A Turners Story

I got into wood turning by accident. Someone offered me a free ancient lathe which had not been used for years. As I had taken up woodworking when I retired and knew nothing about turning, except what I had briefly learned at school 60 years ago, I could hardly refuse. The lathe was on a worm eaten old bench and it took me a while to build a new one. Then the lathe had to be refurbished and rewired so it took a while to get going. The lathe came with some rusty tools which I cleaned up and, after watching YouTube videos, I sharpened them. Having let it be known that I was now into wood turning friends gave me logs to turn into bowls.

With my book and knowledge gleaned from YouTube I set to with turning. I was surprised at my progress (obviously my school woodwork teacher had done a good job). I turned out several nice bowls and really got into it. The lathe, which was nearly as old as me, did have severe limitations so I decided to buy a new lathe - this was basically from the money we did not spend on holidays during lockdown. The new lathe has lovely modern controls and is much bigger than the old one so turning is much easier. I’ve also bought some new turning tools but still use some of the old ones. There are basically only about five tools for turning and these can be picked up cheaply at boot fairs and on eBay. People keep giving me logs or I scrounge from a tree surgeon at work so I am not buying much wood to turn.

Wood turning is very popular and there are two big clubs in Sussex within 25 miles of Newhaven. We hope to create a new wood turning section at Wood Creatives. I am progressing in my desire to teach turning so we can get more people involved.

Regards Bill Giles

Here are some of my efforts over the years including some which have won prizes at my wood turning club.