Mark lives and works about 30 miles south of our Folk Arts Center meeting place, in Saluda, NC. His background is shown on the CMW website.

He started the program with a slide presentation of his work, including vessels with handles, decorative spoons, and slab forms he calls Offering Bowls. All show a discerning eye for attractive designs, and considerable skill in embellishing with carving, paints, and texture.

Mark started the demonstration with a 6" cube of Madrone burl. He normally turns green wood, but for bowls prefers drier pieces for stability and the fact that hot glue will stick better to dry wood. First a cylinder was turned removing minimal wood. He sighted the edge of the turning to the bed of the lathe alternating with a ruler across the turning to assure it was a true cylinder and parallel to the axis of the lathe. This was done with a 1/2" gouge. The left hand fingers and knuckles pressed against the tool rest, with thumb on top of the gouge, forming a sort of manual depth gauge. He sharpened the gouge, then dropped the handle to about 45 degrees and took light cuts producing delicate shavings and a quite smooth surface.

At this point the cylinder would be split in half with a bandsaw if he were going to make a Rocking Bowl. At home he built a simple right angle jig of plywood, which holds a pencil with point at the exact turning center of the lathe. This is simply slid along the lathe bed, scribing a line along the cylinder as it is held steady by the headstock's indexing pin. Another line is similarly scribed on the back of the turning by positioning the jig 180 degrees behind the turning. That "trick" was done here using the tool rest with pencil on top at dead center, the lathe's indexing wheel and stop positioned, and used to hold the cylinder where needed.

The Madrone cylinder was removed, the center of each of the two lines marked, and the cylinder mounted 90 degrees with ends up and down. Care was taken to make the sides of the cylinder vertical to the lathe bed. A square could have helped here, but sighting while slowly rotating the piece proved effective. Again sharpening his gouge, Mark then made careful light cuts that again woodturned the cylinder shape. He frequently stopped the lathe to check progress and look for the point where the four curved corners came together.

At this point the turning would be removed and bandsawed along the penciled lines. Since we had no bandsaw Mark cleverly shifted to a similar piece, made of cherry, already turned and bandsawed in half. He took one of the halves and mounted it with hot melt glue, curved side down, onto a large plywood faceplate. Pieces of 2x 4s, sawn to match the curvature of the turning were hot-melt glued to the woodturning. The bottoms of the 2x4s were then screwed to the faceplate from the back. The workpiece was positioned on the center of the faceplate. Mark commented that it could be moved off center, with weights like washers etc. screwed to the back of the plywood faceplate as counterweights, if one wanted a different location for the next step in turning. The entire faceplate and bowl bracing assembly was next mounted in the lathe.

Mark paused to note some safety facts. He "slow turns" most of these and slab pieces in the 300 to 500 RPM range. Jigs and Fixtures MUST be secured. A safety mask is a MUST. Sharp tools and careful concentration are vital. War stories followed; our Paul Rhudy, professional turner and CMW librarian, commented he always tried to stand to the side of the axis of rotation.

With sharpened gouge Mark trued the surface. He used a straight edge to check for bumps which he marked with a soft lead art pencil (colored chalk could be used), and mentioned that as a last step a sheet of sandpaper on a flat block, pressed against the surface, would assure absolute flatness. Switching to a 1/4" gouge he then carefully cut a small, approximately 1.25" diameter, hemispheric "cup" into the surface. The tailstock was removed to round out the bottom of this little bowl. He remarked that the hot glue is slightly "rubbery" so light cuts are needed to avoid vibration harmonics and jittery tool marks.

The 2x4 bracing assembly was unscrewed, removed, and the cherry turning extracted from its 2x4 braces with sharp mallet raps against the braces. He fingers peeled away bits of remaining superglue.

The square, curved, bowl was reversed, pressed against the plywood faceplate with several layers of protective paper toweling between it and the bowl, the tail stock brought up, and a small foot turned, about 1.25" diameter like the little hemispheric bowl opposite. After removing the piece he used curved chisels to remove the last piece of wood where the tailstock pinioned the wood.

Any needed sanding would have been done along the way, but often Mark likes to leave tool marks as part of the decorative aspect of his turnings. At this point the turner can finish as desired. Mark often uses milk paint, sands partly through to expose the high marks from turning, and finish sprays with a Krylon Satin coating.

Mark took 4 legs from old jeans, filled two tied off legs with sand, and covered each with the extra leg. The double fabric allows some catches by chisels and power tools without necessarily cutting into and spilling the sand. These two elongated sandbags are used to position and hold oddly shaped pieces while doing carving and other handwork.

Afterwards, Mark taught us slab turning, starting with slab of maple about 24" long, by 14" wide, by 3 or 4 inches thick, weighing 27.4573 pounds (+ or ? 5 or 10 pounds as there was some debate ). It appeared to have been cut a short distance from the pith and parallel to the vertical nature of the tree and its annular rings; i.e. each long side edge had bark.

Mark sized the blank with chainsaw, power planer to get rather even thickness, and bandsawing. He likes a 3/8" bandsaw blade with 3 or 4 teeth per inch as it leaves cut marks, the ridges of which show through sanded milk paint nicely for artistic effect. The "kiss of the lathe" and other tool marks are part of his art, and assure observers that the product was not made of plastic, plaster, clay, etc.

This large slab was carefully positioned in the lathe for balance and lack of side wobble, the latter by placing the slab 90 degrees vertical to the horizontal lathe bed. With again sharpened 1/2" gouge, 300 RPM, and light cuts, Mark started out at the END of the blank, using pull strokes as he had more control over the cutting process than trying to cut in toward the center. Also, he pointed out that it was important to cut cleanly off the end of the blank each time, or a wood "nib" would build up. The nib would later surprise the turner, be tricky to remove cleanly, and might break off more wood that desired.

