YOU can add greatly to your enjoyment in making things and at the same time improve your craft work in quality and variety by learning how to do wood turning. And this is not hard to do, especially now that such excellent motor-driven lathes are available at reasonable prices.

There is an unescapable fascination about wood turning. The shapes seem to form by magic under one's gouge and chisel. Perhaps that is why kings and princes and even queens and ladies of high rank amused themselves by practicing wood turning during the seventeenth century. Examples of their handwork are to be found in many European museums.

Simple as wood turning is, the beginner will make much faster progress if he takes the pains to observe some preliminary suggestions.

Much that is called wood turning is in reality what may be termed more accurately "wood scraping." This can be mastered more quickly and, generally speaking, is more exact than orthodox wood turning. While it is not quite so fast, this is a matter of small importance from the standpoint of the amateur. Almost anyone can do scraping at once without the many discouraging and disheartening slips of the tool and consequent spoilage of work so characteristic of wood turning practice.

Those who have learned or taught wood turning in the generally accepted way may disapprove of this method. In its justification, however, it may be stated that pattern makers do all turned work on wooden patterns by means of scraping. If the method is effective in such accurate work, why is it not equally useful in producing turned parts for other purposes? Many manual training teachers will permit scraping in difficult places and on what is called faceplate work. Why not then be frank about it and teach a method that will give the most pleasure and profit to the learner? It is with this need in view that the following instructions, which have proved successful in actual school work, are given. The procedure is the same whatever the size of the lathe and whether you are turning a candlestick on a small motorized home workshop outfit or a table leg on a larger lathe such as that shown in Fig. 1. Note well the names of the various parts, for they will be mentioned repeatedly.

Fig. 1. - A typical wood turning lathe. All lathes have substantially the same parts.