So I'm fighting the urge to just dive in and try to turn a bowl right away. I really want to; and to some extent it's the Reaser way to jump right in and sink or swim...
But since decent turning stock is kinda expensive (until I find my own sources of wild wood... someday) I've decided to spend some time just working on the basic skills of turning.
Today I followed along with my "learn to turn" book trying to make a few deliberate cuts with each tool.
Most of them went fairly well; my first spindle is above. The one tool that has been super tricky so far is the skew chisel.
As you can see at left, when you twist the skew the wrong way, it likes to dive into the wood, make a nice gouge, and scare the pants off of you.
Happened once, I thought "that's weird, must have slipped". Happened 2 more times, and I realized "hmm -- I'm doing something wrong here".
Turns out that while most tools can be pushed back-n-forth along a workpiece, the skew doesn't like that.
If you make a bead with a skew, cut from the center of the bead down into the groove, twisting the skew as you move... so that it starts flat, and ends up with the lower (non-pointy) end in the groove to define half of the bead. Then flip the skew over and repeat to make the other half.
But don't do what I did and get "lazy" and feel that you can rock the skew back from the groove/angle position back up to flat and center on the bead, to refine the shape -- the skew realizes that you're trying to be an expert and catches and digs in just about every time.
After taking the spindle back down to round and running some beads 2 more times, I'm starting to feel a bit better about this tool... still plenty to learn, though!
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