Learning to turn

Again I am learning something new and cool in my wood shop class. For my current project I needed a decorative handle for an ax. So I began to learn how to use a lathe.

Instead of spending a lot of time turning a piece of wood by hand and carving a little bit at a time you spin the wood at a very high speed and let the wood move into the tool to remove the wood. This is really nice because you are guaranteed to get perfectly round carvings on the piece of wood.

Unfortunately lathes are expensive. So unless you have a great need for turning lots of legs, or bowls it probably will not be worth it to buy a lathe. However if you know someone who has a lathe it can be a lot of fun to be able to turn something now and again.

The piece below is the handle of a battle ax that I am making for my joinery project in my wood shop class. You will be seeing more of this project as I continue to work on it throughout October.

Since starting this post in a couple days ago, I have bought a Shopsmith. It is an all in one workstation for the wood worker who is short on space (or also short on cash). I bought it used on craigslist for an amazingly low price considering all that is included. One of the things included is a lathe. So I will happily be able to continue learning to use a lathe after this semester ends.