Each of Mark's cuts would become slightly longer, and curved to provide a "lift" to the edges of the bottom. Shortly after each of the 4 corners showed cut marks, he stopped to judge the thickness of the turning, and scribed a line between two of the end corners to indicate where he wanted the bottom curvature to stop. As he turned, he created a chuck tenon, and adjacent flat area which would both seat the top surfaces of the chuck's jaws for stability, and become the final bottom of this art-piece. Another safety and stability factor, since this was a recently cut "green" slab, was that Mark frequently tightened the tailstock into the wood. He pointed out that both centers would continue to bend and bite into the wood fibers, which could result in the headstock spur center cutting like a Forstner bit into the wood, and possibly the slab coming loose.

As Mark approached the final shape of what would be the bottom of the form, he took a long aluminum ruler, and laying flat side bent against the bottom, judged the curvature as well as spotted any bumps or voids shown by light between ruler and wood surfaces. After touching up any such imperfections, he took a smaller gouge and with skilled randomness simply cut in fine decorative grooves that would be emphasized and give pattern when the piece was milk painted, sanded lightly, and Krylon satin finished.

The turning was carefully removed; Mark commented that at this point it was easy to drop the wood against the tailstock and scar the wood's finish turned surface. After returning the height of the tenon, so the chuck would firmly seat against the flattened bottom of the slab, the turning was reversed, chucked, and remounted on the lathe. Mark commented about milk paint at some length. It comes in earth colors, could be further tinted, and clings tenaciously to wood. He mixes with pure water to thick cream consistency, and might apply 1 to 6 coats depending on the final effect desired. It sands well, but "eats up" a lot of sandpaper. On mahogany, the lime in the paint turns the wood reddish; when sanded you can get a paint, reddish, and brown wood color result. He uses no sealer under the milk paint. One should vacuum the dust made while sanding (always, but especially with the milk paint).

Mark also talked about the care needed when turning rough pieces with projecting parts; one is cutting wood, then air, then wood, etc. This causes the gouge to bounce unless it is very sharp and light cuts are taken while sensing the action of the wood through the fingers, hands, and arms. A sharp gouge is vital both to make cutting easier and to decrease the chances of tool bouncing back and then gouging deeply into wood due to stronger hand pressure on the tool, needed for this kind of cutting.

Again sharpening his gouge, Mark proceeded to make pull cuts from center outward. This time the cuts were producing an inward, or concave effect, keeping this surface parallel to the prior surface opposite. Again, when all 4 corners had been initially shaped by the gouge, Mark stopped the lathe, and drew a pencil line on the end grain edge parallel to the first such line, thus defining the final thickness of the end result. The flattened long ruler was bent against the surface to assure uniform curvature, and calipers employed to keep a constant thickness.

Mark had filed the top of the tool rest at the start of the day, so there were no cuts to halt the progress of the cutting tools. Now, since the green slab was putting water and tree sap on the tools and top of the tool rest, he carefully wiped these surfaces with WD-40 on a paper towel, eliminating any sticky grabs as he made final cuts. With sharp gouge, handle lowered about 45 degrees, he took light final cuts, removed a few tearouts, and produced a final surface that was uniform in curvature, lacked unwanted bumps, and was quite smooth.

At this point the turning was again carefully removed from the lathe and positioned tenon side down on the two-leg sandbags. Using a compass he scribed a circle about 5 inches diameter, and marked the circumference into 6 equal segments. Using his long ruler he then drew lines across these points to form a grid of many small triangles. Inside each triangle he cut small parallel and decorative lines with a Flex-Cut "V" blade, using a reciprocating hand piece powered by a Foredom tool motor. At his studio this would take many hours, and is done a half-hour or so at a time, interspersed with other projects to prevent carpal tunnel problems and undue boredom.

Splits and cracks were discussed. Mark hand cuts his butterflies, and hand marks and chisels where they are to be inset. He first cuts inside the penciled outline of the butterfly, then takes out thinner cuts and files the butterfly and tapers it to press fit, finally gluing it in place. On thick pieces of wood where cracks go all the way through the slab, he will inset butterflies on both sides. On long splits he spaces out the butterflies and often places larger butterflies near the end of the art-piece, then progressively smaller ones along the crack as it narrows. The butterflies are fit and cut or sanded flat with the surface prior to final decorative cuts so the butterflies tend to fade into the background.

This piece will go back to Mark's studio for completion. He plans to bandsaw the 4 sides, curving them inward, with parallelogram shape. By tilting the saw table about 15 degrees the bottom will curve inward causing the form to appear to float. Milk paint, sanding, and Krylon satin with finish the piece.

As a final contribution Mark showed his honing wheel. This is made of 4 pieces of MDF. 3 of smaller diameter are glued together and turned with small projections, each holding a different profile to match various gouge profiles . The large piece can be removed and other wheels can be added or even a grinding wheel if you are in a pinch to grind a tool. The center carries a long carriage bolt, best 3/8" diameter. The head end is embedded in the last small diameter MDF Circle that is permanently attached to small metal faceplate. The outside end carries a washer and wing nut for tightening the removable wheel. The rim edge is charged with stainless steel sharpening compound, which comes as a white cake, but becomes blacked as microscopic bits of steel embed during honing. On the face of the large round of MDF there is glued on 220 grit sandpaper from center to about 2 inches from the edge; that final surface is also charged with stainless steel honing compound. This assembly, when mounted, MUST be reverse turned, or the honing has to be done from the back of the lathe as the honing flow is away from, and NOT into, the tip of the tool. When reverse turning the chuck must be tight, and set screws used if available, to prevent the unit from unscrewing from the lathe and careening about the shop, generally after running over or through the woodturner.

--Bob Heltman

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