Had the idea to cross cut a hatch pattern into a blank, then backfill with a complementary contrasting pigmented epoxy

I'm watching this YT video on 'Multi-Axis woodturning' and in the rather long-winded preamble, Duxbury mentioned that he gave workshops for the blind and vision-impaired, and that participants had difficulty easily determining tool orientation. So he sanded a flat on the underside of the tool!

I think that is brilliant (and could also keep the tools from rolling). I don't know that I will do it with my tools but it made me think more about tool design, ergonomics and muscle memory.

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Duxbury at Lancaster Area Woodturners September 28 2026

Multi-Axis woodturning with Jim and Rita Duxbury. Join us in learning the details of the Duxbury Wooden Chuck --- now nicknamed the Dux Chuck in this special presentation

Jim Duxbury, woodturner and inventor, is the kind of guy who thinks and creates "out of the box." His turnings are unique and he seldom turns the same thing twice. With the help of his pet parrotlet, "Bean" creativity abounds - all sorts of fine turnings are made from small bottle stoppers to bowls, bud vases, trays, furniture, kaleidoscopes, turned wooden hats, pens, and even a working Foucault Pendulum. Jim's kaleidoscopes are a signature item, custom designed and the recipient of numerous awards. Although Jim quit working in 1996 and claims to be retired, he has since obtained two U. S. Patents. The inventor of particulate dust respirators, his company, DUXTERITY LLC, markets the Resp-O-Rator�, and Elegant Creations, his gallery of fine wooden objects, including Kaleidoscope Plans, Kaleidoscope Building DVD, and custom wooden Kaleidoscopes. Details can be seen at www.duxterity.com/ec. Jim demonstrates to woodturning clubs and symposiums all over the country in addition to writing for numerous wood magazines and journals.

My tailstock started unscrewing; I was tightening it and some graphite powder was coming out and now when the point is up against the wood and I turn the crank the hand wheel unscrews.

I disassembled it and the screw and everything else seems to be in good shape; ai says there’s a screw or something that holds it but I checked the manual and can’t find any part listed.

Anyone else have this? Thanks!

Hi all, I would appreciate some advice on hollowing of vase type shapes. I have an issue where when I hollow sometimes the piece moves in the chuck, even coming out. Of course I then struggle to put it back in the chuck in the exact same place and it just wobbles.

For example, a branch of yew mounted with a tenon. What tools are you all using e.g. a specific hollowing tool set and for the longer pieces do you use one of those round lathe steady rests?

thanks for any help.

Alright, since yall share such cool projects and amazing first project posts I thought I’d share mine.

Finally tried a project this past weekend as I had gotten my new (to me) lathe cleaned up previously and finally ‘had a reason’ (I usually don’t need to find a reason to procrastinate things I really need to be doing, that’s just my excuse today).

A friend commented in pottery class they needed a new wire tool, as their good one was toast and they hated the long cheap ones. I knew they liked walnut so I made some simple wood dowels and attached them with some electric guitar wire at the length they wanted (made a pair for me too).

**You’ll just have to forgive me for being silly in the video.**

Got the lathe (NOVA Comet II DR) + tools for $200 in September while visiting my parents in Maine; a crazy deal compared to what I see in my local area ($400 for a lathe with no motor and a promise it was working well in 1967 before being left in a pig pen - fyi: joking but not really). Cleaned her up (surface rust) and did some minor repair (had to figure out why the spindle lock wasn’t working). Still need a low speed grinder and to figure out the regular tools (just used the carbide this time), I’ve been watching videos and reading a Raffan book on occasion - unfortunately the nearest clubs are a bit far for my current schedule so that’ll have to do for now.

Hoping to do some more small projects soon (more tools/handles, toys?, ornaments, pendants, what not. Glad to have a small hoarder’s amount of ‘scrap’ wood to play with.

Can I somehow dry and turn these?! Anybody have experience with these or gourds or anything? Any tips would be appreciated

This was a beast to get turned. It is super dry and hard. It has a ton of bug holes and some dry spots. But man, it looks lovely!

It still needs to be sanded and finished. I’m going to leave the bug holes as they are. If I were to try and fill them I would spend way too long doing that and it’s probably not worth it.

What do you think about this piece?

How useful is a sliding headstock and/ or a rotating headstock and is one more preferred than the other? Heavily looking at Rikon 1824VSR2 (rotating headstock) and Jet 1840 (sliding headstock). I do a lot of turning from the backside of my lathe when hollowing out a bowl. Seems like it would be pretty nice to slide the headstock down towards the end of the bed and stand on the end of the lathe. I can also envision rotating the headstock 45° and having that be useful on the front side of the lathe as well although I'm not sure if there is a preferred method or downsides to either ?

I cut and axe-split a 15” cherry log this spring & turned it down to this 10” by 5” hollowform / bowl / vase thing today. Not sure. It’s a little rough, had some small cracks I hit with coffee and CA, finished with linseed. First time hollowing something this size, and first time running my lathe in reverse. Not bad for a carbide guy and looks neat on the shelf. Apologies for not taking more photos along the way.

