Collecting Wood That Was Destined for The Fireplace and Using it For Making FREE WoodTurning Bowl Blanks

First Piece From A Portable
Bandsaw Yields [14] FREE 12″
Cherry Bowl Blanks

This article is kind of an add on to a previous post I did on collecting free bowl blanks by interacting with a variety of sawmilling people and businesses. If this post interests you please check out Free Source of Wood Blanks From Slabs.

We picked up some oak, hickory and cherry logs. A homeowner basically clear cut his yard to build a new home. I might mention that they were millennial’s from the city and they didn’t like trees. They wanted to move to the country and get out of the cement city. But they did not want trees for some reason. On one hand its sad to see some old growth forests taken down but on the other hand, it is either firewood, building timbers or free wood bowl blanks for me!

It was actually kind of tragic since whatever wasn’t to be used by us would get burned up in one big pile. And they did not want any trees in their yard….. so 200 year oak trees along with many other trees were clear cut so they could have a lawn!

Harvesting Logs for Woodturning
From New Construction Site!

I’m not a tree hugger, but I hate to see a forest, that is a 200+ year forest removed because some yuppie wants to build a house. I’m thankful that we were able to collect and use some of the wood for firewood and some of the trees were milled into lumber and some will be used for wood bowl blanks.

I have 2 interests when it comes to trees, logging and making things out of the wood you get from harvesting a tree ….my main excitement comes from the wood I harvest for turning bowls. I have been learning the best way to harvest this wood and the best way to dry it so I can share it with other wood turners.

What you see in this video is the first cut that comes off the log as it is on the bandsaw mill. The sawyer tries to cut a “cant” which is basically a piece of wood that is square or longitudinal. Once the cant is shaped he will cut it down to dimensional lumber or whatever you want. So the very first cut is the “slab” which is semi-circular on the bark side and flat on the cut side. You can usually get the “slab” for free or next to nothing and they make excellent bowl blanks!

Collecting Slab Cuts for Woodturning Bowl Blanks

Since I am kind of new at this I was interested in that first piece that is cut off of each side. Years ago I would go to the local sawmill and pick up these slab pieces for free and use them in my wood stove to heat my house.

Now I see another use for these “slabs” or first cuts. They are the perfect shape for bowl blanks!

If you can talk the “sawyer” into adding an inch or two to the first cut you will end up with some pretty awesome bowl blanks, you can do some pretty nice live edge work and even if they might not be as thick as you want they can easy make platters or shallow dishes. Of course if you hired him to cut a log then you can tell him how thick you want those pieces. Or better yet if you really start to get into making and collecting your own free wood bowl blanks you can get a small gasoline bandsaw mill for under $2000 and you’ll have enough bowl blanks for a lifetime. In fact, I plan on cutting up a few logs and harvesting these free bowl blanks and selling them at some point in time. There are lots of folks in my woodturning facebook group that are always looking for wood to turn …..so the market is there and I would be helping my fellow turners.

Up to Now We’ve Been Following The Bandsaw Around and Helping
Him For Some Free Bowl Blanks

Up to this point I have been talking about following the “sawyer” around and snagging the stuff nobody wants. It is a very good source of turning materials. Make sure you give the guy a couple of your nicest bowls 🙂

There is another option. And I’ve mentioned if briefly.

#1 Hire Out The Services of A
Local Sawyer and His Bandsaw Mill

You can find someone with a portable bandsaw mill that will come to your property and literally cut up a log into any size pieces you might want.

Let’s say a storm comes in and blows down a hickory tree. You can try to cut it up into wood-turning blanks with a chainsaw ….and that’s cool. You will end up with a lot of stock.

You can have a portable sawmill come in and slice up every trunk, branch or whatever is available into the thickness you need for your turning projects. At this point you can dry the pieces for yourself or you might even consider selling some. Or perhaps share the cost with another woodturner or woodturning club.

