Rockler store closes: the good and the bad

Next weekend the Cleveland area Rockler store will close it's doors. I have been going there for the last ten years or so and will miss the convenience of picking up something quickly. The only national vendor for woodworking supplies in the Cleveland area will be Woodcraft. Although they are very similar in many ways, the Rockler store tended to have more hardware items in stock. My closest Rockler store will be in Columbus Ohio, so I imagine I will be using the Rockler catalogue for most of my purchases from them.

The good part is the 50% off everything in the store. I made two sweeps through the store. When I returned to the car after the first purchase I remarked to my wife, "I could have spent another hundred dollars easily." And the love of my life uttered these golden words in response, "Well why don't you go back in and get what you want. This won't happen again." So I did.

I bought a 6 foot birch work bench top, several turning tools, some sand paper, some inlays, and a few bits. The turning wood blanks had been pretty well picked over and what was left was the really expensive pieces (even at 50% off) and the pieces with cracks.

Bottle Stoppers

I think I am making a regular, predictable journey through the beginning stages of being a wood turner. First came pens, then some spindle turning, a start at bowl turning, and now, bottle stoppers.


I started with a kit from Woodcraft that included a 1/4" X 20 mandrel and several chrome stopper bottoms. The first ones were simple efforts but inspired me to try some different brands of stoppers.


My initial designs came from an October, 1996 issue of Wood magazine but most of those designs had very pointed tops and would have caused injuries when used as a stopper. My second set of stopper supplies, including ornaments for the top of the stopper, came from The Woodturners Catalog.

There the confusion started since the new stoppers used a larger thread or a wooden dowel. Each required some changes from the original methods. I created a mandrel from a bolt and nut to hold the larger threaded stoppers.

When I look at the series of stoppers I can readily see the value of drawing a design on paper before starting to turn on wood. The turnings seem to have progressed from unbalanced and haphazard to a more unified design. My favorites are the two shown in the accompanying picture (at twelve o'clock and three o'clock). I like the ornamentation on the top of the stoppers.

From the beginning my wife and I have struggled while trying to figure the true usefulness of these stoppers. First, when we open a bottle of wine, we usually finish it -meaning no need for a stopper. Second, when we try to use one of the stoppers on a tall bottle of wine, we can't find a spot in the refrigerator to accommodate that tall of a bottle. So, these may be neat things to make and useful to give as gifts, but not likely to be an oft-used item

Tool sharpening

I have signed up to retake a lathe tool sharpening class. The first time I took this class I was too new to the hobby and I didn't ask many questions that I should have asked. I am retaking the class with a little more experience and the knowledge that I need to get some questions answered so that I sharpen my lathe tools correctly.

I knew that I needed to retake this class when someone looked at a parting tool that I had "sharpened" and exclaimed a little too loudly and a little too publicly, "This is the poorest sharpened tool I have ever seen. It is TOTALLY wrong!" Well, I now know how to sharpen a parting tool correctly. I need to learn enough in this sharpening class to feel as ready to sharpen some of the other tools, like a skew and some of the miniature tools that I have.

I have a Wolverine Sharpening System with a slow speed grinder. I have found a web site that appears to explain how to use the system's various attachments. Now I just need the class.

Split Turned Vases

I attended a class, "Split Turned Vases" at Woodcraft in Cleveland. I had no idea what a split turned vase would be but I signed up for the course to experience something new in turning. This was labeled an intermediate class and I was also unsure at what level I would describe my abilities - I was sensing it might be a stretch to call my turning skills intermediate.

It was a class of four turners scheduled to last from 9:30 until 5:30. We had an hour for lunch and were done by 4:30 but this also included some time to shop in the Woodcraft store!

You can see the three pages of instruction sheets for this project at my web album. We completed a cherry vase with a 3/8" inlay.

