Category Archives: Woodturning FAQs

Turning Tuesday, and Wednesdays

The club is open Tuesday evenings, and Wednesday afternoon and evenings for paid up Club Members to use club facilities.

The purpose is for members to use the club lathes and specialist tools in the company of other club members, and in so doing can call upon other turners for advice and assistance. These sessions are not for teaching or any form of training, classes are on Thursdays.

We are happy for non members to call in and see what we are about and see what we do, but it should be clearly understood that our insurance does not allow non members to use our equipment. Woodturning can be dangerous and we care about our members and visitors, and want them to have a fun, safe experience, therefore we would like all club members, and course participants, to demonstrate a basic knowledge of workshop safety before they use any club machinery or tools.

Visitors should therefore not expect to have-a-go when they come, but our members will be happy to show them what can be done, and if the visitors like what they see we can sign them up for a Taster Course, Introduction to Woodturning Course, or other courses as appropriate from one of our qualified tutors.

Sanding Sealer with Food Safe Oil?

The following question was posed by Jake as a comment on another thread but I’ve moved it here because I think it deserves a post of its own:

hi, can some one refresh my memory do you put sanding sealer on before food related oil or just oil(food safe) for food related items you have turned and does the oil make it shine or is it dull thank you.  they say its an age thing but icant remember whatits about thanks  jake

The Toolpost website gives a good overview of Chestnut products but the bits relevant to this question are:

  1. Oil finishes are specially designed to penetrate the wood to give a natural water-resistant finish with a soft sheen
  2. Don’t use sealers if you plan to use finishing oil as the sealer will inhibit the oil’s penetration of the timber

In other words, oils are designed to soak into the timber whereas sealers are designed to prevent things from soaking into timber.

With regards to getting a shine finish, you could add wax or burnishing cream on top of an oil finish after it has completely set (maybe 24-48 hours) but doing this with food safe oil would immediately negate its food safeness so there really is no point. I don’t know if adding extra coats of food safe oil would increase the shine but I suspect a soft sheen is the best you can expect.

FAQ: What equipment do I need and how much does it cost to get started?

As with many things, woodturning can be as expensive or cheap as you want it to be. If you’re happy to use old second hand equipment, which was good enough for your grandfather’s generation after all, then you can probably kit yourself out for the price of the petrol to pick these things up from people who just want to free up space in their garage. But if you have some spare cash you will find it extremely easy to find ways of spending it for as long as your interest in woodturning persists.

The absolute minimum is: a lathe (£100-5000), some tools (£100 for a good set of 6) and something to sharpen them (£50-250), wood to turn (free-£???), abrasives (£10), a dust mask (£5-£150) and face shield or goggles (£5) and finally oil or wax to finish (£5-£???).

Of course you will be restricted to turning between centres where the wood is essentially wedged between the head and tail stocks which makes it difficult (though not impossible) to turn a bowl or goblet, so next up you’ll probably go for a chuck (£150) to hold your work without the tailstock. And from a health perspective you really don’t want to leave it too long before you get a dust extractor (£150+) for sucking way as much dust as possible when using your abrasives.

By then you will probably be well and truly on the lifelong journey of accumulating more tools, clever gadgets, different finishes, exotic woods, better lighting, better dust extraction, and so on, and so on.