Lets say you have a 12′ log on the band-saw mill. You can have the sawyer cut a couple of slabs that might be bowl blanks ….remember to tell him to make them bigger than normal ….tell him why and he will began to understand what you want. That log will give you 4 slabs at least 12″ wide and 4 inches deep. Then you can cut the middle of the log into lumber that could be used for spindles ….so 2 or 3″ thick and then you could cut some bigger bowl blanks 6+ inches thick. You would be amazed at how many blanks you will end up with. Just remember to treat them properly for drying so you don’t get checks and cracks.

Make sure you tell him how you want to handle the pith. You do not want that pith in the middle of your thick blanks.

Then tell him what size you want the tree to be cut up into. For instance, lets say you want some big bowls so you tell him to cut 6″ or 8″ thick slices. Once you get your slices you will need to quickly cut them into blanks sizes ….say 14″ and seal the ends. Then you need to dry them, either in shavings or a dehumidifier of some sort or commercial drying company.

One big tree could get you all the wood you every wanted for your woodturning needs. Or it might even set you off on another adventure where you collect, process and treat bowls blanks for others to use.

My FREE Woodturning Bowl Blanks

Free Wood Bowl Blanks from portable bandsaw mill — Cherry “slab” cut that I cut into 14″ long blanks.

This slab yielded me about 12 free cherry bowl blanks that were about to be cut down to 12″, each had a unique shape.

The slab had been sitting outside for a year so it was getting dry. The bowls I made from that piece where further dried in the microwave …..60 second blasts, maybe 4 or 5 times a day.

It was beautiful wood. I did some with live edges and the bark stuck hard, some of the bowls/platters were traditional and only took about 4 times in the microwave …..which I’m guessing would have been 4 months in a bag of shavings.

This picture was from one of the small cherry bowl blanks. It was a 12″ blank I cut on my bandsaw and about 4 inches thick. One thing you don’t want to do when turning these small and thin platters/bowls is to use a recess to mount your cut. That will eliminate the amount of wood that can be gouged out of the bowl. You should use a tenon, to turn the bowl and obviously cut the tenon off at the end of the project.

cherry bowl from bandsaw mill slab — A bowl blank was taken from the first cut of a log called the “slab’ it was 14″ long and about 4” thick. The natural curvature of the outside of the first piece lent itself perfectly to the bowl shape.

My whole purpose of this post and video was to show you that there are many sources of wood that you can find and use to turn your creations. And, further processing can be expanded from buried in shavings to using a microwave to hurry the process so you can finish it and put it on the market.

This was on of my first microwave dries. I put it in the microwave about 6 times and varied between 60 and 90 seconds. If the bowl gets too hot to touch then you need to reduce the time. So far so good, I keep the microwave procedure going until my scale showed that weight loss had stopped. That means there was no more water to evaporate. I was please, no cracks or checks and I will getting a dedicated microwave for the shop! Thanks to Al Auth from the facebook group who encouraged me to give this procedure a try.

You will need a scale, I like this one …can actually weigh up to 90 pounds but I use it in the kitchen when I get the urge to whip up a gourmet dinner for my favorite wife 🙂

And its nice to have a moisture meter, this one works fine for me

I plan on doing a lot more on my woodturning blog, however, if you haven’t please check out my facebook woodturning group. https://facebook.com/groups/woodturningbasics you’ll find a great group of people there. Some are clueless as to how to start and what to use but then there are the guys that have been turning for 30 or 40 years and can answer any question you might want …..all very good people. I keep the facebook group clean. If you need to swear or make lude and crude jokes or just make fun of someone …..you will be deleted. I want this group to be a family affair. Some of my favorites are Guilherme Eduardo, Al Furtado and I see Capn’ Eddie just signed up…..I think Capn’ Eddie videos were some of the first I started to learn on….. great guy, great wood turner and he served our country, he lived enough life to throw some golden nuggets our way….wish he were my neighbor!

