This is why you keep scrap wood.
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↓ Transcript
No dialogue in this one
I think I split my first piece of lathe wood.
Using a lathe is like making pottery out of wood. You have to think from the outside in.
Pressing too hard, selkie.
I loved using the lathe in shop class.
My first experience in one good turn deserves another was with a Shopsmith™[1] at about Selkie’s age, and it turned[0] out about as well as hers did. In a while I was producing redwood goblets by the dozens, and eventually doing faceplate turnings, all this before my tenth birthday
[0] Heh.
[1] Dad had a friend who was a sales rep and had a demo unit set up in our family business.
This page absolutely brings to mind the innate injustice of “The Gift,” vs. Talent, Vs. Ordinary/average/ability, and the learning curve. In High School I met guys who were ordinary guys like me. Or occasionally a talented guy who just “got it” when the teacher corrected an error on his first try, would do it just right in the second try.
And then there was the very rare ‘Gifted’ guy, a guy who would watch the teacher do it, say, “Oh,” to themselves and then do it better than the teacher could. They were so frustrating to watch!
Aw, poor Selkie. It takes a while to gain hand strength and master the material. I haven’t worked with wood-carving before, my experience is with ceramic clay… but it can take years to get the hang of shaping something. With anything…clay, wood, metal, wire, stone…. you have to build familiarity between your brain and your hands, get your muscles and mind used to how the material reacts, the pressure needed, how to push and pull and angle tools to get it to do what you want.
I sense an in-coming useful use of the eye lasers. Go Selkie!
Selkie may have the same issues Phol had with his finger webs
She’s gonna get irritated and laser it.
i’ve woodworked with those things and this is a mood. completely accurate.
In my high school shop class, I managed to turn out (no pun intended) a decorated cylinder, but assignment #2 was a huge bowl, and when I touched the big block of wood with the cutter thingie (I forget what they’re called) there was this incredibly loud BANG! and when I recovered, in the diagonally opposite corner of the room was this kid holding about 80% of my piece of wood out in front of him with a glazed expression on his face. That was the end of my power tool career. Luckily the other kid wasn’t hurt and I just had a (fairly substantial) cut on my finger.
I’ve worked with lathes in high school, as well as several factories.
Doing this by hand is super duper dangerous, one would think Grandpa would have better sense about this stuff.
I honestly thought she was making a lightsaber hilt and was unhappy with it. At First. Because I absolutely, positively did not try to make a lightsaber hilt in woodshop. Honest.