It has been far too long since I posted regularly here. Since then, the whole world around me has changed. Forums are nowhere near as popular as they once were and social media platforms have taken centre stage as a means of communicating. The ability to take pictures and shoot video has become so easy, it no longer presents a problem to achieve or post online. Although I am not a big fan of social media, I do use it from time to time, but I miss the more 'personal' interaction that a good forum can achieve.
Having been a moderator here (a good few years ago) I know this place is one of the better corners of the cyber-world. Unfortunately, it has lost out to the new generation of 'fact-consumers' those who take but rarely give. How many time do you hear someone say "I saw it on YouTube" or "Look it up on YouTube"? Don't take this the wrong way, I use YouTube as a reference source, but I still rely on books with greater validity, but I may be a bias.
Apart from the big world changes to communication out there, our own personal life has gone through and is still going through, a monumental change, Sue and I have sold our London house that we have lived in for forty years and moved to the coast. his has been a monumental experience for us. Having lived in a large Victorian property for so long, you will be amazed at how much stuff we accumulated. Not only that we had a good-sized workshop (at least for a London garden!) that some of you may remember me building back in 2004. The plan was to convert it to a home office when we sold the house to add value. What actually happened was we sold the house with the workshop, but the new owner did not want it, even though he had paid for it. He was going to knock it down and have it removed. To cut a long story very short, we took it with us! The story of that has been documented on my workshop blog (see, even I use social media), which you can find
HERE if you are interested. The workshop story starts on the post, dated 4th June 2019.
Woodworking has taken a back-seat in our life over the past decade as life has taken over. However, all that is, behind us now, we have made the move and have been here for about six weeks. We now need to build new workshops and unpack LOTS of boxes. To complicate the issue, we have bought a new (to us) lathe, tools and wood supply, from a turner who has given up turning due to his health taking a turn for the worse. He is now following his other passion, art.
The lathe is an Apollo Pro. a hand-built lathe of which there were not very many made, to my knowledge. It is a monster, will turn 22" over the bed and is well over 40" between centres. It weighs a ton, maybe not literally, but it is very heavy, even in bits. It is the tools and the wood that is mind-boggling, The wood alone took two-panel van loads! Mostly cut blanks, both round and square, as well as a good supply of seasoned logs cut to 'turning length. All this along with finishes in gallon cans, abrasives by the box full and a good selection of shop-made jigs and holders. There are also dozens of bowls and vessels, turned in a rough form, that have been drying for years.
This is going to make a bit of a difference to our future plans, as far as woodturning goes. We have had small lathes for a long time and sue has a very nice short cast iron lathe that is primarily used for turning pens, My own Record lathe is just a toy compared to this monster. I plan to document the story of building the new workshop and the progression of the turning on my blog but will also share it with you guys here if you are interested.
It is good to see some of the old names are still here, maybe some more will eventually come back or even just pop in and say hello.
Some pictures to follow, once I get the computers all up and running properly, it is all a bit string and sticky tape at the moment!
Ralph.