I read a post a while ago where someone used 2 off center foci to turn both the outside and inside of an elliptical bowl. I don't remember whether they used two separate faceplates or two screwchucks localized at the off center foci. They described using two different size nova chuck jaw sets for the two tenons created on the bottom to hollow out the inside. Regrettably I didn't save this post

I was wondering if anyone uses this method, or knows where this particular post is. The vicmarc chuck is out of my price range and I am not sure if I can build the DIY sliding chucks described by others.

thanks

I did a rough turn on this one so it would dry faster, but now I'm conflicted about what to do with it. I may just let it dry and see if either making it smaller is the option or doing a resin fill with some mica powder or something. But I'll have quite a while to decide. It's in a bag for now so it doesn't crack, and I'll likely paint it with some thinned wood glue to help it dry slowly.

Hi All, Here is my first ever lamp. Thanks to u/FunGalich for the advice.

The base is Sapele, then we have cherry and walnet with the top being from a walnut spindle to change the grain direction. I inserted a black wooden veneer sheet between each change of wood to give the black lines.

The finish was shellac, friction polish and then 2 thin coats of mycrocrystaline wax. I 3d printed 2 rings to hold the acrylic in place.

No briquette press needed.

https://youtu.be/uVT4jgqO-co?si=yBvYBnjgjwVk3UUK

Picked up a few birch logs the other day and turned my first vase from the batch, still need to apply finish but its looking great

... so I turned (and sculpted/carved) a witch, a broomstick, and a blck cat! Black walnut, elm, and African blackwood, respectively, finished with pure tung oil.

There's a video of my process, if you're so inclined, here: https://youtu.be/kgddbRAdEvw

So I'd like to get a collet chuck so that I can be considerably more accurate with turning small things like pens and such. I'm looking at something like this one: https://www.turnerswarehouse.com/products/collet-chuck

https://woodturnerswonders.com/products/collet-chuck-set

https://www.pennstateind.com/store/LCDOWEL.html

As my lathe has a 1"-8tpi and MT2.

I'm more looking for one that threads on as I can then pass some smaller items through the collet father to work on the small piece with more stability with the area that's being worked at the time especially if I'm just making smaller pieces one at a time.

Are there any others that I should be looking at seriously. My research hasn't shown but a few that work directly with my setup without a thread adapter. From my limited time in this area I know that PSI is a pretty large name in the space but I'm not too sure about the others and they don't really have any revies that I've found either. Seems like they really need to address that area of their business...

Hello! Made this awesome little hollow out of white ash for our 4 years. It's pretty awesome! I recently learned hollowing so knew I wanted to combine some of these new tricks into one piece. Unfortunately I had an issue with my wood screw and I guess I hadn't measured when I was about to drill through but I went a little too deep and just barely pressed the fibers out the other end. So I decided I wasn't going to try wood dust and some glue because it's an anniversary piece so I decided I'd plug it. So the dowel is maple. Contrast is there faintly and I believe it ties quite well with the piece. Hoping the linseed oil tint washes away slowly as it fades. But I have till Nov 1st any other fun suggestions to do to this piece? This is my first project with texturing, hollow form, a plug, so pretty happy it's all tied together and I hope she likes it. Might do some more sanding on the bottom once all the oil dries and I see the tear out moreso. Let me know what you think!

No pics to share, sorry. I have a question about turning recently harvested maple. I have the entire tree I just harvested after a storm took it down last year and want to turn a bunch of large bowls from it. It is about 14" diameter and I turn on a 12x24 OneWay lathe.

My question is drying: would most of you twice turn these bowls or would you give them extended drying then turn dry in a year or so? If you chose long drying, how would you do it? Remove bark, seal top and bottom and let sit hoping for no cracks? If you twice turn it, how would you store the bowl in between turnings? I've heard of people leaving the turned blanks in a trash bag full of shavings, or just setting them out for a few months to a year in between turnings, but it seems like that would lead to cracking for sure.

In the past I've only turned bowls using dried blanks. I tend to stick to table bases and lamps turned using laminations.

Anyone have any advice? Thanks folks--I love this community!

Green oak

For reference I'll put what I currently have before my question

1. Lathe, king canada 10x16 (no speed adjustment knob) with live center and a spur drive

2. 1 large gouge 1 medium gouge 1 small gouge (all spindle) 1 medium skew 1 medium parting 1 round groove tool all hss

3. 1 cheap(bad) chuck (turns out its for metal)

4. 1 cheap (not bad) drill chuck

5. Credit card diamond honing stone

No bandsaw (the motor blew and they are expensive)

No belt,disk,drum, or other benchtop sander (really want one tho not sure which)

No grinder to sharpen (trying to find a budget one tho i have a jig for when i get one)

So my question/s is

Im on a tight budget, like I'll need to save for anything over $100 a month, what order should I be replacing/getting these (or other) tools? I work on spindle projects, tho i really wanna start on bowls and "boxes", open to any suggestions really, currently its not going well, from tool marks i cant figure out how to fix to dull tools and im so tempted to just quit even tho i love doing it. Thanks for taking the time to read