Page 64 of Not Looking
I grinned. “Very carefully.”
We stopped at the garage door of my workshop. “Wait here. I’ll open it up.”
Craig nodded. “Ok.”
I continued down to the regular door, popped inside, and hit the button for the garage door.
I grabbed my heavy apron and face shield. “Let me find you some safety glasses,” I said as Craig stepped inside.
“I’ve got some,” he replied.
“Oh… Ok.” I paused. “I guess normal shop safety rules apply. The only thing you’re probably not used to is the lathe. The most important safety rule is not to stand in the throw.”
“The throw…” he seemed to think about it for a second. “That’s the direction the item is spinning, right?”
I nodded. “Exactly. If a bowl comes off or flies apart at eight-hundred RPM, it can break a bone or worse faster than you can react.”
“How do you stay out of the way?”
I smiled. “You’ll see it in the way I stand. I’ll be to the side, either close to the drive end or the tailstock. My hands and arms will be in the most dangerous zones. And…” I motioned to my apron, “this will protect me from anything sharp that might shear off.”
He turned and looked around my workshop. “How about I stand over by the bandsaw. Is that safe?”
I nodded. “That’s a good spot, and I think you’ll be able to see from there.”
He backed off to stand near the bandsaw while I tightened a friction drive in my headstock. I grabbed one of the small bowls that I’d gotten out of my shed to be finish-turned, settled it against the drive, and brought up my tailstock. A couple spins and adjustments later, and I was satisfied that I’d gotten it centered.
I glanced up to see Craig watching me, then I noticed he wasn’t wearing his safety glasses. I chuckled and tapped the faceshield near my temple a couple of times.
Craig laughed, flushed, and reached for his safety glasses. He slid them on and gave me a thumbs-up.
I nodded, grabbed my gouge, moved into position, and reached for the switch. Then I remembered something.
“It might be loud,” I warned. “Do you have ear protection?”
Craig patted around his neck, where I’d seen him wear banded earplugs at the mill. Then he shook his head. “I didn’t bring them.”
I motioned to where I had a small container of orange earplugs. “I think you’ll be ok. But if you want something, there’s the bin.”
“Thanks.”
I nodded, then turned on my lathe.
Rounding was always the slowest part of the process, and even though the bowl blank had been first shaped when it was green, it had naturally shifted during the drying process. It meant I had to start my lathe slow—around two-hundred RPM—or it could shake from the imbalance.
I moved toward the base to shape the tenon—filling the workshop with the familiartck-tck-tck-tck-tckof my gouge meeting the wood. It didn’t take long for the contact to become constant, and I only had to do a bit more shaping before turning off the lathe again.
“Do you normally do all these changes?” Craig asked as I removed the friction drive and seated my chuck into the headstock.
I chuckled. “Yes and no. Usually, I’ll have a bunch of blanks ready to go. I’ll round one, then the next. I’ll get them all done before switching to the chuck.”
He nodded. “That makes more sense, less downtime swapping.”
I smiled at him. “Exactly.”
I turned the lathe back on, still slow, so I could shape the outside of the bowl. As thetck-tck-tcksubsided and my gouge ran smooth, I turned off the lathe again.
I spun the bowl manually a few times, running my fingers over the surface. How did I want the final piece to look? After a moment, I decided I wanted to feature some interesting grain near the rim of the bowl. It wouldn’t be enough to be enclosed, but I wanted the rim to curve inward slightly.
