Tom McClellan

[Tom McClellan]

Hello everyone, I'm Tom McClellan and I'm located outside Philadelphia in the suburbs directly to the west of the city. I am fairly new to woodworking in general and started with a course in furniture building at the community college. We spent a single day with a quick intro to the lathe during the course and I knew I wanted to do more.

I bought the jet midi and have mostly just done practice turning on scrap so far. I bought the fundamentals of woodturning book by Keith Rowley and have read it 3-4 times, but hoping to start attending the local(ish) AAW meeting and find some other books to read.

I do work full-time and will continue for a long time, plus I also have the family with two small children, so available shop time is my bottleneck. I characterize my woodworking strategy as the tortoise vs the hare. As long as I keep at it regularly, I'll tortoise my way to slowly improving.

 

[John Torchick]

Welcome to the forum. Great bunch of people and a great place to learn. Ask questions.
Had some family in the west and SW Phillie area. Uncle was a dedicated Phillies fan- back before cable TV, he would go out to his camper with a couple of bottles of Rolling Rock beer and a transistor radio to listen to the game.

 

[hockenbery]

Welcome to the forum.
Time - they just don’t make enough of it.
Try to get to the woodturning meetings. Many terrific turners in the philly area.

The tortoise approach will serve you well if you have enough time to practice any newly learned skills before you forget them.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Welcome aboard. Time is the thing that is hard to find and easy to use up. Learning process is much easier with someone to help out.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Welcome to the AAW forum, Tom. I think that it's the instant gratification that makes woodturning so attractive ... at least that is what happened to me. I did flat woodworking for many years before I suddenly took an interest in woodturning when I retired. I received a gift certificate at Rockler Hardware from my coworkers and I intended to buy a bandsaw, but something caused me to inexplicably decide that I needed a lathe. All the other machines in my shop are now as lonely as the Maytag repairman.