have but there is that common bond which is great. $40 tools make you nervous, I have the honour of snapping a 1" Henry Taylor gouge in half

**joe greiner** · 24th July 2007, 12:49 AM

Welcome aboard, Karl. There's quite a few Yanks (Seppos), Canadians, Brits (poms), at least one fellow in Poland and another in Africa, several in Japan, and God knows where else. There's a wealth of knowledge here (as you've discovered), and much eagerness to share it.

Next thing you must do is bookmark a web site for an Australian slang dictionary. (Google is your friend.) Also note some specialized/specialised rules for spelling, although minor variations don't hinder communication. Oh, and try not to get sucked into the metric vs Imperial controversy - hazardous to your mental health.

There's a recent thread in the Woodturning-General subforum with some heated (OK, maybe just warm) debate about using power planers and other non-standard tools on the lathe. Worth a look.

Joe

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