Wood Turning

Description

Woodturning is the craft of using the wood lathe with hand-held tools to cut a shape that is symmetrical around the axis of rotation. Like the potter's wheel, the wood lathe is a simple mechanism which can generate a variety of forms. The operator is known as a turner, and the skills needed to use the tools were traditionally known as turnery. In pre-industrial England, these skills were sufficiently difficult to be known as 'the misterie' of the turners guild. The skills to use the tools by hand, without a fixed point of contact with the wood, distinguish woodturning and the wood lathe from the machinists lathe, or metal-working lathe.

Items made on the lathe include tool handles, candlesticks, egg cups, knobs, lamps, rolling pins, cylindrical boxes, Christmas ornaments, bodkins, knitting needles, needle cases, thimbles, pens, chessmen, spinning tops; legs, spindles and pegs for furniture; balusters and newel posts for architecture; baseball bats, hollow forms such as woodwind musical instruments, urns, sculptures; bowls, platters, and chair seats. Industrial production has replaced many of these products from the traditional turning shop. However, the wood lathe is still used for decentralized production of limited or custom turnings. A skilled turner can produce a wide variety of objects with five or six simple tools. The tools can be reshaped easily for the task at hand.

In many parts of the world, the lathe has been a portable tool that goes to the source of the wood, or adapts to temporary workspaces. 21st-century turners restore furniture, continue folk-art traditions, produce custom architectural work, and create fine craft for galleries. Woodturning appeals to people who like to work with their hands, find pleasure in problem-solving, or enjoy the tactile and visual qualities of wood.

Equipment & Supplies

Holding devices

The wood rotates between the headstock of the lathe which includes the drive mechanism and the tailstock support, which only rotates if its center is 'live' or supported by a rotating holding device. The headstock end may use points or spurs which are driven into the wood. This type of turning is described as 'between centers.' The headstock spindle may also use a cup, collet, or a scroll chuck to hold a tenon on the workpiece which will be removed in the finished product. The wood can also be screwed or glued to a faceplate—a strong disk that is threaded to mount on the headstock's spindle. The use of a chuck or faceplate allows the woodturner to forego tailstock support for the rotating wood. This type of secure holding system is essential for hollowing bowls or hollow forms.

Tools

A basic set of tools for woodturning

Turning tools are generally made from three different types of steel; carbon steel, high speed steel (HSS), and more recently powdered metal. Comparing the three types, high speed steel tools maintain their edge longer, requiring less frequent sharpening than carbon steel, but not as long as powdered metal tools. The harder the type of high speed steel used, the longer the edge will maintain sharpness. Powdered steel is even harder than HSS, but takes more effort to obtain an edge as sharp as HSS, just as HSS is harder to get as sharp as carbon steel.

Woodturning tools must be sharpened more frequently than other edged woodworking tools to maintain a clean cut because the wood passes at great speed. Sharpening is usually accomplished with the aid of mechanical devices such as powered sharpening wheels and abrasives. This sharpening process requires either skill of the craftsman, or one of the many available sharpening jigs, which facilitate maintaining a specific bevel on the tool. As with any mechanical sharpening method, overheating or blueing is a danger to be avoided as it will ruin the steel's temper, rendering the steel too soft to maintain a sharp edge. When this happens, the blued area must then be ground away to expose fresh steel and the tool must then have the bevel reestablished and the edge re-honed. High speed steel is not prone to blueing (overheating) whereas carbon steel blues easily, requiring frequent quenching in water or oil to avoid losing temper.

A gouge in use

Types

• roughing gouge - a wide fluted gouge used to initially round a wooden spindle, and to roughly shape it. Generally not intended for cutting end grain due to the large cut it takes and the relatively weak tang connecting the blade to the handle. Unsafe for making bowls or any faceplate work.
• spindle gouge or detail gouge - a shallow fluted gouge used to create details on spindles, including beads (raised portions of the turning typically semi-circular in cross section) and coves (relieved portions of the turning).
• bowl gouge - a deep fluted gouge used to turn the outside and inside of bowls and vessels. Often has a thicker shaft and longer handle than a spindle gouge because it has to cut farther away from the tool rest and deal with the forces of turning a large bowl. Sometimes called 'long and strong' gouge.[22]
• skew chisel - a wide, steeply pointed chisel with the edge running at an angle to the length of the tool. Used to smooth flat spindles, cut beads, and add details. Skew chisels are only used on spindle work (never on faceplate work) and are honed after sharpening to create a razor edge.
• parting tool - a pointed tool used to separate (part off) work from the lathe, and to create a straight edge separating large and small diameter sections - wide parting tools also called bedans are used to create evenly sized spindle sections.
• hollowing tool - many different types of tools used to cut out the deep sections of steep bowls, vases and hollow vessels. Often with very long handles, to maintain enough leverage when working in a deep vessel, far away from the hand rest.
• scraper - a tool that scrapes the wood fibres instead of cutting - these are used to smooth off wooden items cut with other tools, and to shape items that are not possible or difficult to shape with gouges. A sharp scraper has a burr at the edge which cuts the wood, only a dull scraper actually scrapes.
• bowl saver - a tool used to core out the inside part of a bowl, allowing the waste piece to be used to create a smaller bowl, and to limit the amount of wood chips created when hollowing out a bowl.
• auger - a drill bit used to drill a hole partway or all the way through a wooden item. For cutting the hole for a lamp cord, or as the first step when hollowing out a bowl or vessel
• chatter tool - a flexible scraper used to add decorative chatter marks to turned items
• wire - a simple wire, sometimes with handles attached at either side, for the purpose of burning lines into the piece with friction.
• there are also several tool types for special purposes, as well as tools that are a combination design of the above tools, i.e. skew/chisel combinations, thread cutting tools, ring cutting tools, medium fluted gouges, etc.

Time Commitment

Cost

Skills Needed 

Skills Developed 

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.