Career Development Grant
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
The goal of this project is to upgrade techniques and equipment necessary to increase efficiency in spindle turning wood for the creation of ladder-back chair parts, Shaker pedestal bases and end table legs and to gain introductory knowledge and techniques in turning natural-edge decorative bowls. Measurable outcomes include the following. (1) Receive professional lathe instruction in advanced spindle turning and in introductory techniques to create natural-edge bowls. (2) Purchase a professional lathe and tooling (Laguna REVO 18-36 professional wood lathe, the Pinnacle cryogenic 3/4 skew chisel, the Pinnacle cryogenic bowl turning tool set.) Higher quality tools allow an artist to work more efficiently--less vibration and less user fatigue with heavier tools, more stability and safety in mounting stock, more powerful motor to turn larger stock, quicker machine adjustment. 1. Attend 24 hours of one-on-one mentoring from professional word turner Jerry Prosise in Brentwood, Tennessee (in three consecutive 8-hour per day sessions) in February/March 2016. Twelve hours of mentoring will be devoted to advanced spindle turning techniques--tool selection, sharpening insights, roughing stock techniques, knowing when to use and how to achieve pull cuts, push cuts, shear cuts and scraping, the efficient use of the skew chisel to produce a flawless finish and to cut down on sanding. The other twelve hours of instruction will be on introductory bowl turning: stock selection for natural edge bowls, stock preparation (how to cut it), stock mounting possibilities with different chuck variations, basic bowl designs, grain and feature orientation, natural edge techniques (where the bark of the wood is intact and visible on the finished bowl). Also included will be mentoring in making the various cuts using the bowl gouge to hollow safely, preventing tool catching, using the bowl scraper effectively, and finishing variations. 2. Verify purchase of tools upon acceptance of grant at Woodcraft store in Bloomington, Minnesota with receipt sent to Arrowhead Regional Arts Council office."
I purchased the Revo lathe in February along with assorted tools and completed the mentoring in mid-June. The first measurable outcome has been a revolutionary attitude change—a night and day reversal. Before the grant, I dreaded turning things. Now I look for turning projects and am stockpiling material for future projects. The Revo lathe is such a quality tool. It’s super heavy duty, eliminating fatigue, and it has smooth, easy speed changes with the turn of a knob. There has been a 66% increase in efficiency when turning tapered rungs for ladder-back chairs. That’s huge. Before the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council grant, it took me 12-15 minutes (not including sanding) to do one rung. Now it takes me 5 minutes start to finish! And that’s less than two weeks after the classes! The peeling and shear cuts with a Lacer skew (that I learned from the mentoring) take stock down quickly with minimal sanding (220 finish sanding). The increase also comes from direct mentoring about the correct sharpening process—keeping your lathe tools razor sharp. It’s a staggering turn-around, and I can’t thank the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council board enough for making this a reality. Because I just finished the mentoring classes (and moved house a month ago), I haven’t had a lot of time to complete some of the turning projects for the 2017 exhibitions, except a couple rungs and roughing out a couple natural edge bowls.
Other, local or private