Articles & Tips
Welcome to our member's articles and tips page. You will find educational, informational and entertaining reading here. Click on the titles and links below to read the entire submissions.

Bowl Rim Decoration
Brian Laing has written an article describing different bowl rim techniques. 

NEOWTA Survey 2007
Here is the 2007 Survey prepared by Larry Elizondo with the results tabulated by Almeta Robertson of many of the club members. 

String Steady Rest Diagram
Maurice Clyma was kind enough to create a drawing of Jean-François Escoulen's string steady rest. Jean uses it to make his famous 'Trembleur'. This is a large image so you can print it full size. Click the image or the title to go to the full image.

Vacuum Pump Information
Larry Elizondo gave a wonderful club demonstration on using vacuum pumps for turning. He found a great article written by William Nobel (http://www.wbnoble.com) and instead of reinventing the wheel William graciously gave us permission to link to his article. Click here to link to a 37 page PDF file on the subject or click here to link to the Glendale Woodturners Guild website to read a PDF briefing on the subject.  Adobe Reader required 

Check out William's website http://www.wbnoble.com for other articles and to shop his offerings of vacuum equipment and faceplates. 

Cleora School Woodturning Demonstration
Almeta Robertson has written an article about a recent demonstration for students at Cleora School near Ketchum.

The Use of Color with Woodturnings
Bob Galloway and Oren Zehner have written an extensive article about using color on your turnings.

10 Ideas
Trent Bosh has left us with some very good things to think about. He provides us with '10 Ideas to Make Your Work Work' and '10 Ideas to Help Troubleshoot Your Designs'.

Safety, Conversions, Charts and Glues
James Johnson found several websites containing information on wood toxicity, board foot conversions, woodworking glues, and drill press speed charts.

Screen Calipers
Screen Calipers is a great little program. I often find myself looking at turnings and diagrams on the web and often would like to measure the ratios of the design. This free program places a dial caliper on your desktop to accurately measure any object's dimensions. You can download it at http://www.iconico.com/caliper/index.asp 

Tim Yoder

Building a new shop
Maurice Clyma has documented the process of building a new woodturning shop. His article covers design, materials, city requirements and has a list of informational links.

Stubby 1000 Lathe
Tim Yoder has provided an in depth look at his new Stubby lathe. His article covers the lathe's features, the unpacking and setting up process and improvements he made to his shop in preparation of the arrival of the lathe. This article has quite a few images so be ready for a long download.

CD tops
Bob Galloway has written a very nice 'how to' for making spinning tops out of discarded CDs.

Microlathe
It is a simple cad program. I’ve played around with it a little and it is pretty simple once you read the instructions. The control panel is where most of the creativity occurs once you plot the points. The program is shareware so it can be distributed freely. There isn’t a setup file in the zip. You have to create a folder and then unzip the executable lathe file into the folder. Click on Microlathe Program and go to the bottom of the page you link to and you will be able to download the program.

Joe Smith

Webmaster note: In searching the web to find a link for the Microlathe Program I came across another program made by Woodturner Pro. If someone wants to check these programs out, maybe they could write us a report

On & Off Again
If you thought you couldn't put a turned piece back on the lathe (when using a face plate) the same way you took it off maybe this will help. I use at least six quarter inch lag screws (length depending on the size of wood) to fasten on the faceplate. Once in awhile there will be a reason to remove the work from the lathe and even remove the faceplate from the work for another rush job. When you are ready to get back to the original job reinstall the faceplate in the same holes as before and put the work back on the lathe. Align the tool rest on the side of your work at the tail stock end while turning the lathe by hand until the wood just touches the tool rest. Take a box end wrench and loosen or tighten the appropriate lag screws until your work lines up as much as possible. With a little re-turning you are back in business.

Bill Evans

Abrasives
When Gary Sanders gave his demo on turning small Christmas Ornaments, he mentioned a supplier of sand paper and a polish that gave pieces a mirror like finish.  Here is the information off of that man's business card.

Jerry Horn Abrasive Sanding and Polishing
529 Main Avenue
Loveland, Ohio 45140

Teflon
Tired of the screw lid sealing shut on your finishes? Just put a wrap of Teflon tape (plumbers white tape) on the threads. No more stuck lids! 

Bob Fulton

Sticking Chucks
One of the best tips that I learned was from Bob Fulton:  Cut out washers from your plastic milk jugs, to put behind your chucks, or faceplates, etc. You can tighten them up and they will come loose easier when you are ready to change to another chuck etc....Works Great...

Dan Combs

Poor Man's Exhaust System


I use a 20" box fan. With a 20"X 20"X 1" filter duct taped to the back of the fan (filter found easily at Wal-Mart)...I set it behind my lathe. You have three speeds low, Med, Hi... It sucks up the small particles pretty well.  I also in the summer, put a fan behind me. This cools me and also pushes the dust away from me into the other fan. You can install the filter with the ribs vertical and the dust will fall down and not clog the filter as fast. I also still use a face mask as a back up.

Dan Combs