Hold on to your seats because this one is a doozy!
I was approached by the member in this video to grab the video and share it with him. He said it’s fine to share this with others to help reinforce why a face shield and even a respirator act as good PPE when turning large things.
This was at the very end of the bowl and the finishing touches. The bowl gouge he was using caught just perfectly, likely exposing a crack and flaw in the way the wood dried over time. It was just perfect enough to rip the bowl apart.
But don’t worry he is fine. He had a small scratch on his hand that he didn’t notice until later.
This kind of event would send most folks home, but not him! He cleaned this project up and stuck to some spindle work for the rest of his session.
This happened through no fault of his use of the equipment or tools. Even highly experienced wood turners have projects explode from time to time, or even in the middle of national level demonstrations.
To the Turner: I won’t drop names in posts like this, so if you feel like answering how you came out of this with your first response being a calm “Well alrighty then”, I’m sure folks would love to hear about it! Also please share some photos of your work. The things you’ve done here are awesome.
I’m glad he was wearing the faceshield. Thank you for sharing the video. As more and more people are getting into turning, when I’m in the shop I often hear “that unwelcome noise” of when the stock comes off the lathe. Usually I dont even want to look. On a good note, all the time I seen people using the lathe, they are wearing the face shield with the exception of last Monday or Tuesday, I think it was a class. The persons (looked like the instructor(s)) standing to the side were not wearing them. It also kind of bothered me that they were using a work bench.
Hey Jose! Thank you for the comments. For clarification on this past Tuesday, that was a group from Central Texas Woodturners Association, a local non-profit dedicated to woodturning and woodturners. They host the jet lathes here that we’ll hopefully be able to start incorporating in our own classes soon (pending chisel updates). During the class we’ll have a spot or two on Skedda booked out for them in case they need some table space. On our end we didn’t block it off early enough, however we’ll make sure that is tightened up in the future.
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I wasn’t onsite so I can’t speak to what you saw. I’ll offer up that if I”m working on a pen or a small spindle, I tend to neglect the face shield. Anytime I put a bowl, something wobbly, or otherwise “this no doubt would hurt if it flew off in any way”, then I don the shield. In reality, anything spinning around on the lathes could fly-off and potentially do harm.
This next comment is unrelated to this specific video. I don’t know how fast the lathe was set to.
One safety tip I practice, I don’t turn the RPMs up over about 1200 or 1300. I was fortunate to sit in on an all day demo from Alan Lacer who quite literally wrote books on modern day woodturning. In the demo, he made a comment that the most likely cause of death for turners were the result of having the lathe RPM too high. I have not done my own research to corroborate or second guess him. Woodturning has been around for hundreds of years. Beautiful pieces were made back then without the need for 1500, 2000, 2500, etc RPMs. Having tools setup the right way, sharpened well, you can cut and carve anything at slow RPMs.
Before this keeps going in the rabbit hole. My comment above was trying to compliment the people turning bowls (or “other” stuff) In being safe by wearing a face shield. In no way was i trying to outline any deficiencies in safety, general rules, or policies. If you have taken the comment personally, I apologize.
I told you scraper but it was a bowl gouge. I don’t want you looking like you don’t know what you’re talking about based on what I said. Thanks for sharing!
I’m glad it was just “all righty then”, I knew I said something and thought it might have been a little spicier. I guess I save those for my welding hood.
I was wondering what CTWA was! I’ll keep my eye out for the next get together.
And this is what I have turned over my last 6 or so visits.