All 3 of those woodturners have excellent woodturning channels on youtube and if you get stuck, you might want to check them out:

Guil ……. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChVVt0WnzTJ81S1V7itCEqA/videos

Al………………………. https://www.youtube.com/user/Alfurtado1/videos

Capn’ Eddie………….. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgEbScotUCk64Mnw1jU9jFw/videos

I think this is a second channel Capn’ Eddie started, there is another one with a ton of videos on when he was feeling well and a little younger 🙂
You might want to visit his site to support him, he sells turning tools, equipment and has free tool plans and project plans ….you will learn a lot and he is someone who deserves the “pass it on” mentality http://eddiecastelin.com/

Free Source of Wood Bowl Blanks From “Slabs” Cut By Portable Sawmills

Sawmills As A Free Source of Woodturning and Bowl Blanks

I know there are a lot of people who turn wood and enjoy the hobby have a hard time finding wood.

That’s a little difficult for me to comprehend because we have so many trees that they fall on our houses, or in my case the garage/shop!

There are a lot of good posts on where and how people find different sources of wood. How they collect it and how they process it.

I have one source of wood you might find interesting. There are many sawmills around the country/world large and small. There are many portable sawmills that will come up to your home or property and mill a tree into pieces that you tell them to. You can use these for construction or in our case, get them milled into sizes that we would want for bowl blanks or whatever you happen to turn.

Here’s a source I thought you might be interested in. Portable bandsaw mills are located around the country. You just have to find them. Search for sawmill, portable sawmill or contact any of the manufacturers and ask them if they have any of their mills in your area.

A portable bandsaw mill is basically a trailer with a gasoline powered bandsaw on it. A log is loaded on the trailer and positioned. The saw head is then lowered so the bandsaw blade can make a cut down the length of the log. The sawmill operator is looking to make a flat surface across the top of the log, it is then rotated and another cut is taken. This first cut is usually called a “slab” and this slab will have varying thickness.

This first piece or “slab” is usually worthless to everyone except perhaps for firewood. For woodturners, particularly “bowl turners” this first piece could be gold. Depending on how it is cut you might end up with blanks that could be ‘platters’ up to ‘bowls’. If you were able to convince a sawyer to add an inch or two to the first cut you would end up with as many bowl blanks as you can use since it runs the length of the log.

We had a guy come out and cut up some oak, cherry and poplar logs we had. Nobody wanted the slabs, I asked him to add a couple inches to the first cut and he thought I was crazy. But I ended up with 2 slabs that were 12′ or so long of Cherry. I then cut the slabs into 14″ pieces so I ended up with about 10 or 11 bowl blanks per slab.

These ‘slabs’ as bowl blanks offer 2 types of bowls. You can turn live edge bowls or flip it around and you can cut some nice platters or bowls.

Take this one step further. One of my son’s purchased a bandsaw mill. It is a manual mill, hard work to load the load and then turn it while on the cutting rails. But….I can now cut that first piece any size I want!

Sawing wood is almost as addicting as turning wood. I suppose if I were younger and stronger I might want to a little more sawing 🙂 Keep in mind if you are interested in sawing wood, you can get a sawmill that is all hydraulic, no muscle required! But for the occaisional log here and there I can cut blanks for the next 10 years 🙂 Seriously, I started this article by talking about the first cut for bowl blanks because you can get those free from most sawyers. But if you had your own mill, or had someone come out and cut up a tree for you….. you can have the sawyer cut the log in slabs with the thickness that you desire.

I recently grabbed a cottonwood tree, actually about half the tree came down. I can now cut the slabs and then cut some middle pieces that are 6″ or more thick and then cut them in 12″ pieces that I will seal and stack for drying.

Slab Cut Into Bowl Blank Widths

The picture shows the Cherry “slab” that I cut into 13 to 14″ pieces. The slab sat outside for about a year and was 15% to 20% moisture level. I should have immediately sealed the ends of those pieces but I didn’t. I just don’t have the energy or strenght to do too much anymore …..very depressing but that’s my life. I eventually did seal the ends to keep them from checking and cracking. I think I had about 10 bowl blanks.

Turning the Cherry Bowl Blanks

When turning bowls its nice to have the option of turning live edge bowls. The problem with live edge bowls is that the bark doesn’t stick and gets ripped off. I found this piece of cherry had some decent bark adhesion and it was possible to turn some shallow live edge bowls.