The basic approach of this project is to cut a rounded blank into two sections with a lip similar to a box lip. The unique instructions are to hollow out the top and bottom sections with a round nose scraper instead of hollowing tools or a bowl gouge. You then glue the two sections back together, make a recess for the inlay over the top of the glue line, and attach the inlay strip. Then you finish the top, cut off the chuck section, and drill an access hole in the top. The finish we used was two coats of Armor Seal buffed with 320 grit in between coats followed by two applications of Crystal Clear wax.

It is a relatively easy project that makes a really nice gift.

Tea Light Holders

One of the simpler projects we did at the wood turning week at Cedar Lakes was making tea lights. Using a 5 inch circle of 1 inch think walnut, I made a wooden holder for a tea light. Using the screw chuck, we mounted the wood and detailed the bottom of the light incorporating the foot and the tenon for the chuck jaws into the design. Turning the blank over and holding it with the jaws of the chuck, we drilled a 1 1/4 inch hole for the tea light. Then the top was tapered to the edge to create the appearance that the circle of wood was floating above the table surface. At the workshop we sealed the wood and put on several coats of Deft spray finish.

The walnut holder on the far left is the one that looks the best to my eye. The cherry holder on the right is a little too thick and appears heavier and less delicate.

When I got home a cut a number of 5" mahogany blanks to try to replicate the shape and appearance of the walnut holder. These might be one of the projects I have ready for my grandson to try when he visits this fall.

Understanding ogee

After the initial simpler projects at the wood turning class, the instructor gave us a bowl blank of spalted maple and said, "Make a bowl with a simple ogee shape." Well, since I didn't really know what a "simple ogee shape" was, and, typically male, thought it beneath me to ask, what I produced has a somewhat rounded shape but not a good ogee shape.

Although I liked the bowl and the instructor made a nice correction to my squared-off rim, I wanted to learn what ogee really meant and how to make a pleasing formed bowl.

A quick look in Wikipedia led me to understand that an ogee shape is a convex curve followed by a concave curve. When I looked at my spalted maple bowl, it had the convex curve but a very, very small concave curve.

What I also wanted to understand was the proper proportion of the two curves in relation to the entire bowl shape. I found a nice article on good design and the "Golden Mean" which gave me a lot of direction. That lead me to draw out a bowl with the appropriate ogee curve in proportion to those design principles.

I then produced a walnut bowl that matched those dimensions. Using the drawing as a guide helped me conceptualize the design ideas. I'm glad I did the research to fill in my missing knowledge because it will help me on the next bowl.

I had to use some purchased bowl blanks which are a little shallower than would be ideal. But the difference is only slight and I still ended up with a nice salad bowl size piece. I will now try to duplicate the size and shape in order to have sets for salad bowls at our house.

A week of turning

Background: My wife, Mary Lou, and I signed up for our first Elderhostel activity. We chose craft activities at Cedar Lakes Center in Ripley, West Virginia. Mary Lou has been to that Center for many years for week long quilting sessions. This was my first visit and I had been forewarned that the facilities could be rather plain and the food more equivalent to school cafeteria food. Mary Lou signed up for a session to make a "Carolina Lily" quilted wallhanging. I signed up for a week of woodturning. Neither of us were familiar with our instructors.

I was totally happy with my experience. Cedar Lakes is run by the West Virginia Department of Education and serves as an outdoor education, recreation, and craft instruction facility for both school children, community groups and groups such as Elderhostel. I came home totally worn out but also relaxed and really pleased with the progress in turning that I had made. Meeting and working with eight other turners, some new to turning but several very accomplished, helped to add to my enjoyment.

My class was taught by a professional woodturner, Joe Smith, who has taught several wood turning classes at Cedar Hills. He gave us a series of turning projects from simple to more demanding. Joe was an encouraging and challenging instructor with a delightful sense of humor. This picture is a maple burl bowl that I turned and finished.

Over the next several posts I will talk about some of the projects and show some pictures of my work. However, a complete webalbum is embedded in the side column which will let you see a series of 49 pictures from this experience. For a full set to pictures of Cedar Lakes, my instructor and classmates, and some of our projects, use this address at Kodak Galleries.
This experience leaves me excited to return to the lathe and practice more bowl turning.