After nearly a year...some lathing!

I'm adding video to this blog for the first time....and frankly, who knows if it will work. (By the time you see it, I'll have worked out the bugs.)

My Monday night woodworker's group recently began turning and here is a video of me that night on a monster Powermatic with a piece of beetle-bored mesquite I brought from Texas. The end result should be a couple of chisel handles, the operative word here is "should". The handles are currently 60% mesquite and 40% epoxy and I still need to add more to finish stabilizing the holes..

And a second video with sound taken with my camera. I've gotten more comfortable with the process since then, it's intimidating taking a tool to a piece of wood going about 600 rotations a minute for the first time in over a year.

I also took a few pictures that night...

My section of mesquite, the jig it's sitting on is supposed to be used to help square the ends to make ready for putting the stock between centers...the other side does that, actually. This is the back of the jig.

Starting to remove the bark on the monster Powermatic. 

This is where I stopped. I need to pour some epoxy in the bore holes left by insects before I continue turning it.

I enlisted Paul to turn the other one. While everyone else is turning honey dippers and dibbles, we were throwing mesquite bark.

Lots of holes to fill.

I used my small air compressor to blow as much debris and dust out of the holes before the epoxy.

Using blue painter's tape, I seal off the back sides of some of the holes.

Lesson learned: At this point, I tried to stir some mesquite chips taken from the turning to the epoxy. This turned it into a sticky oatmeal cookie and really didn't do what I was hoping it would. I think I should have crushed the chips into dust and added just a little to the mixture. I ended up using the rest of the epoxy without mixing mixing in the chips.

I did use the oatmeal-like mess as much as I could.

I've turned them a second time since and they need another batch of epoxy...my scrap wood chisel handles are now up to about $18 dollars.