Thread: Equipment vs. skill

I cant identify the timber but one of your problems may be that beer that swears at you and the fact that you warm it up before you drink it is there pommie blood in you?

Gooday.

I have been around a while but I'm buggered if I know what tool it is and what it is called.

The timber is relatively easy: Blackwood or Lightwood but I lean towards Blackwood.

As long as the tools are sharp and kept that way it falls back to the turner who is doing the job.

You could not have picked a worse timber in my opinion than Blackwood to try for your 1st bowl. In most cases the only way to get a good tooled finish on most blackwood is by scraping with a very sharp scraper. YEAH YEAH, the purists can have me later

Now to your question:

I know it's said that it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but...
In your opinion, how much of the final finish of a turned piece is due to the skill of the turner, and how much is due to the quality of the tools?

My opinion is that it is the skill of the turner rather than the tools.

As a poor student turning as a hobby, I have yet to be able to afford any HSS tools (I hope that this will change within the next few months). Hence I do all my turning with a ragtag bunch of gouges and scrapers, and a roughing/deep bowl gouge which must qualify as one of the wierdest woodturning tools ever. Let's see if anyone can figure out what it is.

No I can't

Anyway, the point of all this is, no matter how careful I am, I always end up with a few tool marks which are too deep to sand away. In your opinion, do I just need more practise, or better tools?

practise at both sharpening and turning. Better tools do help but until you can sharpen them, it is a waste of time. Just as an aside, I started by making my own tools from car springs because you could't buy tools.

You can see what I'm talking about on my latest lumpawudwivadentinit. Any comments or pointers would be welcome. That one pushed my old lathe to its limits - there was only about 1cm clearance between the rim and the bed.

As long as it turns around and clears the bed, who cares. If it don't have the grunt, slow down with the depth of cut.


Also, can anyone tell me what sort of wud it is dat has the dent? I've got a picture of its sister half to aid in identification.

Answered above.

I hope this answers your queries. Practise is the key to all and joining a woodturning club helps too.

Not a bad bowl for a first shot.

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Ian () Robertson
"We do good turns every day"



[This message has been edited by (edited 17 October 2000).]

I thought the tool looked like a barrel from a 410 that had split !!!!!!!
As for Jim's comments on the beer, doesn't he know that it bears the signature of a politician (put any name in there, any state).
didn't tell you that he still use car springs for turning and it worries him that so many cars have now gone to coils.
I wonder if he uses truck springs on his BIG lathe.

OK, I'll tell you what it is (the tool, that is). It's actually an old titanium pin of the sort used to put together broken legs and things. I got it off an old friend of mine who had it lying around (God knows where he got it from). It works a treat - spits out ironbark as if it were pine.
Anyway, thanks for the input. I might just go read up a bit on sharpening technique.

Tristan Croll

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Cogito cogito, cogito ergo sum
- I think that I think, therefore I think that I am

Triston - Get some lessons. A sharp too is pretty well essential but knowing exactly what to do with it once you've got it sharp is even mort important.

It is a waste having a $100 super sharp gouge and using it as a scraper. You can get just as crappy a finish with an old file. Learning the basics of making the tool cut is more important than almost anything else.

Shape and form for the turnings will come with time, practice and observation. Tool sharpening can now be done by just about anyone using some of the new sharpening jigs. But getting the tool to cut correctly is usually not something that can be mastered without getting some expert help.

There are thousands of self taught turners out there and it is easy to pick them. Mostly their work is pretty ordinary bloodyorfulthingswifdings they aren't even a lumpawudwivadentinit.

Bottom line ............... Get some lessons.

Cheers - Neil

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Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit.

Tristan, I think your mate'll think twice about letting you pull his leg again!