Your experience: Self taught vs Instruction

[midnight rider]

I was curious where many of you turners fell on the spectrum of being completely self taught to being closely instructed or taking multiple classes. How much did your prior wood working experience ease the transition to the lathe? What methods did you find were useful or unnecessary when starting out? Any nostalgia on that first project?

Of course everyone has their own method of learning, which works best for them. And I'm sure most of us are in a perpetual state of learning / acquiring new techniques as well. Did you find any wood turning nuances or tricks of the trade that you couldn't get from a book / net or experimenting yourself?

[ashley_phil]

I've found instruction both formal and informal from friends to be invaluable.

Take a day a visit a shop of some NCWW folks and you'll learn a ton.

[MikeH]

My first pen I ever turned was at Ed Nelson's (nelsone) shop and I still have that pen. I would love to take some formal classes eventually.

[Henry W]

"Self-taight"? not quite.
- I have two books, one by Raffan, one by Ellsworth - both excellent.
- I have watched a lot of videos on You Tube - favorites are John Lucas (Go to Youtube.com and type in John60lucas) and Lyle Jamieson (also on YouTube, search his name). Both quite instructive.
- Then there are the helpful folks here (and other boards) that can be very helpful - if you can describe the issue you are having.
Instructed - well yes - but not in a formal classroom or lab.

Henry

[Mike Davis]

I stumbled around in the dark for decades, made some decent stuff and had some warm fires from my efforts. In the last year or three I started to read some books, watched one DVD and invited an expert to hold a workshop at my home. I am less resistant to learning from others now that I have proved to myself that i can do it on my own. I feel confident enough to listen to their instruction and take or leave what i need from their ideas. And don't feel the need to argue or prove them wrong if I disagree, I just let it go.

[CarvedTones]

I would absolutely recommend at least a very basic intro from a friend if nothing else. You can learn a lot from books and videos, but there are some basics that are unsafe to discover for yourself, IMO.

Having said that, I am mostly self taught. Nothing else is like the lathe, other than just general knowledge about motors and not touching things moving at high speed. Except that you do touch it, purposefully and in only specific ways with specific tools. I had some worrisome early experiences.

[chris_goris]

I dont think you can ever stop learning using a lathe. That being said, I started out teaching myself doing spindle work. There are lots of books out there on the subject but I think youtube has a wealth of info. Books can give you lots of technical data ie, workholding techniques, tool grinds etc, but watching the videos, for me anyhow, taught me the most. Do you know what youd like to do? spindles? bowls?. Like I said, I started doing spindles, added a duplicator, found a larger machine, then another... When I stumbled across a screaming deal on a PM3520B that came with virtually every available tool, chuck and doohickey known to turners, did I start doing bowls. This I really enjoyed because I could start and finish a project in one night conceivably. I learned REALLY fast how nasty a catch can be though!. Boy, did I have a hard time learning how to handle a bowl gouge at first. But, once you know how to hold it, its effortless. The way I determined finally how to properly use it was I slowed my machine down to like 2 RPMS and watched what the tool did at different angles and VIOLA! I hit the sweet spot!!! shavings were just rolling off!. I was hooked!!! And you will be too!, its a great sideline from rectilinear work.

[erasmussen]

Read my tag line.
read the instructions then just did it.

[woodArtz]

I struggled on and learned mostly on my own. After a while, I felt more confidence and began producing work that I liked. After a few years, I began taking classes from some of the "masters". Like Mike said, you tend to pick up what is useful for your style and comfort level and discard the rest.

Recently, I've begun teaching and that's a blast. I learn new things as students ask questions and share their experiences. Learn something new every week!

[jcz]

Instructions?? Men don't need no stinking instructions........


I am self taught. I had no woodworking experience before jumping in feet first. I still have very little experience with anything other than turning.

[Splinter]

Join a local Woodturning Club. Normally the membership fee is not much and most do demos at their meetings and have mentors that will help you for free. Consider attending the NC Woodturning Symposium in Greensboro is November. http://northcarolinawoodturning.com/ You will get to watch some Master Turners.

[wormil]

I took every woodworking class offered in high school which included several turning projects and they were great for teaching me the basics but that was decades ago and when I recently bought a lathe I read some books but found youtube to be the most helpful.

[MrAudio815]

I was taught by erasmuseen (Earl, the segmented turner) on a segmented bowl that he glued up. He taught me on all the traditional turning tools...Skew, bowl gouge, etc and then he taught me on the Oland tools. I preferred the Oland tools because they were much more forgiving and easy to use, even though there is more sanding on some woods. Later on I went over to learn how to make my own Oland tools and still use them to this day. I learned a Great Deal from Earl and owe him so much as shortly after that I won DaveO's lathe with a good story and a great picture of my first turning...I was so gitty~!

About a year later and many bowls, a few segmented bracelets I made myself, I asked Charlie to teach me how to make his AWESOME segmented table saw sled. I arrived at 10am and left at midnight and had a BLAST. We made the sled, then cut all the segments for a potpourri bowl, glued them up and I turned it on his PM lathe with the best dust collection ever. It was an awesome time and I learned a lot from him and have a awesome sled to this day that cuts perfect segments at any angle.


I am now alone in Utah compared to North Carolina with the amount of woodworkers there. I did however get to go to the Utah Wood Turning Symposium last year and got to meet: Malcolm Tibbetts, Mike Mahoney, Dale Nish, and many other great turners that I also learned a lot from.


I'd say that I have had a very great background in wood turning with all the Awesome people I have meet. Even if my turnings aren't the best.


Thanks,


Matthew

[kooshball]

Read my tag line.
read the instructions then just did it.

I saw that quote before and have always liked it. I did not know until recently that Christopher Walken was the one who said it.