If you try to turn live edge bowls and it almost never fails …..a piece of the bark will rip off and leave a space on the edge. You can sand and shape that edge or you can grab some of the bark and use some CA to glue the bark back on the edge of the bowl. Usually you need to use one of the 2″ sanding disks to shape and blend it into the existing bark …..but a little practice will make it look like it was never missing 🙂

Mounting The Slab Bowl
Blank on Your Lathe

Next would be to turn a bowl from the “slab” bowl blank by making the ‘flat’ side of the blank the top of the bowl. I usually will drill a 2-1/8″ hole with a 2-1/8 inch forstner bit for the jaws of my Super Nova 2 Chuck (click here https://amzn.to/2JUGzXq) and chuck up the flat face against the chuck with the jaws into the recess that I just drilled.

I will next shape the bottom of the bowl so that it looks like a bowl bottom. Normally the bark will fall off your bowl blank or you can pull it off easiy ….no so much with this piece. I read someplace how a turner would remove bark before putting it on the lathe, he used a small air powered chisel to pry and rip off the bark. So……first however I use a cheap harbor freight air powered chisel to take the bark off. The natural profile of the bottom is close to the profile of the bowl. So I will turn a tenon on the bottom of the bowl…..I like recesses but a tenon makes more sense since these ‘slabs’ are usually not too thick and a tenon helps to keep you from blowing through the bottom of the bowl.

I looked around for an air powered chisel and I think I found you a better deal, you get 4 or 5 chisels instead of one and it costs less than $20. You’ll find yourself using this tool a lot but for our specific purpose it and easily strip the bark off a short piece of long in no time.

You ask, “Why do I need to strip off the bark. First let me say, if you are doing a live edge bowl then you might not want to use this tool. But if you are going to turn a bowl that doesn’t have any bark inclusions on in when finished ….this is what you want to use.

Of course you can leave the bark on and use your tools to cut through the bark and get down into the good wood. Unfortunately this is going to give you one hell of a ride. Some bark is attached to your bowl blank like the mountains of the Grand Canyon and other bark might be attached like the gentle rolling hills of the great planes.

Assuming you want to get rid of the bark so you can turn some wood, the bark has to come off. Embedded in the bark are stones, sand, and metal. You never know when stripping the bark will test you patience because your tools will become useless afterwards. I mean, you’re gonna have to go and sharpen them again so they might be cutting good again.

I can’t remember who turned me on to a small air hammer with a chisel to strip the bark from a bowl blank, or log …..but it has been a real blessing to be able to strip the bark off in a couple of minutes rather than using my hammer and chisel to clean the bark off a project whether it be bowl blank or small log. For 20 bucks you just can’t beat it and it might be one of the best wood-tuning investments you make 🙂

As I turn the tenon I will shape the bottom of the bowl/platter. Even if it is wet/green I will shape the bottom of the bowl and then take it through the progression of sanding from 80 grit to at least 240 grit or higher. This 2″ drill powered sanding disk is one of my favorites https://amzn.to/2JSk9WN

I then flip the bowl around, attach it to the tenon and began to square off the front of the bowl. I usually will figure out how deep to take the bowl. Then I will attach a drill bit or forstner bit and drill a hole in the center to the maximum depth of the bowl. This keeps me from gouging out the bottom of the bowl and making a funnel 🙂

Since the “slab” usually isn’t too thick I usually forego keeping pressure on the bowl from the tail-stock. It makes for quick gouging and shaping of the inside of the bowl without fear of the bowl flying off the lathe. That is another reason I like using a tenon on these….. you can crank down on that tenon as hard as you can without damaging the tenon and feeling confident that the bowl will stay on your chuck.

So I finish he inside of the bowl with my Big Hurricane Scrapers and then sand once again through a progression usually starting at 80 or 100 to 240 grit.

