Wood Working Part 1
Facebook has a partnership with a woodcraft store in Half Moon Bay, so there’s actually a physical Wood Shop on campus! It’s very convenient to have it right there at the workplace, and it’s a great way to learn something new and de-stress. I’ve never done any woodworking before, so I signed up for a Make a Bowl class. But first, I needed to learn to use the lathe in the Learn to Turn safety class.
A lathe is a machine that spins an attached block of wood, allowing us to use tools to shape the wood. After the instructor introduced us to the machine, we started with a rectangular pre-cut piece of wood.
Then, we molded it into a cylindrical piece of wood. Mine is the one at the bottom of the photo below. Using the tools on a spinning block of wood was a bit intimidating, since there were huge chips of wood flying towards me. Especially towards the beginning, the chips of wood shaved off by the tools were quite large because the wood wasn’t yet round and the surface was uneven. Safety glasses are important! The wood chips and dust got all over my clothes (and even inside my sleeves), so it was useful to wear an apron.
Lastly, we learned to make beads and coves. Beads are rounded like a ball, while coves are like an inverse bead. In the photo below, there are some beads and coves made by other people in the class.
The instructor was super helpful, and I’m very grateful for his help :) Although it’s not perfect, here’s what I made! The beads are on the bottom half, and the coves are on the upper half. Stay tuned for a post on making a bowl!
