new to the forum.

[theblindwoodturner]

Hi folks.

Well I'm new to the forum here so thought I'd introduce myself and say hi to all.

My name's Lewis, I'm a blind woodturner and joiner from North Wales and thought I'd pop on and become a part of the team.

I've been a skilled blind woodturner for 11 years and have worked with various manufacturers of lathes in my time. from union graduates, to records, axminster and many others.

Anyway hope all are well

cheers.

lew

 

[gus3049]

Hi folks.

Well I'm new to the forum here so thought I'd introduce myself and say hi to all.

My name's Lewis, I'm a blind woodturner and joiner from North Wales and thought I'd pop on and become a part of the team.

I've been a skilled blind woodturner for 11 years and have worked with various manufacturers of lathes in my time. from union graduates, to records, axminster and many others.

Anyway hope all are well

cheers.

lew

Hi Lewis and welcome to the forum.

I must admit, the thought of trying to turn wood if I couldn't see it is terrifying. I have enough trouble as it is.

Just how do you do it? I realise that feel has a lot to do with it anyway but I can't imagine what it must be like.

Clearly you have managed or you wouldn't be so experienced. Hope you don't mind the question but this is something that has always fascinated me. I have problems coping with being a deaf old git. At least the lathe sounds quiet.

 

[clk230]

hi, welcome to the forum , are u partialy blind or totally have you had to alter any techniques

your typing and lay skills for your post are spot on aswell ,

very well done

 

[tekno.mage]

Hello Lewis, and welcome.

Where in North Wales are you based? I live near Machynlleth in Mid Wales.

I too would be interested to hear how someone who is visually impaired copes with woodturning - I'd guess your workshop must be very organised so that you can easily find things by feel. I can understand how you could tell shapes and finish quality by feel, but the thought of approaching a rough bit of spinning wood with a tool without being able to see what's happening is quite scarey!

 

[theblindwoodturner]

Hi folks.

Well I'm new to the forum here so thought I'd introduce myself and say hi to all.

My name's Lewis, I'm a blind woodturner and joiner from North Wales and thought I'd pop on and become a part of the team.

I've been a skilled blind woodturner for 11 years and have worked with various manufacturers of lathes in my time. from union graduates, to records, axminster and many others.

Anyway hope all are well

cheers.

lew

Hi Lewis and welcome to the forum.

I must admit, the thought of trying to turn wood if I couldn't see it is terrifying. I have enough trouble as it is.

Just how do you do it? I realise that feel has a lot to do with it anyway but I can't imagine what it must be like.

Clearly you have managed or you wouldn't be so experienced. Hope you don't mind the question but this is something that has always fascinated me. I have problems coping with being a deaf old git. At least the lathe sounds quiet.

Hello and thanks for your kind reply.

I've been blind for 11 and a bit years after an attack while I was at high school when I was 15. So I've been getting on with my new found career as a joiner and woodturner. Woodturning isn't as scary blind. OK you do need to pay a little more attention to large work. The trick as I've always observed and taught is how to feel the wood whilst spinning and interacting with the tool in question. I don't need to adapt equipment.

I've worked between wood and engineering lathes. I recently acquired a new engineering lathe through a friend who's the MD of an engineering company specialising in engineering machinery. but it's not getting any use. My favourite lathes so far have been a union graduate long bed lathe, a nova DVR XP lathe and my dream machine I'm hoping to have in the workshop is a jet 4224 lathe.

General joinery is a fine art blind as interaction with equipment with spinning blades is a daunting subject for anyone. OK even I get a little nervous around certain tools and avoid them where necessary.

 

[theblindwoodturner]

hi, welcome to the forum , are u partialy blind or totally have you had to alter any techniques

your typing and lay skills for your post are spot on aswell ,

very well done

Hi and thanks for your comment.

I am totally blind. Basically all I see is what I can only describe as black. It's not really a problem or disadvantage to be honest. just one of those things.

I'm using an apple mac with OS 10.6 with voiceover as the screen reader. So it's giving me full access to the I. driven world around me. comes in handy I have to admit.

 

[theblindwoodturner]

Hello Lewis, and welcome.