After sanding I will either finish the project or dry it. I use a couple different drying methods. If I think the water content is low I will set it on a shelf to dry. If I think it is over 20% moisture (use a moisture meter https://amzn.to/30UNIg9 or https://amzn.to/32V7xFQ ) I will put it in a bag of shavings and let it dry. Or…..my new technique is to put it in the microwave at 60 to 90 seconds. I’m still experimenting with the microwave treatment but I think I like it. You can literally and actually dry a piece within a 24 hour or less period of time and then mount it back up on the lathe ….sand it and apply your desired finish.

Wow!

All I wanted to do was tell you about portable sawmills and “slabs”. Sorry, got a little carried away but I hope you might find some if not all the info helpful.

For those of you who are having a hard time finding wood in your local area ….check out some of the local sawmill operators. Contact these guys ….they really are cool and enjoy doing what they do. If you have a relationship with one, when that tree comes down you might be able to get him to come out on the cheap. You also might be able to come out a job he is milling up ….make sure you give him a couple of bowls and you will have a source of wood for your tuning for a long time 🙂

If you haven’t checked out our facebook group, please do. Lots of good people there, lots of cool projects and if you have a question ….I’m sure you can get it answered. And if you are a woodturing pro or expert …..we can use your advice and you can help newbies out https://www.facebook.com/groups/woodturningbasics

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Where to Find WoodTurning Tools and Woodturning Equipment

Where to Find WoodTurning Tools

I thought I would share some of my best buys for wood turning tools. After all, I think most of us that venture into woodturning have budgets of a mimimalist. That is, our appetite for woodturing tools and equipment is bigget than our pocket book! Although with prudent research a smart buyer can get started for peanuts, you’ll quickly find yourself longing for some of the expensive good stuff 🙂

I’ll probably add to this post as time goes on. I didn’t do much research on the best place to buy wood turning tools, but going from memory for webpages, stores and anyplace else I can recall buying from or stumbling across in the past couple of years.

garage sales a good source for woodworking gouges and chisels — Garage Sales are a great source of cheap woodturning gouges and chisels!

Garage Sales for Woodturning Tools and Equipment

This is probably my least used, but can be the most productive. Summer is coming and its time for garage sales, estate sales etc. You’ll find a lot of people will go to these sales, pick up some great deals on woodturning equipment and then sell them on craigslist or ebay. Most areas have a public directory of garage sales, most towns have some sort of bulletin board that will tell you when the best garage sales are gonna be going on. You might even watch out for garbage days, you know, most towns, cities …counties will have a week or so when you can put anything on the side of the road for pick up. My wife and her friends have a field day with this stuff. One person’s garbage is anothers treasure. Who knows, maybe someone inherited Uncle Joe’s Sorby Woodturning tools and has no idea what they are….. you might find these in garage sales or in the trash can! What if you saw an old harbor freight wood lathe in a heap on the side of the road…. belive me, it happens.

WoodTurning Tools From Estate Sales

Look up people who set up estate sales. I met a few last year and they always do inventory and try to affix prices to the affects left over from someone who has just passed on. Often times you can come up with a bucket or two filled with wood working tools. You’ll find bandsaws, drillpresses, and even woodlathes! Just make a call, try to meet with the estate sale manager and tell them what you’re looking for. Nowadays you can have them shoot you over a pic of any items they might think is of interest to you.

Finding WoodTurning Tools and Equipment at Auctions

Type in “Local Auction”,”Local Auctions”, “tool auctions”, or even “woodworking tool auction”. Use your imagination here. One link will lead to another. I found a government site someplace on the east coast, they were doing some tool auctions for schools. Schools have wood lathes and wood turning tools. If I lived closer, I might have picked up a powermatic beast of a lathe for next to nothing!

I guess when it comes to finding woodturing tools at auctions it depends on how much time you have on your hands. But then again, most of the stuff gets posted online before the auction. Most have a good set of pictures so you can see what you’re getting.

Search Craigslist for WoodTurning Tools

Craigslist can be a literal gold mine for woodturning equipment and tools. The problem is most people are really limited to their own areas since that’s the way Craigslist is set up. In other words, if you live in Seattle, you will only see the results for Seattle. Here’s a little trick that can allow you to search all of Craigslist. Use this url http://www.searchcraigslist.org/ and you’ll get the entire United States.

