News — wood turning

The lightbulb finally goes on

This blog post was originally posted on The Dailey Grind.

As I get older I realize that I need more light to see what I’m working on. I’ve been looking around for a light that was more than just a spot light to better help me see my work on the lathe.

Last fall when I was teaching bowl turning classes in S. Portland, Maine we were using new Laguna 1216 lathes for the two students in each class. On those lathes were new Laguna lathe lamps. They were longer LED lights and not the spot lights that Laguna previously had for their lathes or bandsaws. Don’t get me wrong the spot lights are fine but I already have one, from another company, that has a magnetic base to hold it securely to my lathe. I was hoping to find something with an articulating arm and that I could mount above my lathe and move into whatever place I wanted. It’s important to me that I could move it because I want extra light while I’m working on my pieces. Then I can move the light around the piece and look at the piece from various angles to make sure that I haven’t missed any scratch marks before I apply the finish. There are other LED light bars on the market but this is the only one, that I know of, that I can adjust the amount and kind of light on. By adjusting the coolness (color) and brightness of the light it helps me see the scratch marks better.

By mounting it in the ceiling and because it pivots almost 360 degrees, I can also rotate it around to put light on my router table too. There is a pin that stops the light from going a full 360 degrees probably so that a person can’t continually go around and around and damage the wires on the inside.

There are adjustments on the light near the base that allow me to control the amount of light. I can also move the light on pivot points along the arm to get the light exactly where I want it to be.

I’ve been working with the light for a few weeks now and so far I’m liking it. Time will tell if I like it better than a spot light and also the longevity of the LED bulbs.

The only thing that I would like to see changed on the light is where the knobs are located. I would like to see them near the light itself and not near the base but I also realize that I’m not using the light the way that Laguna intended for them to be used. If I had the light mounted on my lathe like they intended, the adjustment knobs would be near at hand and not near the ceiling like I have them.

I feel that I should also mention that I work at Rockler as a turning instructor. However I am not sponsored, nor did I receive any special discounts or compensation for this critique from them or from Laguna. I ordered this light from Rockler’s website on November 30th because of a Black Friday Cyber Monday special that Laguna was running at the time and had to wait weeks (because of COVID) for the light to show up, just like everyone else at the time.

May Flowers - Limited Edition Haynes Mill

Day 3 and I found a cool app

Apprenticeship day 2

We have been chosen for CAP 2019

Back in December, Jed Malcore and I applied to become one of five teams for the Craft Apprentice Program. Each team consists of a master (me) and an apprentice (Jed) who have to work together for a minimum of 100 hours from the months of March through September. In our application and follow-up interview, we had to describe how we envisioned the apprenticeship working and our expectations for it. We had decided to concentrate on bowls and hollow forms for our apprenticeship. 

We must have done well enough because we have been selected to be one of the teams. I'm excited to see where we end up and I'm also excited to see where the other four teams end up. I am positive that we are all going to learn a lot from this experience. 

You can see our profile on the CAP website by clicking here and see all of the other teams and past participants by clicking here.

The tale of two bowls