woodturning lessons - Nine Things I Wish Somone Had Told Me

by Jon Siegel

After more than four decades of woodturning, it is difficult for me to remember how I first learned. I do remember seventh grade shop classes and also my father showing me the little bit he knew. Mainly, learning was by trial and error. As years went by, I got better at it, partly because I was exposed to some good books such as the classic by Frank Pain, The Practical Woodturner, but it became clear to me that woodturning was an obscure specialty. Many of the tools I saw in old books were not available.

Today woodturning is no longer obscure. The woodturning renaissance has had 30 years to mature – we have the American Association of Woodturners and hundreds of books and instructional videos. As a result, no one has to learn by trial and error in isolation as I did when I was a kid starting out in 1960. Nonetheless, in this article, I will attempt to help beginners not by giving simply a set of “tips”, but a list of items which fall into one or more of the following categories:

• Things I did incorrectly at first, and later had to “unlearn.”

• Things I should have learned sooner rather than later.

• Things I had to figure out on my own, because they were not in any books I had seen.

While I will jump around to many different topics, these represent some of the high points in my odyssey of discovery.

1 CUTTING VS SCRAPING – I wish my seventh grade shop teacher had said to me, “I’m teaching you the scraping method because you’re a beginner, but someday when you get serious about woodturning you’ll learn the cutting method.” If he had done so, I would have realized from the start that he was sending me down the wrong path.

Twenty years later, I found myself teaching shop, and I quickly discovered that you never learn something so well as when you must teach it. I developed this educational philosophy – don’t teach beginners the wrong way just because you think it might be easier for them to grasp. This does the students a great disservice and insults their intelligence. Show students the right way from the beginning, and be honest about the commitment required.

It’s easy to criticize my shop teacher now, but I don’t think he was purposely keeping anything from me. Rather I suspect he was not in possession of that information. In those days, industrial arts textbooks described mostly the use of scrapers. Gouges were used only for roughing out spindles. Many of these textbooks were written by authors whose expertise was mainly in metalwork and pattern making.

2 A LATHE IS NOT A VISE – I once read in what I thought was a reputable magazine that the wood should be placed between centers and the tailstock tightened as hard as possible! Yikes! Excessive force from the tailstock causes a multitude of problems – premature wear on the headstock bearings, premature wear on the tailstock center bearings, and most important, vibration of the workpiece. It took me a long time to realize that excessive force between centers was a major contributor to workpiece vibration of long thin spindles. A well tuned drive center with sharp spurs (as sharp as a chisel) and a center point that is just the right length (or on a spring) will allow turning with minimum force from the tailstock.

3 THE WOODTURNER’S BEST FRIEND – Paraffin wax, sold at grocery stores for canning, makes an excellent lubricant for your tool rest. Break each bar up into small pieces so you have one within easy reach around your lathe. Use paraffin on the tool rest every five or ten minutes. Use it on the lathe bed too. Everything will go better. Paraffin is much more convenient than paste wax from a can.

4 YOU DON’T NEED MANY CHISELS – I wasted a lot of time and money buying chisels I didn’t need. As time went on, I realized that there are only about five chisels for spindle turning, and another five (bowl gouges and scrapers) for cross-grain work, that I really need. The chisels I no longer use are mainly the large ones. Refer to my article in the June, 2005 issue of The Old Saw for suggestions on the essential chisels.

5 YOU WON’T GET FAR WITHOUT A STEADY REST – Frank Pain’s book introduced me to the technique of using my hand to steady the work and reduce vibration. As an unexpected benefit, I also learned that touching the work with my fingers can tell me things about the quality of the surface which my eyes alone could not detect. But for a long time, the flexibility of spindles was a limiting factor in my furniture designs. While I consider use of the hand to steady the work an essential skill, it will only go so far. Once I got a good mechanical steady rest, I could cut as deeply as I wanted, and my turnings instantly improved.

6 SHARP TOOLS PLUS GOOD TECHNIQUE EQUALS LESS SANDING – In my early years, I thought that it didn’t matter much how you got the shape, because in the end you could sand the work into submission. The lesson, which came gradually, is that less sanding is better for many reasons – sanding is boring, sanding dust is horrific and sandpaper cost money. But most important, the work looks better with a minimum of sanding because the surfaces are true and the details are crisp.

