Charlie,
It’s all your fault. It started at the NCWW picnic in May of 2014 when you brought some of your work and displayed it. The second I picked up the large vase, took in the detail and felt its lack of heft, I was hooked. Since then I’ve worked like a dog at my real job so that “some day” I would have the time, shop and tools to pursue a similar path to express myself in wood. In the interim I built a nice shop in Ramseur that I built some very nice furniture in. Then work brought me to the coast so I sold my place in Ramseur and moved to our original small 2nd house in Newport and had to put my entire shop into storage while we remodeled and added a shop onto what was to become our new permanent home. That work is done and my shop is almost completely finished. My real job is coming to a planned, pleasant end in June. I will soon have as much time as I choose to combine my previous fundamental skills with my rapidly improving turning knowledge and apply it to segmented work. Stuart Kent sold me a Rikon 70-3040 and I’m loving the machine. I’ve added a couple sanders, a few CBN wheels and some of Doug Thompson’s jewelry to my arsenal and have been busy building sleds and assembly jigs. I’ve a dozen or so perfect rings completed and I’m getting ready to assemble my first simple piece. However, I’ve spent a fair amount of time designing future projects and I have numerous layouts and cut lists completed. All I need is time and that comes in June. So......be forewarned Charlie- I’m gunning for ya!
Beautiful work as usual but the 3D feature ring is my favorite. Even better, I now have a pretty good idea of how you built it!
All the best,
‘Jeff Schmucker