Troy's Rants and Ravings

As much as I like being an idiot and making fun of myself and everyone I come into contact with, I find that I have found a hobby I did not know I was going to be, realistically, any good at…

Begining at the begining is always a good thing I guess.

I have been doing the whole wood lathe/wood turning thing for a bit under a year. In that time I have attempted to turn all matter of things: My favorite tooth pick started out as a 3 foot long 2X4, for instance. Also I have turned some VERY expensive exotic wood with absolutely stunning figuring into stunningly expensive garden mulch and firewood in an unbelieveably short amount of time. I managed to do this in stages. I struggled through the phase where the chisels were being ripped from my hands. I survived the “ripped from my bloodied hands and thrown back at me” phase. I hung tough even as I was thinking of giving it all up after knocking myself unconscious when the wood, being tortured beyond all endurance, lept off the lathe in a vain attempt at “ending it all”…

“It” meaning me, of course.

More than once.

Ok, so I lost count at 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8. The doctors say my short term memory should come back in a few years…

“Hello. My name is Troy and I am a somewhat lumpy headed wood turning idiot!!”

Anyhoo…

Due to the constant barrage of demands from my wife for something other than $4300 an ounce garden mulch (this price factors in such things as roof repairs, new garage door(s), HOA fines, levies etc, the Surprise!! AZ blackouts of 2007/2008 and of course the mandatory bills for Fred and Lou [my now wholly owned and operated Surprise!! AZ paramedics]) I eventually put the lathe aside and built for her her now infamous bookcase from hell.

Now then, having survived, almost completely intact, the infamous time period known worldwide as The Donson Learning Curve (soon to be a major motion picture), I am starting to actually get requests for bowls.

I find this somewhat amazing. I mean, I started to do the whole “e-commerce” thing and was excited about it right up to the point where I found out that wood does not like drying at the Arizona Standard -374% relative humidity…when it’s raining. So when bowls (that approximated the consistancy of a wet dish rag, became as dry as Tutankhamen’s mummy on diuretics within 10 minutes of coming off the lathe) imploded, I knew I had, uh, issues… As my Poindexter son would relate in Grand Engineering Terms: “Well, Dad, it seems as if you have had a rather catastrophic structural failure. Again.”

They cracked.

Badly.

In half.

Then in half, again.

And so on.

Ater sweeping up the dust, I pondered “How could I have spent 4-5 hours turning an outstandingly beautiful piece of wood into an outstandingly beautiful bowl, which then, courtesy of the Arizona Dry Air Authority, turned into dust. And how can I stand here and watch as it starts to blow away like the gold dust at the end of the movie Treasure of the Sierra Madres…???”

Fast forward to about 4 or 5 weeks ago. My friend Rick Depke mentioned he had a nieghbor who was cutting down a Palo Verde tree that was dead/dying and would I like some free wood? “Sure” I said. So I received 3 short trunk sections. Having discovered the alchemy required to dry wood properly, I felt that I might be able to repay kindness with kindness. After all, I was told only a few months ago “WHAT???!!!! Try and turn Palo Verde??? Are you out of your mind??!! Hey, Numb Nuts, why not just chuck up a freakin’ cinder block and make a bowl out of that???”

Okay, long story dull, get your pillows and blankets, it’s nap time…

Cut the logs in half (top to bottom). Get screamed at for chewing up 2 chain saws I rented, (“What were you trying to cut? Cinder blocks??? What an asshole!!”) Chucked 2 of ‘em up. Roughed them out. Dryed ‘em, finish turned em, sanded for days, and applied tung oil. More sanding. More Tung oil. More sanding. Sacrifice a chocolate cake on my alter to Bill Grumbine, dance naked on burning wood chips, etcetera… Buff bowls to a shine and more praying to David Marks, Alan Lancer and some guy named Sorby.

Gave the first to Rick for bringing the wood to me. He was happy. Yeaaaaah!

Finished the second one and gave it to the neighbor who donated the wood.

Okay time to wake up, here comes the money shot.

The neighbor was so thrilled that he took the bowl and posed his wife with it in his front yard (turning her this way and that until she was posed perfectly) while he took pictures! Yes, she stood on the very same spot where a month or so before he had taken down the tree he had admired for many years. Then his wife and he took turns taking pictures while the other held the bowl.

Rick stood at his window and called me while he watched this. To say I was rather “floored” would be a huge understatement.

I know I have told some rather “tall tales” in my tenure here, but…

I would have never dreamed, in a million years or otherwise, that I could do something that would be so well received by anyone. I am damned embarrassed to admit it, but damn!! It does make me proud of myself.

Maybe I have found my niche doing this whole wood turning thing… Maybe now I won’t have to kill myself with working on cars untill I die…








NAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Troy Revenge and other fun stuff