Since I now had access to the end of the wood I wanted to create a hollow form. I looked at the piece of wood I had mounted in the chuck and felt that perhaps it was a little long (25cm) considering my lack of experience and skill. I thought it was quite tightly clamped though so I would give hollowing a shot - this turned out to be a bad idea.

I currently only own one scraper and it's a beast at 30mm. The piece of wood I was working was probably only 40mm in diameter and the wood tool combination just looked wrong. I thought I would give it a little shot anyway so I lowered the lathe speed and, following all the rules about scraping I gently introduced the tool to the work. Amazingly I didn't die. The first few seconds went quite well. A little wood came off and a small impression was made in the wood. I moved the tool a little, it caught on something and the wood nearly came out of the chuck.

One emergency stop and reset later I tried again with similar results. My guess is that the far side of the tool is catching on the rising side of the wood causing the tool to dig in. Since the point of support is some 25cm from the point of dig in there is no way for the chuck to keep hold of the work.

Fortunately for me the book I am learning from gives another method of making a small hollow using a spindle gouge. You first use the spindle gouge like an auger to set the depth of the hollow and then hollow out the rest of the piece with a complicated movement from the centre out. Unfortunately for me the book doesn't describe said manoeuvre very well so using some guess work and what I had already learnt I set about the piece of wood. Amazingly I didn'™t die this time either.

Boring the wood auger like went really well with not so much as a wobble. The first tiny bit of wood removal also went pretty well then, you guessed it, I got a dig-in. Not as bad as with the bowl scraper but enough to knock the wood off centre. The problem I found was once the wood had been knocked off centre it was impossible to re-centre it as it had been before which itself tended to cause a dig-in.

I cut of the square bit at the end of the piece of wood and tried again. I was hoping that the shorter bit of wood would be easier to work. Again I got awful dig-ins so I decided to call it a night. The next day I cut the piece in half so I would only be working on roughly 10cm of wood. I thought that would be short enough that I could probably screw up a bit and the chuck would keep hold of it. I was right.

I produced a depth hole and then set about hollowing. I'm not sure my technique is quite right but I was able to hollow fairly quickly and without digging-in. My first hollow piece, a slightly too small egg cup, was made in just under an hour.

The next day I made something that more closely resembles a goblet with a half round base.

Since there wasn't much spare wood between the chuck and the bottom of the piece I decided to part off the pieces with a saw. I first used a skew chisel to define the bottom and give me a good edge and then set the lathe to a low speed and introduced a coping saw. Holding on to the saw tightly I was able to quite easily cut though the piece of wood and leave a fairly clean and flat base. A coping saw is a good choice because the blade is thin enough that it doesn't stick too much but thick enough that it has some rigidity.

I fine sanded both pieces of work to present them at their best - and to remove some of the many tool marks.

One thing or another seemed to get in the way then and I didn't turn again till the end of the month. This was probably a good thing as my nerves were a little shot from the hollowing incidents. I've decided to keep it (really) small until I am sure what I am doing. While at a craft and steam fare mid-month I got chatting with a guy who makes wooden boxes. I mentioned that I was learning on pine and he told me it would be better to try some other woods. I had already tried out a little of the Sweet Chestnut we have lying around and it was better but I think because the tools were blunt I hand't realized how much better it was.

Anyway, one of the things I have always wanted to make is a chess set and before I knew what I was doing I had rough down a piece of Sweet Chestnut and started making a pawn. I hadn't intended to make a chess piece I just saw the shape in the wood and went for it. For a first attempt I don't think it's that bad. The foot is a little thin and the kneck is far to thick (although the photo doesn't show this very well). I parted this piece off with a small spindle gouge and slighly undercut the base so it would sit flat.

My next attempt was somewhat better. I had learnt from making the first piece. The footis about 5mm and has a single line cut into it for visual interest. The kneck is also much tighter as the bottom half of the head was cut with a skew chisel. I tried parting this piece off with the parting tool - it wasn't what you might call a great success as it left a difficult to remove nib of wood.

Another Sweet Chestnut pawn - this one has a squashed head.

By this point I felt I could make pawns fairly well. I haven't been using a template so all the pawns are different sizes. This was my frist crack at making a "standard" sized pawn. The dimentions of this pawn are, I feel, about right and the over all shape is nice.

Now that I had discovered how great hard wood is to turn I couldn't wait to try out other woods. I had some Elderberry in the garage that I was going to burn! I grabbed a stick of it and stuck it on the lathe. I'm never going to burn Elderberry again. It's a beutiful wood to turn. With sharp tools long streamers of wood shavings come off. One was so long, over a meter, I saved it and photographed it. Would you believe this came from the roughing gouge.

Once I had made the stick round I cut off the end and turned a pawn from it. This is probably now my favourite piece and I have given it to Fraggle to remind her of me. The finish on this wood is amazing - the picture really doesn't do it credit.

The next day I roughed down another piece of Elderberry and made another pawn. I have decided to make one set of Sweet Chessnut and one of Elderberry. This piece will be my standard pawn from now on.

Finally at the end of the month I produced this pawn from Sweet Chestnut this is essentially the same size as the one above.