Now the trick with searching is the keywords you use in your search. You can try “woodlathes” or “wood lathe” and you will get different results. You can try “woodturning chisel” or “woodturing gouge” or “Sorby Woodturing chisel” and you’ll get different results for all. If you use quotation marks (“”) around your search term you will get exact results. Sometimes that’s good and then sometimes you’ll get more results when you just type in your search term without the quotes.

Craigslist is supposed to be a local deal. However, if you find something you want and its across the country you can drop the owner of the post a quick email and ask if they would be willing to ship if you paid extra for shipping and handling. I found that most will respond positively depending on the size of the purchased object. Also you should be aware that woodturning tools go fast on Craigslist, I was really surprised, woodturing gouges and chisels that were posted a day ago are already gone, so you need to take action quickly if you found something. The nice part about Craigslist is you can ask them for a phone number and actually talk to the owner.

ONe thing about Craigslist is paying for items. Since it was originally set up for local selling and buying it is a little odd finding a method of paying that suits both buyer and seller. You can try using Paypal, I’m not an expert in this area so you might want to do some research…. nothing worse than paying for something and getting stiffed!

Finding Wood Turing Tools on Ebay

I have found some nice tools on ebay. I’ve gotten some great deals on used tools on ebay. I’ve gotten some pretty good deals on new woodturning equipment on ebay. However, you need to be smart when searching for the items you might be looking for. Nowadays, Mr. X buys a cheap set of woodturning chisels from China …maybe from Alibaba and lists them as new. You never know what you’re gonna get when it comes to buying stuff on ebay, and often you have little recourse when it comes to returns. Sure they say no problem but try to return the itme and see what happens!

Find Woodturning Tools and Equipment on Ebay — Look for woodturning tools and supplies on ebay!

So, look for older wood turing equipment and tools. Once again, you might find someone who was left with a buck of Uncle Joe’s Sorby woodturning chisels and the owner has now idea how much they are worth. The problem is there are so many people who scour ebay for deals that the buck of tools will soon rise in price. You never know though, I found an old Craftsman pulley driven grinder for a good price I use as a dedicated sharpener for sharpening my woodturning chisels and gouges.

Ebay is a great place to start your search for good woodturning tools at a reasonable price. Just type in “woodturning tools” in the search box and get started!

How to Win Bids for WoodWorking Tools

If you’ve ever bid on an item on ebay, you find yourself waiting for the last couple of minutes of the auction as you see the price go up and try to get in a winning bid before the auction closes. Well, technology has taken over that part of bidding and if you are manually doing ebay bids for woodturning equipment or anything else you will be beat. There is some software called “sniper” software for ebay bidding, you tell the software what item you are bidding on, you tell the software the maximum amount you will pay and click the “go” or “snipe” button and it will automatically bid on the item until you have either won or someone has outbid you, usually another sniper with a higher limit set for the bidding. I use an online sniper service called EzSniper and you can check it out here eBay sniper it cost’s next to nothing so price is not an issue.

Here’s a video that explains the sniping concept if you aren’t familiar with it already. Remember that EzSniper will do this process automatically for you…. it almost always works for me as long as I set the maximum bid high enough …anyway, check out the video

Finally, although you can find almost anything on ebay that you can find on Amazon. You need to be knowledgeable in what you are purchasing. Watch out for brand names, pay attention to delivery times ….sometimes things are dropshipped from China so your order will take 30 days or more. Watch out for cheap imitations. All said, buyer beware. I still find great deals on ebay and if you are looking for some great deals on woodworking tools or woodturing tools ….make sure you spend some time checking out ebay, they’ve really come a long way over the years and you can find awesome deals on whatever you are looking for!

