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G'day from Sunbury, Melbourne
Hi All,
I'm Scott, I work in information technology at a company in Cheltenham and commute from Sunbury (not ideal, but I love the job). I've held senior positions in IT for last 10 or so years so sometimes it gets a bit tiresome not seeing things materialise in a tangible way (lots of stuff behind the scenes that often isn't visible).
I recently remembered a family friend of our showing me how 'easily' (I use the term loosely) wood can be transformed from a square block to a beautiful tool handle or table leg. So I went to a wood turning club in northern suburbs of Melbourne and had a crack and enjoyed it immensely. In the last couple of months I've bought a lathe and set of tools and have had a great at a few pieces:
My first piece was a dibbler at the club (which I haven't photographed) but this was my second piece after following a video off youtube by Mike Waldt.
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I picked up a banksia nut on our travels and had a crack at making it into a vase. It's by now means perfect but I kind of like seeing the raw outside to the finish core and then back to just below the surface (fluffy stuff) up the top. It's a bit hard for me to finish at this point because I can't work out how to mount it to be able to drill a hole using the jacobs chuck.... and I don't hve a drill press. Similarly I don't have a disc sander so not exactly sure how to flatten the top of it. Probably simple solutions to those things when you know how.
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I've just recently finished my first bowl (made from sheoak) which I'll post a picture of soon.
I'm really keen to further my skills so I've bought a couple of books (or rather chose them as xmas presents from my wife) which I've really enjoyed reading and experimenting with some of the techniques (getting my head around the skew chisel, scrapers, etc). The problem is my schedule doesn't really fit in with the local turning club and the others are very far away, so apart from reading books and watching videos on youtube it's a bit tricky to learn. So if there are any meetups in Melbourne I'd love to come along, similarly if anybody would have me watch over their shoulder while they're at the lathe that'd be cool too.
Anyway, there seems to be a plethora of awesome information on here and some very generous people so I'm looking forward to being a part of it all on my journey from ultra-novice to novice (who knows from there).
Cheers,
-Scott
P.S: For the curious my nickname Squiddy comes from a piece of software called the Squid Proxy Server that can monitor internet traffic and stop people from browsing particular websites while at work etc. I had installed it at a client where many people were obviously browsing inappropriate sites and it would keep popping up a message "Access Denied - Squid Proxy Server" anyhow of course everybody knew it was me that had installed it to I got the blame, was called the Squid Proxy and it just stuck...