Where in North Wales are you based? I live near Machynlleth in Mid Wales.

I too would be interested to hear how someone who is visually impaired copes with woodturning - I'd guess your workshop must be very organised so that you can easily find things by feel. I can understand how you could tell shapes and finish quality by feel, but the thought of approaching a rough bit of spinning wood with a tool without being able to see what's happening is quite scarey!

Hey and tanks for your post. Wow I'm popular this evening lol.

The feel of a rough piece of wood spinning is an interesting approach. I like to challenge myself quite a bit when I get chance. In the past I've turned large forms from wet wood using various techniques and tools either readily available or designed by myself as a toolmaker.

on the workshop side, even a fully organized workshop can have it's disadvantages. I have a bit of a dodgy memory, so when I place a tool somewhere, I tend to forget and start scurrying around my humble 30ft workshop like a hamster in shavings. lol

The workshop is offline for the moment as I'm stripping it down of all it's machinery, selling up, so that I can get back just to my woodturning work. In my past I've worked as a joiner. still do now and again, a fully trained and qualified woodwind maker. the rig in there now was instrument making equipment.

I'm going to be honest here just so I can lay my cards on the table. I'de mentioned in an earlier reply how I'd lost my sight but I'm leaving the horrifying details out as I don't want to upset folks here, etc.

the real detail is this. I mentioned a dodgy memory. well that's just the start of it. When I woke up 3 days later in hospital after major surgery, etc, I woke up to blackness. strange really. I was rushed into neurology for an advanced MRI scan which told my surgeon there was worse news and I had to find out pretty much there and then that I suffered 3 areas of brain damage. nothing severe at the time but could cause some problems with my quality of life.

Anyway over the 11 years, the patches have slowly become larger and more intense. this has caused various effects including memory loss, a stammer, (non typing stammer lol. words optional.) dizzy spells, etc. Some days I have really off days. So I made the decision to shut down the workshop in it's current state so that I could just concentrate on turning where I know I'm still able to do what I can without stressing myself out.

I know I'm still capable of my joinery work as well as turning so don't need to worry there.

anyway have fun all.

lew

 

[theblindwoodturner]

At present there's nothing on show but give me a few months to refit the workshop with the new master lathe and you'll see some interesting projects.

lew

 

[CHJ]

Welcome to the forum Lewis, it's heartening to hear you are making the most of your circumstances.
Look forward to some descriptions of your work.

 

[clk230]

wow your a tool maker aswell , were did you get your training from ?

 

[theblindwoodturner]

Hey, it's so nice to be welcomed onto the list. well I'll be on here between the woodturning section and other bits and I'll also be giving product reviews on equipment I've worked with and new tools, etc. I've a wealth of experience as a reviewer and demonstrator of tools and machinery and know my stuff so don't pull my punches lol.

I've so many ideas I want to experiment with and the sooner I'm back on my feet, rolling around in shavings and finding the water bit in my cage (the odd squeak now and again) no worries lol

lew

P.S: for anyone curious about how I get my ideas, everything I work on is purly by sound or feel. I use a lot of music in my workshop so hundreds of CD's and a nice loud hifi helps. I have no graphical or colour memory so rely on my mum as a sounding board at times. which is a good thing as we sing off the same hymn sheet lol

lew

 

[theblindwoodturner]

My toolmaking experience comes from my father who was a steel worker, my grandfather on mum's side who was a joiner and my need for some custom solutions. So grabbing some steel (M2, HSS, anything I can lay my hands on, etc and forming the right blades just takes time, patience, a good angle grinder, blow torch, air grinder, etc and a knowledge of supportive grinding methods for various cutting needs.

say as an exammple, creating a large roughing gouge instead of ordering one and waiting a daft amount of time, I would get some tool steel from a reasonable company to a formed profile and length, I'll spend hours grinding, sanding, regrinding, heat treating, quenching and honing a blade to get what I want. my own grinds are above 60 degree to allow for aggressive cutting for roughing gouges, especially when removing bark from wet logs., 30 degree for fine cutting and extended sweeps, etc.

a healthy relationship with a bench grinder becomes useful lol

 

[clk230]

if your selling up may be worth letting people on the forum what your selling theres some great guys around here willing to pay the right price for decent tools.

