Hi everyone,
I am a new AAW member living outside of Paris, France. Born in California and now retired, I have spent most of my career as an experimental physicist working on particle physics experiments at the European laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, rock-climbing and mountaineering in my rare free moments. Although I am new to wood turning, wood working roots run deep in our family. As youngsters, my brother Steve and I spent many enjoyable hours in dad’s home shop, building our first sailboat. His strength as a Portland Oregon boat-builder is certainly based on those early years.
My recent interest in wood turning was sparked by my wife’s desire to learn. Her birthday gift last spring was a new midi lathe. Somehow this brought back many old memories. A young boy with a hand plane very quickly learns what end grain is… and never really forgets that. At first I needed to understand a bit to help her start. Today that’s made much easier by the many videos on internet: Stuart Batty on Vimeo, Cindy Drozda, Sam Angelo, Carl Jacobson, Mike Waldt, and many others on YouTube. I am very grateful for all of these great videos and appreciate the work behind them. As for my turning, well, catches and similar surprises became less and less frequent as the wood shavings piled up, and fewer projects ended up in the chimney.
Here we have a small basement shop and the LEMANS TAB 050 midi lathe (12 5/8” swing & 1hp motor) is mounted on a solid DIY wooden stand. As I said, Brigitte, a French nurse, and I share time on this (“her”) machine. Our tools are traditional Hamlet spindle and bowl gouges, but we do use EWT carbide hollowing tools for small hollow forms.
Our home is on the edge of a broadleaf wood, mainly oaks. So I do pruning, felling, and tree-climbing as required. Chainsaw work is no surprise here, but I wouldn’t call my bowl blanks elegant.
I have particularly enjoyed learning to turn bowls and lidded boxes.
Thanks for having me!
Below are some photos of our shop, some of my recent work, and of course, getting bowl blanks the hard way...
I am a new AAW member living outside of Paris, France. Born in California and now retired, I have spent most of my career as an experimental physicist working on particle physics experiments at the European laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, rock-climbing and mountaineering in my rare free moments. Although I am new to wood turning, wood working roots run deep in our family. As youngsters, my brother Steve and I spent many enjoyable hours in dad’s home shop, building our first sailboat. His strength as a Portland Oregon boat-builder is certainly based on those early years.
My recent interest in wood turning was sparked by my wife’s desire to learn. Her birthday gift last spring was a new midi lathe. Somehow this brought back many old memories. A young boy with a hand plane very quickly learns what end grain is… and never really forgets that. At first I needed to understand a bit to help her start. Today that’s made much easier by the many videos on internet: Stuart Batty on Vimeo, Cindy Drozda, Sam Angelo, Carl Jacobson, Mike Waldt, and many others on YouTube. I am very grateful for all of these great videos and appreciate the work behind them. As for my turning, well, catches and similar surprises became less and less frequent as the wood shavings piled up, and fewer projects ended up in the chimney.
Here we have a small basement shop and the LEMANS TAB 050 midi lathe (12 5/8” swing & 1hp motor) is mounted on a solid DIY wooden stand. As I said, Brigitte, a French nurse, and I share time on this (“her”) machine. Our tools are traditional Hamlet spindle and bowl gouges, but we do use EWT carbide hollowing tools for small hollow forms.
Our home is on the edge of a broadleaf wood, mainly oaks. So I do pruning, felling, and tree-climbing as required. Chainsaw work is no surprise here, but I wouldn’t call my bowl blanks elegant.
I have particularly enjoyed learning to turn bowls and lidded boxes.
Thanks for having me!
Below are some photos of our shop, some of my recent work, and of course, getting bowl blanks the hard way...
