Wood Turners campfire thread

[Jethro]

Any interest? Seems we have threads for all kinds of other things. I know there have to be some Fire members that run a wood lathe and turn things from time to time. Bills thread on restoring an old wood lathe and seeing a few guys post up some of their projects is what got me thinking about it.

My thought was to have a thread where turners could post up anything related to wood turning. Projects, lathes, tooling, questions, wood sourcing or processing, stabilizing, finishing, just whatever. A catch-all thread. Kind of a jump right in with whatever you've got thread.

I have a pretty fair amount of experience with a metal lathe, but last spring decided to get a Harbor Freight benchtop midi wood lathe and start making a few predator calls. Since then I have made nearly 60 calls, plus tool handles, bottle openers, bottle stoppers, pie servers, and several other things. I sell some stuff, give away some stuff (my wife says I give away too much, lol), and have a FB page where I post stuff up for sale sometimes. I really like and prefer to use local sourced woods I process myself and like doing projects that have personal meaning to people.

Lots more to the story I guess but if this thread takes off and can get some traction there will be plenty of time to post up.

I'll start it off with a few pictures of projects and hopefully some more folks will jump in.

Spalted pecan from Arkansas, closed reed predator calls.



A box of call blanks after drying and stabilizing with Cactus Juice.



Stabilized wild cherry.



Some bottle openers, middle one has some aztec gold epoxy fill in it.

[Hills of Texas]

Very nice. It can be addicting.. lol. I made a bassinet for my grandson last spring and turned all the spindle uprights. Took forever but made a heirloom that can be passed down so it was worth doing.

[kevin nicholls]

Heck yea. I used to do a lot of turning years ago but I've got away from it. I plan on getting started again soon. I'll be following this.

[Jethro]

Man, turning a bunch of spindles and making them all the same, I'm not near at that level. I would struggle with that. Not enough experience yet. I am more of the throw a hunk of wood on the arbor and let it tell me what shape it needs to be. I'm guessing on the spindles it would help to have some kind of story board or something to help get the right curves in the right places, all matching. Really cool to make a heirloom piece though.

[Hills of Texas]

I just laid each one out according to the first one I did and repeated about 50 times… lol not perfect but sanded and stained it looks really nice. I used a wood burner and burnt some elk antlers into the head and foot board, with deer tracks crossing at an angle on each one.

[ShaneS]

I'll bite. Long time machinist but never turned any wood. Following for pics of y'alls projects

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[Texas452]

Very nice.
I was given a wood lathe from a friend a few years back and I haven’t done anything with it.
I might try learn.
Do you order your wood from somewhere?

[Jethro]

So kind of on the subject of heirloom pieces, but not really, I mentioned I like doing things that mean something to people. I had an interesting deal this fall.

My son bought a house a couple years ago about 10 miles east of town. The house had belonged to the grandmother of a very close friend of his that he graduated high school with. The grandmother passed away a few years ago which is why the house came up for sale. The close friend of his was in a construction accident just a couple of years after they graduated high school and was killed. The parents of the friend still live just a few miles away from my son. Kind of convoluted, but you get the idea.

Anyways, last spring during a bad wind storm a huge old mulberry tree was blown over at my sons house. I got some of the dead wood out of it and made a coyote call for him. I also made another call out of it too. The story could get really complicated here but I will keep it simple. Bottom line is I gave that call to a guy who was doing some rifle work for me, that happened to be related to the family. He loved it, and told the parents that live near my son about it.

Next thing I know the parents are calling me up and wanting me to make 8 calls out of the wood from that tree, for all the male family members for Christmas. Of course I said I would do it. I made those, plus a special call for the dad, and also a bottle stopper and a bottle opener for the mom, whose mothers house it was that the tree/wood came from. I hope that story is not too complicated and the condensed version makes sense.

Anyways, here is a picture of those 8 calls, on a section of the stump of the tree that blew over. Plus a picture of the opener and bottle stopper. Pretty cool sentimental type gifts.

[Hills of Texas]

Very cool of you. I bet it means a lot to them

[PoppinPiggies]

Following along, one of my neighbors is looking at getting rid of an old lathe. Might get it from him

[Jethro]

Texas 452- I really don't order any wood. Most I harvest local from natural sources, find it, whatever. Then I cut it up and dry, stabilize or whatever I need to do. The pecan came from ones of my wife's relatives wood pile in Arkansas. I do have a few exotics I pick up in wood turning stores here and there. Plus I have some old hunks of exotics from 20 years back when I was doing some knife handles and pistol grips. Not much of that stuff though.

[thebowhunters]

Been turning a lot of Christmas gifts lately. Snowmen, Christmas trees, yo-yo’s, hand spinning tops, and string spinning tops. Also a few vases and bowls. Lots of fun

[BlessedVeteran0305]

If'n yall don't mind I think I'll pull up a chair with a cold one, and watch yall projects pop up. Ive been wanting to start turning wood for years just never came across a used lathe to learn on that I could afford. One of these years I'll get one and then it's game on.

[CWendling]

I started looking at some lathes. Need to either get one, or probably more likely, hire someone for a project. There was an old oak at my parents church that had to come down and had a huge burl at the root. They saved it for me, and Im going to cut it into some smaller blocks and seal/dry it. I thought it would be really cool to turn a couple of 'offering bowls' from it for them. The church is a little old church in the woods of east Texas from the late 1800s and that tree has been outside the front door since before it was built.

[BlessedVeteran0305]

Wow that would be pretty cool to have something the church could use made from a tree that was there before the church was.