7 YOUR LATHE NEEDS SPEED CONTROL – Years ago, most lathes had step pulleys with four speeds – fast, faster and two more even higher speeds which were so ridiculously fast that no one ever used them. So essentially we had two-speed lathes and used the low speed for bowls and the second speed for spindles. Today, lathes with step pulleys have five or six speeds, but the problem has not changed. The lowest speed is not low enough and the high speeds are still ridiculous. In general, all these lathes would be better if the speeds were cut in half. Variable speed mechanisms are a great improvement, but variable speed motors with two or three speed ranges are ideal.

8 FLAT GRIND – One day I discovered that chisels ground with a flat bevel work better than those that are hollow ground. I quickly re-ground all my cutting tools to the new flat grind, and I have never looked back. It’s hard to describe the feeling of that day. Without buying anything new or investing additional years of practice, I had suddenly made great progress in my ability, and I was seeing results that amazed me. If you attended the lecture by Michael Dunbar last September, you may remember he said the same thing about draw knives, scorps, etc. Any tool which is guided by riding the bevel should not be hollow ground.

9 THE JOY OF WOODTURNING IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE MASS OF YOUR LATHE – This is not to say that I don’t like mini-lathes, I do. Any lathe that is built with all its parts in proportion with each other will function well on work pieces that are also in proportion to its size.

Back in the 70’s, I was fortunate to get a used Blount lathe (made in Milford, NH) which weighs about 500 pounds. My experience with that lathe resulted in a great leap forward. In particular I think having a well designed tool rest on a 300 pound cast iron bed made me realize how turning should feel. Now I have three lathes at 50, 500, and 5,000 pounds, and the Blount holds the middle ground.

Whether you are learning from books, magazines (like this one), videos, classes, or symposium demonstrations, be thankful that today there are so many resources and such a tremendous body of knowledge on woodturning to carry you on your own personal odyssey of discovery.

Wood-Working

Timber was the most important resource for the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. The early medieval carpenter was not only skilled in working the wood, but also in selecting the correct timber and shape for the job. If the finished item needed to have a curve in it, the carpenter would select a piece of timber that had the correct natural curve. You can use natural junctions where a branch joins to the tree as joints that have grown to suit a job that you had in mind. These natural joints are stronger than man-made ones and save the carpenter a lot of time creating joints. Wherever possible they would 'follow the grain' to leave the finished product as strong as possible.


To a certain extent, all the peoples who lived then managed their woodlands, although if a tree needed to come down for a building let's say, as far as we know they didn't replant to replace that tree deliberately. A thousand years ago, trees were still a resource that would have seemed limitless. It takes for example over 80-90 years for an Oak tree to become large enough to be useful. Large scale timber production had yet to make the impact it would later. A large stand of trees felled would just be providing clearance for yet more farmland. The Vikings are regarded to some extent today in Iceland as 'environmental terrorists', as they eventually felled all of the trees that had once grown there. The Iceland we see today has been irrevocably changed due to their habits.

A great deal of Saxon and Viking woodwork was done 'green,' that is the timber was not seasoned (dried out over time) before working. This meant that the timber could be split easily (green oak can be split with a seasoned wooden wedge), and need not be sawn. The big advantage of using cleft (meaning split) timber is that it is less likely to crack as it dries.

Most of the 'roughing out' and shaping was done with axes and adzes. The saw has obvious advantages. It can cut out a straight piece of timber every time, splitting can result in planks that are twisted etc. But the trouble with saws was that they were very expensive and difficult to maintain and make. At the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, only 13 saws were recorded in the kingdom. These were probably large saws for what is called 'ripping' down the beam of timber to create planks, as much smaller bow saws are routinely shown in manuscripts.

