there is a season
turn turn
and a time for every purpose under heaven
and my purpose, this fine and cold Castlemaine morning, was to take PND up on his three year old promise to teach me how to use a lathe ...
so there I was in a pair of blue overalls, protective goggles firmly in place - so not a good look - and now that the hour had come, filled with doubts as to my ability to actually DO this
I mean it's all very easy to say ' one day PND's going to show me how to turn wood"
what if I sucked at it?
what if I didn't know which end of the chisel was which?
what if I got sucked into the machine fingers first?
remind me why I wanted to do this...
oh yeah - because I have a lathe sitting up in the shed
anyway long story short
I spent an hour turning a block of pine into
wait for it
wait for it
a bit of dowel
I'm still three legs short of a seat
unless it's a milking stool in which case I'm two legs short
and this is the bit that has been lovingly beeswaxed and polished
are you not amazed and delighted??
okay so maybe you had to be there
12 comments:
Of course I am amazed and delighted!
I totally get the whole woodturning gig :-)
yes, I get it too, there's something elemental about working with wood - it smells good, when you've finished it,s smooth and satiny and strokable ...
Of course, if the thought of two/three more legs is a bit overwhelming, a rolling pin looks a good alternative....lol.
David is just enjoying the smooth feel of it so I think it's not going to 'be' anything other than something for him to hold/handle/play with.
I'm glad you stopped before it became a toothpick
it's the best bit of dowel evar.
Looks like a lovely silky bit of dowel. I still pick up smooth stones on the beach, trying to find the smoothest silkiest one.
Okay my to do list for you is now three pages long...!!!!
Is there a kokeshi lurking in there?
I'm a woodturner, or at least I was before I had a kid and my husband put a car in the garage. (The gall of the man - putting a car in a room intended for a car!)
It's a truly addictive pursuit. I won't be at all surprised to see pictures of bowls, spurtles, hair sticks, knitting needles, et cetera appearing on your blog.
I'll bet you have some nice bits of wood on your acreage, fallen limbs and the like. It's amazing what one can make from a forgotten log which was sitting by the side of the road. Shavings needn't be wasted either: they can be composted.
Am proud of you.
I did a bit in teacher's college and always wanted to do more..and given the ridiculous thought that I would ever re marry then woodworking was one of the qualifications............vbg.
Of course it's beautiful! It's the first leg of your wood lathing journey, and as such, it's destiny is to simply be admired and handled!
Well I'm impressed anyway.
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