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…and the tool rest is dressed to remove any tool-interfering nicks using a draw file and lightly oiled for easy sliding. Tool rests are generally cast iron while lathe chisels are tool steel. When the hard chisel bumps or bounces on the soft iron, it can take a divot that will interfere with a smooth cut.
The Morse Taper drive spur is driven into the end grain center with a mallet, mounted in the headstock and driven on further as we snug up the tailstock’s live center to mount the stock in the lathe.
The tool rest is adjusted an eighth higher then the stock’s center and an eighth out, locked down securely, eye protection donned, the lathe set on a low 600 rpm, and my student deals with the lopsided turning square…practicing steady pressure inward and forward in the direction of the roughing gouge’s cannel (concave surface), in spite of all 4 corners chattering against the tool until he achieves a cylinder. He is automatically properly timid and careful, because he can feel the potential for the lathe to catch and throw the tool…and does surprisingly well as we adjust his foot and hand position for more stability.
But eventually he gets his cylinder out of round with inconsistent pressure, and I show him how to recover by dragging the heavier large skew toward me, insuring the cutting is done by the lower edge of the skew, far away from the point. We talk about what happens when the point catches before he takes over, and the second tool he gains confidence with is the most difficult… and important… the skew.
Now that he has a true cylinder, he lays out the shoulders using an identical handle as a pattern… I coach him to rest the pencil on the tool rest like he would a lathe tool…
…and is taught the parting tool and calipers, cutting the cylinder to depth at each shoulder line by transferring measurements from the pattern to the calipers and then to his depth cuts. Here he is roughing out the tenon for the leather buttons.
Once his depth cuts are complete, I hold the pattern in his eye line as he begins the rough shaping of the handle using the roughing gouge, coaching him to keep his eye on the top line of the turning so he can gage the fairness of his cuts. We have added a pencil line on the fat part or “bead” of the handle as the end point of his near cove cut and the starting point of his far cove cut. The beginnings of his learning to cut coves and beads later using the skew.
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