The trimming and shaping with Adzes and Axes is quite a wasteful process as well. With saws, large pieces of wood can be separated from the job at hand, leaving you with a reasonable piece of wood that can be utilised for other smaller jobs. The Adzes and Axes just convert the unwanted timber into pieces only suitable for the fire. However, the bark would be stripped off for the tanners, as it contains tannin, especially if the tree had been an oak, alder or elm, and the bast fibres that lie just under the bark would also be pulled off to make rope and other ties. Willow, lime and again oak trees give some of the most useful bast fibres. And ultimately, any left over timber could be used in the Charcoal making process, or just burnt to keep the workers in the woods warm in the Autumn.

The largest pieces of wood working done during the Saxon period must have been for the buildings. Timber was also used for ships, musical instruments, coffins, bridges, roads/paths and many more mundane items as well.

It has only been since the major excavations like those at Hedeby, Birka, Dublin and York that archaeologists have been able to understand how often wood was used in the home. The waterlogged and anaerobic (lacking in oxygen) environment at these sites has yielded many finds in surprisingly good condition. Cups, bowls, spoons, and plates came in many sizes and were used in the home for storage as well as eating. Buckets, barrels and tubs were made from planks of wood bound with metal or withy hoops. Butter churns, cheese presses, trays, gaming boards and pieces, boxes and chests have been found too. Looms, beds, tables, chairs, stools and benches were made of wood as well.

Most tools had wooden handles. Rakes, spades and agricultural forks were also made from timber. Spearshafts, bows and shields were wooden too. Simple boats were made using the 'dug-out' method of construction. Ploughs, sleds, carts and wagons were all made of wood. It's difficult to think of much that was made then that wasn't made of wood.

Almost everyone employed the carpenter's skill in some way, from fishermen and weavers to shoe-makers. Shopkeepers and traders used wooden sticks with deep notches cut in them to keep their accounts. These were known as 'tally sticks', and recorded how much of an item had been purchased. It was split nearly in two down it's length and as a you counted off the sold or purchased items, you broke off a tooth of wood. When the deal was finalised, half of the tally stick went to the purchaser, and you kept the other half as a permanent record.

To shape cups and bowls the woodworker would have used a 'pole lathe'. The power to rotate the spindle and the balk of timber to be worked was created by pumping the treadle down, and letting the springiness' of the pole rotate it back again. The cutting was done on the down stroke when you provided the power. A skilled lather could produce some very fine pieces of turned work. Some finds of worked wood from York have suggested that the pole lathe was the most likely way that they made turned items such as cups. Sadly though, a complete or part lathe has yet to be found in association with the cups and bowls that have been excavated at sites like York. To date practical experimentation has demonstrated that pole lathes are the most likely manner to make such items.

They would also have used tools such as planes, axes, adzes, draw knives, wedges, knives, chisels, hammers, mallets, awls, gouges, and spoon augers (a type of drill). Saws were known, but were not generally used, perhaps because they were difficult to make, comparatively frail and are not as good when used on green wood, especially when a split piece would suffice.

The whetstone would have been a important possession for the woodworker as, without it, he could not have sharpened any of his tools. These were made from Gneiss, a type of Granite for the 'rough' grinding of blades, to the much softer banded Slates (selected for their elegance and the colour of the bands in the slate). The former could come from Telemark in Norway and the latter from the Lake District in northern England, although many other grades and types of stone were also used. Also different shapes were necessary for the variety of shaped blades used in detailed woodworking.

The name 'whetstone' comes from the practice of grinding an edge on a blade, even on a sword for example using water to 'wet' or 'whet' the edge. Sometimes the name 'slipstone' is also used to describe a similar thing. The advantage of water is that it won't stain your woodwork unlike oil can, and it's cheap - many people who sharpen tools often spat onto the stone to lubricate it.

Much of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking woodwork was ornately carved and invariably painted or decorated in some way. Some of the items surviving may well have taken much longer to decorate than they did to construct.

Another form of wood-working was basket weaving. This was done with thin strips of wood and bark, fine branches from trees such as hazel or willow withies, and reeds. Even grasses were employed for smaller basketry and the production of mats. While not much basket work has survived from the period (impressions of wattle are sometimes left in daub), due to the fact that the organic material degrades very quickly, there is ample evidence from period illustrations of baskets and wattle hurdles. In fact many of the terms used in basket weaving today are from the Old English.