 

[clk230]

heat treating without seeing the colour its going must be some skill , serious offer would you be interested in doing a tv show

 

[theblindwoodturner]

Me and TV shows. no. I'm a very quiet person who just gets on with what I can. I like to be left to myself most of the time just to avoid hassle. I don't really want the attention of thugs who can cause problems for me.

You'll find my workshop list on the for sale / wanted page on the forum. please check it out folks. there's some serious tools there.

Heat treatment for me is a fine art. a question of the right gas (MAP GAS in this instance) and compressed air at a vary low air volume to increase the potential of the flame. The smell of metal when at the right temperature usually resembles that of honey comb in my mind. the give away is intense heat. as I'm pretty much hypersensitive to most things, my senses are heightened. It's from there where I can form or quench in oil or water depending on needs. sometimes the addition of a coat of 3 in 1 helps on the final medium treatment then brushing off and a very light dab of thinners, wipe off and then straight into cold water. a rapid cool down for me usually includes compressed air into the water bath.

this sounds mad to a lot of people but works for me.

 

[Tazmaniandevil]

Lew, you are my new hero mate. I have a couple of blind friends, who amaze me totally. One (Peter, blind from birth) works as an interpreter at the Braille Press. The other (Nan, lost her sight at 18) used to work at Blindcraft powdercoating metal furniture frames. A very handy person to know for a car buff like me.
Good luck for the future, and looking forward to seeing piccies.

best wishes

Tom

 

[Wood spoiler]

Hi Lew
Welcome to the forum
Thanks for your candour. I found it really inspirational and quite humbling.
I look forward to seeing some of your work and would love to see a "tour" of your workshop when you have sorted it.

 

[theblindwoodturner]

hey folks. wow I'm officially flattered lol. well it's sunday morning. it's quiet. the good news is I've one less neighbour to moan at noise of the workshop (fully insulated and sound isolated. yet she would moan anyway lol) moved out yesterday. lol party time hehehehe.

I've a fair bit to do with re fitting the workshop so installing some custom cupboards in the near future, re carpeting and a fair bit more just to make things easier lol. even a drying rack for fresh blanks, bowls and more. it helps to be organised lol.

well I have to admit for a hamster, I'm a little tired lol. missing the shavings. well I could roll around in planer shavings and a hamster wheel mounted on a new lathe when it gets sorted lol.

You see, my mind is full of saw dust lol. even the thought of a hamster wheel on a 55 rpm spindle speed is amusing on the lathe. hehehe

anyway. what's the plan for today? for me, I'm just chilling out. the workshop's closed as everything's ready for sale.

lew

P.S: for anyone interested in buying some serious equipment, please check out the for sale / wanted section and go to the thread "Contents of workshop for sale." There you'll find some great bargains which are as new. you'll see on the final post of mine that I have split items and given prices which I'm open to a degree of flexibility over.

can supply photos if requested.

lew

 

[boysie39]

Lew, welcome to one of the best forums you will find, and you could not have arrived at a better time for me,you are really an inspiration for everyone in any walk of life.
I have been having health problems for some time now and had got into a phase of putting things off for a while and was on the point of quitting altogether,I have not been in the workshop for months now, I went to a club Demo yesterday to see if anyone was interested in my gear. I came home and read your post last night,was in the Shed at 6 am this morning for 2hrs cleaning up codwebs as best I could, came up answered a few posts on here and am now going to ring some people to put things on hold for a while .

Thank you Thank you. Eugene,

 

[theblindwoodturner]

The trick is never giving up. As I say, I'm selling my gear primarily just to get back to my single profession of woodturning. there's too much engineering based faffing around with precision tools, machines and the likes of and I don't get much joy out of it. Wood is my one true love lol. besides this the health issue kind of forces me to take on less.

Don't sell up your gear unless you are absolutely 100% sure you know what your intentions are. It would be a shame if you sold your setup just through health problems alone. Don't give up at all.

I really appreciate your comments. Finally I have a warm glow. unusual for a hamster lol.

lew