Syzygy …

First of all, I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day Weekend! I’ve had my share of labor lately, a busy couple of weeks has kept me away from both my workshop and my blog.

I got some much needed shop time on Labor Day afternoon and decided to get some [...]

Great excitement!  My McNaughton Center Saver arrived.  I’ve been wanting this for a long time and some recent sales of my turnings along with my upcoming birthday gave me the opportunity to order one.

McNaughton Center Saver

McNaughton Center Saver

One of the things that has always frustrated me about turning a [...]

This weekend I built a “captured” hollowing system with a laser.  I got the idea from a post made by Steven Antonucci on the Woodturner’s Resource Forum.  Using a captured system is like night and day compared to hand held hollowing, and having the laser will help with consistent wall thickness.  More to the [...]

I mentioned a while back that a friend of mine had given me a Vacuum Pump. My first goal for the pump was to build a vacuum chuck system for my lathe. This broke down into three parts; fittings and air filter for the vacuum pump, a rotary adaptor and the chucks.

Work on [...]

I ordered another tool from Woodchuck Lathe Tools. This tool has a 15mm square carbide cutter. Today I made a handle for it using Zambezi Teak from Zambezi Exotics. The handle was pretty easy to make as the tool comes with a round tang. After rounding the blank I held it at the headstock [...]