Purchasing WoodTurning Tools from Amazon

First off let me say that I would rather give my money to the local woodworking tool supplier than to Amazon or anyone else. Secondly, I would like to support some of the smaller Woodturing Websites than to buy from Amazon. I’ve owned my own businesses all my life and I know how difficult it is to survive in today’s economy, so I’d rather support the small guy and help keep him/her in business. That is as long as they acknowledge me and can be competitive. I’m not going to pay $100 for a woodturing bowl gouge to the local guy when I can pay $75 to Amazon for the same woodturing bowl gouge. With that said, I think it is going to become more and more difficult for the local guy to survive. So if you have a local store that you can hang out in, drink some coffee …get a demonstration you need to put a value on that and support that guy!

Amazon pricing for woodturing tools, wood lathes, wood turning accessories is really hard to beat.

With the advent of “Amazon Prime” (you pay $100 a year and get free 1 or 2 day shipping and special discounts on some items) Amazon is really tough to beat. I’m sick, been sick and don’t know if I’ll ever recover. I can’t drive much and my illness prevents me from visiting even the local woodturing stores….so if they don’t have an online store…..well, I check out Amazon.

I usually wait until the last minute, Amazon Prime, guarantees 2 day delivery on most items…. well, put it this way, “if I can’t buy it through my Amazon Prime membership….I won’t buy it!” Amazon has made it really easy to purchase, guarantee and return items should you need to. Amazon carries a lot of weight so if you have a problem and the vendor does not take care of it, most situations Amazon with help you deal with your purchase and problems.

That being said, Amazon’s prices on Woodturning tools and accessories is just unbelievable. Wood working tools are often marked down, and you get them in 2 days. Amazon will give you the ability to choose between vendors for a specific woodturning accessory. Do you want an Elsworth woodturing bowl gouge with the Elsworth Grind….. you have a handful of vendors to choose from. They will most times show you the cheapest and quickest delivery. After a couple of years of buying woodworking tools from Amazon, I prefer them for most of my woodturning accessories.

However, you need to beware when buying from Amazon if you are not using your Amazon Prime account. I purchased some carbide woodturning cutters, screws and other woodturing accessories that were at an awesome price…. so much cheaper than the others. Well, I was not paying attention on the delivery time and they were being shipped from China. It took over a month to get all my woodturing parts which delayed the building of my woodturing tools. I was chomping at the bit, wanted to start building my tools and had to wait. It was my fault because after I went back to the item I found that they clearly stated the shipping time would be 3 weeks or more.

Another thing Amazon is good for is finding to woodturing tools or equipment you need, use those keywords and search Google, Ebay, Youtube and Craigslist ….never know what will come up! Using different search engines will provide different results and different keywords. That’s another post, but keep in mind youtube, amazon and ebay have the next biggest search engines next to google ….you’d be surprised what they bring up. Using keyword tools that are specific to each one of those platforms will give you a variety of different keywords and search results when looking for places to purchase woodturning tools and equipment.

Buying Tools and Equipment for Woodturning from Online Stores/Websites

Which leads me to a variety of websites that I’ve dug up over the last year or so. I can’t say I have purchased from all of them but each site has its own unique flavor and will sell their own style of tools. Some websites provide very high quality and very expensive woodturning tools and you can find other sites that provide woodturning tools for those of us on a budget…. a low budget 🙂 So, check some of these out.

Easy Wood Tools

http://www.woodcraft.com/
http://www.rockler.com/
https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com

Home

http://bestwoodtools.com/
http://chucksplus.com/index.php
https://www.pennstateind.com/
http://www.packardwoodworks.com/
http://www.thewoodturningstore.com/

I’ve found Rockler to have some of the best deals and greatest selections of good and high quality woodturing tools, consider the Oneway Talon Chuck system ….check out the video. This is on the higher end buy from what I’ve seen is one of the better chucks for a woodlathe.

Oneway Talon Chuck System Review — If you had one chuck for your wood lathe this would be it the Oneway Talon Chuck System

There are many more, google the following:
“woodturnig tools”
“wood turning tools”
“wood turning gouges”
“woodturning equipment”
“woodturning supplies”
That will be more than enough to get you started!

