A Bowl of Hard Work

"I just enjoy taking raw materials and turning them into a work of art," says Mr. Sam Beagle as he flips the switch of his lathe to “on.” Mr. Beagle, a woodturner in his early 40s, wears a baseball cap backward, a pair of old shoes and a plain white t-shirt and shorts covered in wood finish and stain. A thin layer of dust lies on the floor, tables cluttered with wood scraps and tools alike. A maze of tables and workbenches await to reach the most important machine in the shop: the lathe. Approaching the lathe, you smell the wood dust kicked up by your shoes from walking in. Behind the lathe lies a pile of shavings from projects long since finished and a bright fluorescent light shining into the workspace.

Figure 1

Using scrapers and gouges, Mr. Beagle uses a lathe to turn a blank of wood and shape it into anything he could want. In order to create a blank, the square piece of wood that the bowl will become, Mr. Beagle must use a chainsaw and a bandsaw to shape the piece into a smaller piece of wood.Mr. Beagle owns a variable speed Powermatic 3520B lathe. This machine, he explains, allows him to change the speed at which the blank spins on the machine(see Figure 1), making it perfect for a home shop. Once ready, he loads the blank onto the machine and starts to create.

Figure 2

Mr. Beagle has numerous different types of logs stacked in the corner of his shop, tucked away waiting to dry. They will eventually become their own pieces of art. Mr. Beagle must carefully select a log as wood color and hardness varies by species. He grabs a dusty piece of walnut, a dark-colored hardwood from the corner, and attaches it to the machine. In order to turn the block of wood into a cylindrical piece,  Mr. Beagle uses a deep fluted gouge. This tool is used heavily in bowl turning and is vital to the process. While the bowl spins on the lathe, the gouge sits on a tool rest and moves from left to right in order to make sure all the work is done evenly. At one point, Mr. Beagle stops his careful work on the walnut bowl and moves to a small grinder. He takes his tool and makes a small mark with permanent marker on the bowl gouge. He then begins to use the grinder to sharpen his tool. He explains that a dull gouge is a useless gouge and sharpening makes sanding much easier later on. He shows that once the permanent marker vanishes from the tip of the tool, the gouge is sharp. Once the bowl is round, the inside can then be hollowed out. In order to do this, Mr. Beagle moves the tool rest to the front of the bowl and uses a carbide bowl hollowing tool to remove material from what will be the inside of the bowl. At this point, a very rough bowl shape begins to form (see Figure 2). Once the bowl becomes roughed out, the fine detail work begins. At this stage of bowl making, Mr. Beagle adds aesthetic details to make the bowl look original. Details like this range anywhere from creating curves on the surface, or even a smaller area at the base of the bowl. Although Mr. Beagle does not show the addition of these details. He explains that fine detail work of this sort can make or break the appeal of a piece.Amidst the clutter, a few pieces of sandpaper appear and the most important part of the bowl creation begins. The lathe kicks into high speed, and the drone of the motor begins again. Mr. Beagle uses an abrasive piece of sandpaper to start, meticulously rubbing every inch of the bowl in order to make it smooth. Not only does the 80-grit piece of sandpaper help to smooth the bowl, it also removes any deep scratches left from the gouges. He stops and starts the lathe often to check his progress on the sanding and scratch removal. He moves up to a finer 120-grit and keeps sanding until he reaches for a piece of 500-grit sandpaper. At this point, the bowl has a mirror-like luster and a very smooth surface. For the first time in about an hour, the piece becomes free from the lathe to a small dusty and stained piece of cardboard across the large warehouse. Mr. Beagle motions for the rag sitting next to me, and he opens a jar of mineral oil. He begins applying mineral oil to the sanded and nearly finished bowl. The instant the oil touches the bowl, the wood’s colors pop. The feeling in the room is overwhelming as we see an ordinary piece of wood turn into a work of art. Soon after, the excess oil is wiped off and a new container is opened. The container reads, "Zinsser Bulls Eye Amber Shellac," and then, the smell of alcohol fills the room as it is a primary ingredient in shellac. Once the mineral oil drys, Mr. Beagle will apply two coats of shellac to the bowl, and finally, after a few hours of drying, Mr. Beagle calls the bowl a piece of art. Shown below is an image of the bowl Mr. Beagle created.
As Mr. Beagle and I admire his work, he explains that, after three years of lathe work, he still discovers new techniques to make what he does easier and more efficient. Bowls were not the first thing Mr. Beagle decided to create. Before the bowls, he made many cutting boards and even cabinets with his tools. He says that his love of woodworking began when he was in high school. He joined a woodworking club, which allowed him access to special equipment. He urges people to get into woodworking by doing what he did and join a club and watch videos simply to learn the art of woodworking, which he describes as a dying hobby. In order to sell his work, he places listings online with high-quality pictures to show the buyers that they are not only buying a piece of wood, but a little bit of the person who created it. He also frequents craft shops and flea markets to sell his pieces. Some of his most dedicated customers come from homes that are just looking to add a little flair to any room. Many people place his pieces on a table in search of a custom centerpiece.His favorite part of creating a piece is not the money that the item will bring, but the feeling he gets from applying that last coat of finish to one of his bowls. He creates wooden bowls for the love of the craft, not for the money that it will ultimately fetch. When Mr. Beagle turns a raw piece of lumber into something great, he exemplifies the saying, "If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.”