14-08-2012, 03:40 PM
Hi,
It's good to see you practising and putting some lathe time in Joe; these small jobs are always most rewarding and as you rightly say it all adds to your experience.
Do you have any timber yards near you Joe? The reason I ask is that many timber yards have small offcuts that are very useful to practice with and cost very little. It pays to be a bit cheeky; call in at a timber yard and ask if they have any bits of timber suitable for you to experiment with on your lathe and say you would like to buy some. This also applies to joinery companies; we have a local joinery company that I've obtained lots of useful timber from and all it cost me was a box of chocs or biscuits as a thank you then I could go back again. They usually ask what type of timber and size you are looking for so be prepared; you've just got a lathe and would like to play around at making tool handles; candle sticks and lamp bases etc and that you are not too fussy about what the timber is; once you obtain your first lot of offcuts then you've got your foot in the door and on your next visit if you haven't been charged take along a box of "After Eights" or something similar and ask if they could supply more offcuts.
This actually sounds easy for us old timers used to doing such things but for a raw novice it can be rather daunting visiting these places but the worst they can say is "sorry we don't do offcuts" so don't be put off and try somewhere else.
If you lived nearer Joe I'd be more than happy to let you have some timber as I've always got bits kicking around and if you fancied having a go at turning green timber I've just got rid of six full car loads and I'm always finding more.
Have you got hand or power tools for cutting timber into suitable sizes for the lathe? A bandsaw is a very useful machine for such work.
Keep at it Joe and please keep sharing your progress because watching you takes me back many years to when I first started and everything seemed strange.
Kind regards, Col.
It's good to see you practising and putting some lathe time in Joe; these small jobs are always most rewarding and as you rightly say it all adds to your experience.
Do you have any timber yards near you Joe? The reason I ask is that many timber yards have small offcuts that are very useful to practice with and cost very little. It pays to be a bit cheeky; call in at a timber yard and ask if they have any bits of timber suitable for you to experiment with on your lathe and say you would like to buy some. This also applies to joinery companies; we have a local joinery company that I've obtained lots of useful timber from and all it cost me was a box of chocs or biscuits as a thank you then I could go back again. They usually ask what type of timber and size you are looking for so be prepared; you've just got a lathe and would like to play around at making tool handles; candle sticks and lamp bases etc and that you are not too fussy about what the timber is; once you obtain your first lot of offcuts then you've got your foot in the door and on your next visit if you haven't been charged take along a box of "After Eights" or something similar and ask if they could supply more offcuts.
This actually sounds easy for us old timers used to doing such things but for a raw novice it can be rather daunting visiting these places but the worst they can say is "sorry we don't do offcuts" so don't be put off and try somewhere else.
If you lived nearer Joe I'd be more than happy to let you have some timber as I've always got bits kicking around and if you fancied having a go at turning green timber I've just got rid of six full car loads and I'm always finding more.
Have you got hand or power tools for cutting timber into suitable sizes for the lathe? A bandsaw is a very useful machine for such work.
Keep at it Joe and please keep sharing your progress because watching you takes me back many years to when I first started and everything seemed strange.
Kind regards, Col.
Happiness is a wreck of a cabinet to restore.
