Why You Should Do the Easy Stuff, Sometimes

Unless you’ve been turning wood since you were three, think back to the first time you saw a hand turned wooden or acrylic pen, bottle stopper, lidded box, baby rattle, or any of dozens of other hand turned wooden items. Do you remember how awestruck you were, how awestruck those around you were? I do and I won’t let myself forget that feeling. Turning a pen is considered very very easy and very basic and it is unless you’ve never done it. A bottle stopper is the same way unless you’ve never done it. Making that spinning top in two or three minutes out of a solid piece of wood is awe inspiring to someone who’s never done it, it seems a little bit like magic.

For your friends and relatives who are not turners, when you show them something simple it seems like a minor miracle. Most can’t visualize how you do something like this and are struck with wonderment at the work of art that you just unveiled so effortlessly and in such a short amount of time. Everyone can appreciate a bowl that took you a week to make but right behind that with an equally huge Wow! Factor is a Christmas ornament, a miniature birdhouse, and acorn lidded box, a lidded box with an insert disk on the top. A child’s spinning top texturized and colored will often spark interest that may last a lifetime especially if it’s done in a demonstration with folks present who are not woodturners.

The very first professional Woodturning presentation that I ever saw took place at a flat workers club meeting in a club member’s unfinished basement in a house so new there was only one overhead light bulb in a very cold basement two days after Christmas about the turn of the century. Someone brought in a jet 1642 wood lathe and about 50 of us stood around (no chairs) for two hours while Nick Cook astounded and amazed us. In our short time together Nick made about a dozen different projects from a small cocobolo spinning top to a garden dibble to a mahogany platter to a baby rattle a snowman and a couple of wine stoppers. All of us were amazed! That, in fact, is one of the main reasons that I’m a professional woodturner today.

You can use the easy stuff to show off our craft to folks who may be interested, especially younger folks. Easy stuff will help you hone your skills, allow you to complete a project when you have only very limited time, let you get some lathe time when you’re recovering from illness or injury, or just have a boat load of fun. So don’t get so caught up in the big stuff that you forget to have fun every now and then. By the way, I just made about a dozen pens and a half dozen bottle stoppers – thank you very much.

On another note, let me apologize for not getting my newsletter out the last couple of weeks. I was a vendor at Woodworking in America in Winston–Salem North Carolina and the very next week I was also a vendor at turning southern style in Dalton, Georgia. There is less than a month to go before my main show season starts and publishing my weekly newsletter may be a bit of a challenge. I hope to see you in person somewhere this year.

Ron Brown

Because “Wherever you go, there you are.”