Ashley Harwood: Learning Woodturning | Laguna Tools

I think it's really important to learn from someone in return [Music] I don't think that you know starting with a lathe and a piece of wood and a pile of tools and just seeing what happens it's probably not a good idea my name is Ashley Harwood and I'm here at bull valley hardwood in Woodstock Illinois and then turning for several years but the only thing we have just finished up a three-day woodturning class of this class is like my gammit class that I teach in Charleston so we start out with spindle turning and then we take the knowledge that we've learned from spindle training and apply its bull turning I teach classes a lot I teach classes both from my own studio in Charleston South Carolina and I also travel a bit to teaching them in straight returning this past year I was gone literally 50% of the time and most of that was teaching woodturning this class is open to anyone it's open to somebody who's completely and totally new to woodturning they'll be able to learn a good foundation a good set of techniques that they can build on it's also open to those who are more advanced maybe we've been turning for a while and either want to try a different style of for training or want to hone in on their techniques and if you work on their sharpening skills want to practice the push cut and get proficient at it and learn to get repeatable results [Music] for somebody who's been woodturning for quite a while they might wonder why why am I going to take that class oh she's teaching mainly for beginners and things like that it's not really true the way that I teach it's a very particular style it's a particular set of techniques that not everybody has been exposed to and if they have been exposed to it they might not have had a chance or maybe not quite enough practice to become proficient at it I teach the push cut style of woodturning it's a style where you're meant to be able to turn from eight hours a day five days a week if you want to with no torn grain no stress or strain on the body and goal turning you should be able to get one cut all the way from the bottom to the top of the bowl and a nice pleasing forearm a nice smooth curve it doesn't take a lot of muscle and you shouldn't have any white knuckles you shouldn't have any tense shoulders or things like that it should be nice and easy and comfortable so I would say for most people even if they've been turning for quite a while it's a completely different way of doing things [Music] [Applause] I don't really teach classes that are project-based I teach classes that are based on techniques I want my students to leave with a good set of techniques and understanding of those techniques that they can go home and they can work on their own practice it takes practice in order to have repeatability and that's something that you can't achieve you know in a one-day class or even in a three-day class you're certainly going to make progress you see progress you're gonna see a big difference in a matter of a few days but if you want to know that every single time you walk up to the lab and you put a tool on the piece of wood you know what kind of cut you're gonna get and and how the tool is going to work how it's going to move that's something that you need to practice in order to achieve when I saw Ashley suppose that she was coming to bull valley hardwood I found it there's besito I was gonna be at that class that had the privilege of taking Ashley Scott's cohort and I knew that she was not only a phenomenal demonstrator and artist she had the ability to teach as well definitely met my expectation there was a great class loved Ashley as an instructor she's very patient she has the ability to like reach over the lathe and just still have the tool in your hand where you're able to feel it and just like help guide you so that you feel what a good cut feels like compared to what I knew Wednesday when I walked in here and compared to what I know now Friday afternoon yes I I plan to make full use of everything that Ashley has taught us I liked everything about the class I would definitely take it again maybe they're second-guessing themselves or thinking this is way too hard and to see them come out with a finished piece and you see that their face kind of lights up when they take the piece off the lathe and they're like I made this that's a really cool feeling to help somebody achieve that [Music] you end up taking way too much time and spending a lot of energy learning and figuring things out that you could have learned from somebody else I learned from a mentor I benefited from the years of experience that he had in the field not only the years that he had interning but also in teaching and it just enabled me to to grow that much faster and to get to a point where returning [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Laguna Tools

Views: 83,345

Rating: 4.9217219 out of 5

Keywords: laguna tools, woodworking, woodworking machinery, lathe, lathes, revo, revo 1836, ashley harwood, ashley harwoodturning, harwoodturning, revo lathe, laguna lathe, woodturning, turning, woodturning class, wood turning, wood turning class, ashley wood turning, spindle, bowl, class, teacher, candlestick, candle stick, ornament, platter, illinois, woodstock, bull valley, bull valley hardwood, learning woodturning, classes, teaching, stuart batty

Id: VWIbE513_Yw

Length: 7min 22sec (442 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 26 2019