My grandson the woodturner

Friday my grandson, wife, and I went to our lake house and spent some time in the woodshop. I had previously written about the idea of making a spurtle as an introductory woodturning project for my grandson. He seemed interested and so we set up the mini-lathe and gave him his first lessons.
I was surprised and pleased to see how he enjoyed the project. He seemed to understand the mystery of seeing what finished project was hidden inside the raw stock. I was impressed with his ease at learning how to use the tools and his natural carefulness in following new methods.
His tasks were to round a square maple spindle with a roughing gouge, then to use calipers to determine the thickness at several points. Then he used a parting tool to set the depths at four places along the spindle. We were removing a lot of wood to reduce the spindle in size so, instead of just removing the waste quickly with a roughing gouge, he used a spindle gouge to practice making beads and coves.

The spurtle appears to have evolved into a straight dowel-shaped implement with a handle area and a stirring area. Other than that, there are numerous examples of spurtles that look quite different one from another. So, the tool that evolved was Dylan's unique design.
Once he was finished turning it, we polished the wood. It is now ready to make a trip to Colorado and stir some delicious oatmeal or soup.
We will have one more day at the lake house. If he is interested in more wood turning, I do have a couple 4-in-1 screw driver kits that might be another turning project for him to try.