Hopefully this post will help you locate a good place to purchase tools and equipment for your woodturning hobby. I could probably add a couple of pages to this but I just wanted to share some of the things and places that I use and check out. Again, you can use one site to lead you to another and to another until you find what you want.

Woodworking or WoodTurning Websites

Another source for woodturning tools and equipment comes from regular people just putting up websites and blogging about their woodturning projects and adventure. A Google Search for “woodturning” or “wood turning” will dig up an unlimited number of websites and blogs for you to check out. Remember these blogs will ususally advertise products or services so take their advice with a grain of sale. That is, consider the fact that they are blogging to make money. You can tell immediately if a blogger has crappy articles, few pictures or no videos. You can tell if its just a site to make money if they have no passion, you can see the passion in their videos or blog posts.

Check out this site I stumbled on to:

Mikes WoodWorking Projects …. http://www.mikeswoodworkingprojects.com/6-must-basic-woodturning-tools-uses/
Cap’n Eddie is one of my favorite guys I learned a lot from him: http://eddiecastelin.com/home_base
Carl Jacobson http://thewoodshop.tv/
http://www.aswoodturns.com/
http://wyomingwoodturner.com/

There are a whole bunch of sites I enjoy checking out, these are just a few. I found most by searchine on youtube first ….some of the woodturner/youtuber’s don’t have websites …nontheless, they discuss tools and equipment, what to buy, where to buy it!

Woodturning and Youtube

I didn’t say too much about Youtube but it can really be a diamond in the rough. Do a search on any woodturning subject and you’ll end up with pages of results. Seems as though woodturners like to share their expertise, abilities and knowledge. You can learn how to sharpen a bowl gouge with just about any type of grind you want. You can find reviews on tools and equipment used by woodturners. You can find out how to use the wood lathe you purchased ….and if you didn’t purchase one yet you can find reviews on what people think about the wood lathe you are considering buying!

Search Youtube for Woodturning — Youtube is a great source of info, search youtube for “woodturning” over 300,000 videos!

I’ve found woodturners to be incredibly open and honest. Youtube gives them a platform to share just about anything related to turning wood on a wood lathe, or even making a wood lathe. But some of the most interesting information is given by the youtuber explaining a product, say a cool turning chisel that you haven’t seen before and he purchased it from xyz.com. Also if he’s been posting videos for a while they usually will put links in the desription letting you know where to find the wood turning equipment and tools they were using while making the video. So, Youtube can be an excellent source of product vendors for anything you want to purchase related to woodturning if you pay attention to what is said in the video and your read through the “Description” thouroughly …..and don’t forget to check out the comments, people like to brag about the deals they got and you just might find a secret woodturners source for woodturning tools and supplies!!

I follow Stephen Ogle on Youtube, his teaching is excellent and he often times discusses what type of equipment he uses and will tell where to get it. He doesn’t list too much in the description and I don’t think he has a website…. but I found he will answer questions in the Youtube comments….anyway, check out his channel and videos.

In this video he’s making a vase from a piece of green wood…. pretty cool stuff with great ideas.

Woodworking Magazines for Finding Good WoodTurning Tools and Supplies

I knew I would forget one source of wood turning tools, that would be “Woodworking Magazines” Surpisingly there are quite a few woodworking magazines still around. It seemed as though some disappeared with the advent of the internet but then digital magazines became available and their printed cousins returned. Personally, I really like sitting down and reading a magazine made from paper, digital is OK, but nothing like collecting a box of good ole magazines!

Anyway, I’m not even going to mention any names, just Google “woodworking magazines” or “woodturning magazines” and see what comes up. Try your search both ways, using quotes and no quotes. There actually is a magazine called “Wood Turning Magazine” but you’ll find good wood turner stuff in any of the wood working magazines.

Don’t forget to check out Amazon and Ebay for woodworking magazines. You’d be surprised how many back copies are floating around, or I should say older copies that people inherit and want to get rid of…. then Amazon will have compilation books of woodworking and woodturning articles. You might be about to find unusual sources for wood turning equipment and supplies.

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