THE BEST WAY TO LEARN WOODTURNING IS TO NOT MAKE ANYTHING AT ALL.

3 Squares of dry wood, although expensive, will give you the feel of working with the kind of material you will eventually be using for furniture, etc. Squares are necessary for Exercise 5. Try pine, poplar and maple in that order to get the experience of increasing degrees of hardness.

Efficient Practice
Reduce the shapes down to their simplest elements and practice them independently.

Most authors advocate that beginners practice by making complete shapes, like a series of beads. The emphasis is on the finished product. My approach is to put the emphasis on the process, and the end products are simply chips and a remaining rough core.

General Guidelines
Cut your practice pieces to length about 2" shorter than your tool rest. Then you will not have to worry about your chisel going off the end of the tool rest. If you have a mini/midi lathe with a 6" tool rest, your pieces would be only 4" long by this rule. This may be impractical, so I would cut them longer and be careful to only work near the middle of the tool rest.

Use a spindle roughing gouge (preferably 3/4") to bring your blank down to a cylinder. Try to get as smooth a surface as possible on the final pass.

Every stroke needs to be practiced on both the right and left side. When working the left side, stay clear of the spur center by an inch or two.

The proper thickness of shaving (depth of cut) will vary with the hardness of the wood. If you take about 1/16" for each stroke, then
the piece will allow at least 50 strokes on each side before you meet in the middle.

On each stroke strive to reach a depth so that the core diameter (smallest diameter) is about half the original diameter. Avoid the temptation to go deeper on successive cuts.

Practice Sequence
The ball shape and the reverse curve come first because when making these cuts, the chisel starts out with the bevel in contact with the surface. This is the "sliding entry."

The cove and shoulder cuts begin with the chisel supported only by the tool rest and the hand, thus making a "piercing entry". The latter requires the chisel be held at precisely the correct angle on initial contact to prevent a catch. You will find a discussion of the causes of catches in the November, 2006 issue of The Old Saw.

All directions below are given for the right side. Reverse these directions when doing the left side.

The Five Basic Exercises

I teach five basic learning exercises...

1 The Ball Shape is the basic form of all beads and convex shapes, and can be made with the gouge or the skew. Pages could be written about which is better. It is easier to round the top of the bead with a gouge, but only a skew can make a clean inside corner. In theory, making the bead with the skew and completing the corners, all with a single tool is expeditious, however I prefer to shape the bead with a gouge, and then finish the inside corners in a second operation with a skew.

Begin with the medium gouge angled about 10¡ to the right, and with the flute straight up (12 o'clock). As the cut progresses, the handle is swung to the right, the chisel is rolled clockwise until the flute is on the right (3 o'clock), and the handle is raised slightly.
2 The Reverse Curve is a complex form with a high point, a low point and an inflection point. For a complete discussion of this curve,
see my article in the February, 2006 issue of The Old Saw.

With a small gouge, begin the cut exactly as in the ball shape, but when you reach a point about half way down, reverse the curvature by swinging the handle to the left and up and rolling the flute back to the straight up position (12 o'clock) to finish.

3 The Cove Cut requires a piercing entry. This means that the edge of the gouge is tangent to the cutting circle at the point of contact, and slices into the workpiece like a knife. Because the cutting edge is a curve, it is not always easy to see the correct angle to hold the gouge and a catch can result. When you get the edge tangent, simultaneously orient the handle of the chisel so the bevel will cause the chisel to enter at a 10¡ to 20¡ end point angle.

4 The Shoulder Cut is made with the toe of the skew chisel. A very slow feed rate will create a surface which is perfectly smooth and cannot be improved by sanding.

Rotate the chisel so the edge is almost in contact with the wall of the cone shape being cut. On the right side, rotate the skew clockwise, on the left, counterclockwise. Do not rotate so much that the edge comes in contact with the side, as this will result in a catch. Take the correct thickness of cut. In most cases, this will be about 1/32" to 1/16" depending on the hardness of the wood.

5 The Shoulder Cut Into a Square (transition cut) is the most difficult of the beginner's exercises. It is included here because it is required in nearly all forms of furniture and architectural work except the Windsor style. Almost every table leg begins with the transition cut. In principle, it is exactly the same as Exercise 4 but because the cut is intermittent, it is harder to maintain the stability of the chisel, and it is much more difficult to see where to begin the cut. Good light and a dark background (black paper) will help you see the profile of the wood more clearly.

A common error is trying to force the bevel against the side of the cut in an effort to stabilize it. But because the surface is intermittent, this only causes more vibration.

Instead, concentrate on pushing the chisel straight ahead, and if you have rotated to the correct angle, it will simply follow its nose. If you have trouble, go back to Exercise 4. After you have achieved mastery of these basic elements, you will have acquired a "vocabulary of shapes" which you can now combine into a limitless variety of designs for your spindle turning projects.