Jenny has had a surprise birthday activity day lined up for me for some time. I’d been instructed to book Tuesday off work, and for a few weeks I knew that we’d be going to someone’s house in Northwich, but that was it. I’d taken a few guesses as to what we would be doing; indeed, at one point I was quite certain that Jenny’s plan was actually to have me murdered. In the end though, I had no idea what the activity was until Jenny told me on Monday night. I would be doing “woodturning”.
My knowledge of all things handy is extremely limited – frankly I did not know what woodturning was. Jenny briefly explained that we would be making bowls out of wood. However, I still really wasn’t all that clear on how we would be doing that. Apparently, Jenny had got the idea for this present when I became excited at the prospect of drilling holes in wood while I was modifying a piece of Ikea furniture into a PC. That’s not quite how I remember it – I recall drilling the hole and nearly breaking my arm when the hole-saw caught on the wood and threw the drill sharply in a clockwise direction. Once I had finished drilling said hole, I was shaking like a shitting dog and had to sit down for five minutes! I was to be subjected to a day of this, for fun?
This scared me!
Tuesday arrived; we had a 6am start in order to catch the 7.17 train down to Northwich from Manchester Piccadilly. The train journey was nothing out of the ordinary; I continued reading “Traffic” by Tom Vanderbilt, the psychological nature of which caused me to casually observe the bizarre behaviour of those around me. For example, despite the fact that there were plenty of people standing on the train, there were two seats opposite us which were unused. This was because a chap had sat in the aisle seat and had put his bag on the seat next to him. It’s quite rude; he probably did it deliberately. Eventually, a schoolgirl pushed past him and sat down in this seat. However, the other seat remained empty throughout – why? There were two newspapers on it. The current rail capacity issue could be solved overnight if the Metro were to cease publication (it would probably solve a few other problems, too)!
We arrived in Northwich a little bit earlier than was ideal. We abused the Tesco next to the railway station for their toilet facilities, then headed to our destination. It was only a mile from the station, so we ended up hanging around outside the local accountants’ for ten minutes before heading down a quiet cul-de-sac to where our woodturning was going to take place. We really didn’t know what to expect, and walking past someone sat on their front doorstep in their pyjamas had us a little worried. Had I been signed up for a day on the set of Shameless?
Tracy Owen was opening the gates to his back garden as we approached. I gave a nervous wave as we headed towards him. Indeed, on first impressions I’d have put him down as an ex-forces man, on account of his short hair and moustache! However, my nervousness was entirely unfounded (indeed, it turns out that many years ago, he was in fact a baker). Introductions were made and we were shown to a fantastic, purpose-built workshop that was hidden away in Tracy’s expansive back garden. We sat down with the first of what would be numerous cups of tea and discussed what we would be doing for the day.
We were given two round pieces of ash, which by the time the day was out would be turned into bowls. This would be achieved by attaching the wood to a lathe and working away at it using gouging tools. As an indication of my lack of skills and knowledge of all things handy, I did not actually know what a “lathe” was before three were pointed out to me in Tracy’s workshop! And Jenny thought letting me loose on industrial-scale machine tools would be a good birthday present!
We were dressed in fetching green overalls and we were ready to begin!
Fetching!
The first thing we had to do was get our blocks of wood in a perfectly rounded cylinder. This is where the lathe comes in:
Jenny in action on the lathe
Once this is done, one makes the outside of the bowl. The key point here is to leave two circles in the centre, one inside the other. The outer one will form the base of your bowl, while the inner one will act as a flange which attaches to the chuck when your bowl is turned around and the inside bit is removed.
Marchie working on the outside of his bowl
At this point, it was time for lunch. It turns out that Tracy’s wife, Gillian, is a master soup-maker! We went into the conservatory for a bowl of home-made soup with crusty bread, followed up by a slice of cake. Oh, and more tea!
After lunch, it was time to sand the surfaces. For this, a drill attachment was used, with increasingly fine grains of sandpaper (I think we went from 120 to 400 in six increments). Tracy has what is essentially a huge vacuum cleaner in his workshop, one of the purposes of which is to suck away all the fine particles of dust that are generated when sanding. It puts your Dyson to shame!
Tracy demonstrates how to sand
Jenny decided to put a pattern on the foot of her bowl using a special tool which Tracy invented himself. Tracy actually has a line of tools on the market which bear his signature. For the layman like me, I found it quite phenomenal that we were being taught the art by someone who has their signature on the tools of the trade. The only other place I have seen that is on golf clubs – therefore in my mind we were being taught by the Arnold Palmer of woodturning!
Jenny using one of Tracy's tools
Now it was time to turn the bowls around and gouge out the inside. We attached the bowls to the lathe with a chuck, using the flanged bit that I described earlier, then got to work:
Jenny gouging the inside of her bowl
Now if you’ve ever wondered where the bedding that you can get for rabbit hutches comes from, wonder no more. Woodturning produces a huge volume of the stuff! Tracy uses some of it to heat the workshop on a small wood-burning stove. It transpires that I got a little bit over-enthusiastic on the gouging element of bowl-making, which meant that the walls of my bowl are thinner in places. I measured my incompetence using a caliper:
Marchie measuring the thickness of the bowl with calipers. Note the mess!
Now the bowls were essentially complete. It was once again time to sand the surfaces down.
Chicks with power tools!
Now it was time to make or break our bowls. The circular flange had served its purpose and needed to be removed from the bottom of the bowl, leaving a flat (or slightly concave) round surface for the base of the bowl. For this, we once again made use of the huge vacuum cleaner, but this time we would be holding the bowls onto the lathe with a vacuum chuck. This would allow us access to the base of the bowl without any risk of marking the surface.
Jenny flattening the base of the bowl with the aid of the vacuum chuck
The base of the bowl was sanded, with hand-held bits of sandpaper rather than with the drill-mounted kind, and then the bowl was essentially complete! Time for another brew, before personalising the bowls using a cross between a “red hot poker” and a pen. Finally, to finish the bowls, we polished them with something called osmo oil. Apparently, this stuff is rather expensive, rivalling fine wine and printer ink in terms of its cost.
Polishing the personalised bowl with "osmo oil"
Tracy was good enough to give us a small pot of osmo oil to take home with us, as the bowls absorb the oil over a period of a few days and need a couple of coats before they are truly finished.
A 'before' and 'after' shot of our bowls
So, to conclude, I started the day not knowing what a lathe was. My previous experience of power tools had left me terrified, curled up in a ball on the sofa. The prospect of using proper power tools hadn’t exactly filled me with feelings of joy. However, I have to say that I had an absolutely fantastic time and I would recommend to anyone that they give this a try!
Tracy is a very good teacher; patient, on call when needed and stepping in when absolutely necessary, but you are very much left to get on with things yourself. I know that Jenny and I were not typical woodturning students; days such as these are normally intended for those who already do woodturning as a hobby, but need some tuition from a pro to take them up to the next level. However, Tracy recognised that we were there primarily to have a fun day before learning or improving our skills, and the day was tailored to that end perfectly. Plus, we got two swanky bowls out of it! Best of all, we weren’t even asked to help clear up the mess!
Sorry, Tracy!
If you are interested in doing this yourself, or if you would like to view some of Tracy’s work or maybe commission a piece for yourself, visit www.tracyowen.com. Another useful resource is the Register of Professional Turners, which can point you in the direction of a professional woodturning tutor in your area. It’s great fun – give it a whirl!
Thanks to Tracy and Gillian for their warm welcome, tuition and hospitality, and thanks to Jenny for the fantastic birthday present!