I was introduced to woodturning by my father. When he married my mother, they went on a honeymoon in the great Smoky Mountains. They stopped in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where they visited a shop making small cherry goblets with captive rings. He was intrigued, and when he returned home, he bought a lathe from Sears Roebuck and proceeded to turn several cherry goblets with captive rings. Fifteen years later, when I was a teenager, he retrieved that lathe from the rafters of his dad‘s garage, and he set it up for me to use. Of course, the first thing I turned was a small goblet.
It was years later when I bought my first home that I had space to create a shop. I bought a used Delta lathe and proceeded to turn with very little knowledge and no instruction. This was 1977 – before the Internet and YouTube. As a subscriber to Fine Woodworking, I eventually learned about several books by Richard Raffan on woodturning. These became my go-to source for instruction on how to turn spindles, hollow farms, boxes, and all other things round.
For the past 35 years, I have had a shop in my basement — first with a Woodfast lathe from Australia and then a Powermatic 3520B. Woodturning has always been purely a hobby and I have very seldom sold my turnings. What I appreciate most is the joy and sense of gratitude that others express when I present them with a gift of one of my turnings. I especially enjoy turning hollow forms and boxes, and I seldom like to turn the same form more than once. Over the years, I have grown to appreciate the importance of form, simplicity, and attention to detail in my turnings.
I had hoped to devote much of my retirement to woodturning. However, I developed serious back problems, and after two major surgeries, I am still unable to stand or sit for any length of time. So my time at the lathe is much more limited now, but I enjoy every minute of it. There is still nothing like the joy of “making shavings.“