I live in middle Tennessee. I'm originally from England, but have lived in the USA since 1982 and finally became a citizen back in 2011. Over the 30 plus years of being in the US, we lived in Chicago, Washington DC, Dallas, Orlando, NJ, CT and finally retired to a town just outside Nashville, TN.
Retiring a few years ago and while the wife was still working (she was the major bread winner for the past 10 years), I started building up my shop with nice wood working tools, slowly replacing the limited capabilities of my ShopSmith, that I bought in 1984, but didn't really have any real interest in wood turning, so a lathe was never on the radar.
Moving and retiring back in TN, I was able to find a house that had a standalone two story 30' x 30' garage that had plenty of 220v circuits already wired up.
After finishing a few house and shop projects, I started looking for other areas of wood working. All my wood working is hobbyist stuff, done mostly for my entertainment and hopefully producing something that would also benefit us.
My biggest project, to-date, was making Plantation Shutters for about 10 windows in our house. Now I have 600bd/ft of Basswood, sitting on my garage flloor, ready for me to start the second phase of another 12 windows.
A couple of years ago, I took a couple of wood turning classes, at Woodcraft, with instructor David Sapp (president of the Tennessee Association of Woodturners) and that got me interested in turning. I picked up a used One 1224 lathe, with full plans of making some neat stuff, but that got pushed into a corner and neglected for a couple of years.
As Christmas 2019 approached, I usually like to make a wood present for some of our close friends. Cutting boards were given out in 2018 and so I decided I would have a go at making some bowls. With making this decision about 3 weeks before Christmas, I didn't have and bowl blanks or even less, experience.
So after watching hours of turning videos on YouTube, I figured I had plenty of off cuts of Maple, Walnut, Purpleheart and a few other woods, so I built myself a Wedgie Sled and made four sixteen segmented bowls.
These came out pretty nice and impressed my wife and friends, but this also made me realize the swing of my lathe was a little less than I would like. I would like to make platters and bowls of larger than 12" diameter.
So after much whining, the wife told me I could buy another lathe if I sold my existing one. That turned out to be super easy as someone, from another forum, approached me about buying my Oneway.
So about a months ago, I took delivery of a Laguna 24/36. Space in my garage workshop is limited, especially when you are making a volume of large items like plantation shutters, so my lathe has to be mobile for storage.
So I just finished this cabinet and mobile solution for the lathe. Hopefully, sometime next week I'll be able to start making some shavings.
I joined the Tennessee Association of Woodturners in January 2020 and joined here two days ago.
I'm already reading through tons of threads learning all sorts of interesting stuff. I'm like a kid in a candy store with all the knowledge that is here from such an experienced group of folk, thank you.
Retiring a few years ago and while the wife was still working (she was the major bread winner for the past 10 years), I started building up my shop with nice wood working tools, slowly replacing the limited capabilities of my ShopSmith, that I bought in 1984, but didn't really have any real interest in wood turning, so a lathe was never on the radar.
Moving and retiring back in TN, I was able to find a house that had a standalone two story 30' x 30' garage that had plenty of 220v circuits already wired up.
After finishing a few house and shop projects, I started looking for other areas of wood working. All my wood working is hobbyist stuff, done mostly for my entertainment and hopefully producing something that would also benefit us.
My biggest project, to-date, was making Plantation Shutters for about 10 windows in our house. Now I have 600bd/ft of Basswood, sitting on my garage flloor, ready for me to start the second phase of another 12 windows.
A couple of years ago, I took a couple of wood turning classes, at Woodcraft, with instructor David Sapp (president of the Tennessee Association of Woodturners) and that got me interested in turning. I picked up a used One 1224 lathe, with full plans of making some neat stuff, but that got pushed into a corner and neglected for a couple of years.
As Christmas 2019 approached, I usually like to make a wood present for some of our close friends. Cutting boards were given out in 2018 and so I decided I would have a go at making some bowls. With making this decision about 3 weeks before Christmas, I didn't have and bowl blanks or even less, experience.
So after watching hours of turning videos on YouTube, I figured I had plenty of off cuts of Maple, Walnut, Purpleheart and a few other woods, so I built myself a Wedgie Sled and made four sixteen segmented bowls.
These came out pretty nice and impressed my wife and friends, but this also made me realize the swing of my lathe was a little less than I would like. I would like to make platters and bowls of larger than 12" diameter.
So after much whining, the wife told me I could buy another lathe if I sold my existing one. That turned out to be super easy as someone, from another forum, approached me about buying my Oneway.
So about a months ago, I took delivery of a Laguna 24/36. Space in my garage workshop is limited, especially when you are making a volume of large items like plantation shutters, so my lathe has to be mobile for storage.
So I just finished this cabinet and mobile solution for the lathe. Hopefully, sometime next week I'll be able to start making some shavings.
I joined the Tennessee Association of Woodturners in January 2020 and joined here two days ago.
I'm already reading through tons of threads learning all sorts of interesting stuff. I'm like a kid in a candy store with all the knowledge that is here from such an experienced group of folk, thank you.
