Tuesday, June 30

So after the frustration of yesterday, I made up 2/3 of the distance to the airport. So I'm heading in the right direction and almost there. I've stopped in a little city called Brignolles. Like all old town there's an old section with narrow streets and lots of history. The Augustinians have a chapel here and Eucharistic adoration was available. Not a lot of people but several. So that was nice. Tomorrow I think I'll even take the scenic route and enjoy the drive. Thinking of you all, with love.

Monday, June 29

Well, the best laid plans oft go astray! But I guess these plans weren't laid too well. As I was on the way to Barcelona, I was realizing that it was farther than I had counted on, and that if I stuck to my plans it would a very long drive back to the airport on Wednesday and was already trying to figure out how to cut my trip short and begin the trip back. Well I made it to the outskirts of Barcelona, took the wrong exit and found myself in the most confusing mess. It was an old part of town, the streets were narrow, one lane, one way, with cars parked along both side, in more than an hour of driving around in circles, I never found a single parking place, I did find the street where the hostel was located and there was construction closing the street, which was one way and impossible to get in from the other direction, so when I found myself back on the highway ramp, I said the heck with it and headed back. So I'm back in Narbonne, and will be taking my time tomorrow and Wednesday driving on back toward Nice and the airport. So while I was a little slow realizing I had bit off too much, I am happy to be heading in the right direction anyway.
Enjoying another peaceful evening. Miss you all.

Sunday, June 28 Narbonne France

Sunday a day off rest, and I did just that; I canceled my own plans to spend the day visiting more gothic cathedrals. They are just too much farther than I thought they would be, or they seemed to be by a casual glance at a map. I had always planned on two nights here in Narbonne, traveling today and returning here tonight, I've just skipped the traveling and rested. Tomorrow I'll travel on down to Barcelona, to see Sagrada Familia on Tuesday, my birthday.
So today was just walking around the old city: it goes back to Roman times. There was a bazaar on the plaza, which I'm finding is pretty typical. Instead of going to church to worship the living God, people worship this world's secular god - materialism.
I did spend more time in the cathedral. It is actually a very exquisite gothic construction, unfortunately, only the choir, the area around the altar, was ever built. The crossing and nave were never built, they just built a wall to end the building. Many have said it was the pride of the medieval church to attempt to build such massive structures, and its failure. A place like Bouvais, attempting to build the very highest cathedral, reached too far, and failed. There again is only the choir, and now that has to be propped with ugly iron beams to keep from collapsing. Such are the problems with cathedral building.
Actually it is quite hot here, not like the cool mountain air of Aiguines. Guess I forget I'm on the Mediterranean, and traveling south. This room is great - with air conditioning! Just found it on the Internet.
Miss you all. Anxious to be home, see you soon.

Saturday, June 27

Well the woodturning classes are over and I have a few days of vacation. This must have been one of those, as long as you are here, you may as well. ... As long as you're already in France, you may as well go see some of the cathedrals you didn't see last year. Yeah sounds good, I just should have looked more closely and figured out a little closer how far these cathedrals are I want to visit.
Leaving Aiguines was a beautiful drive. Each village has a unique and ancient history, there was just to much to see. I did stop at one grand old church, in some small town,  but then just pushed on. And it became a push too. After the country roads,it became expedient to get on the highways and try to cover some ground, only to be backed up in traffic jams all over the place. I'm sure it was a solid 45 minutes, stop and go, to get through the toll both at one point. I hope it was because it was a Saturday that the roads were so crazy. But that being said I really had no problem, and even came straight to my room here in Narbonne. Left at 8 am and got here at 3pm.
After a little rest, I realized that there might be Mass at 5 or 6 at the cathedral. At least I already have one of the cathedrals checked off the list. It's a nice little gothic cathedral, but nothing like the great cathedrals of northern France. But there was no Mass there. Mass would be a at St. Paul's basilica, in another part of town, at 6 pm. So I had my tourist map and headed in that direction. Found it in plenty of time, and stayed for Mass. Actually they did a pretty nice job. There was a great organ sound that really filed the space and it was really prayerful and peaceful. I wonder why that kind of peace and otherworldlyness doesn't appeal to the younger generation. I think they should try it, they just might like it.
Thinking of you all, God bless.
Hope this goes off, now is a question of finding a WiFi connection a and actually getting connected. Last night I couldn't get connected although I should have been able. I'll try Sunday morning.

Friday, June 26

In my class taught by Jean-François Escoulen, was Christophe, Lionel, Christophe, and myself. In the jewelry making class taught by Nathalie, was Yves, Franck, and Françoise.
Well today was our last day. It was putting the finishing touches on my trembleur, then making a cap for the top, and a base to stand it in. The simpler projects took longer than they should have, I had to adapt my stand after it was done to make it more stable, and then redo it to get it right. It took two people to get it off the lathe, and then it was done! I managed to turn a trembleur. I had understood the process just from reading about it, but it was good to have all the right tools and equipment, the wisdom of experience from someone who has turned many, and a good teacher who is able to share that knowledge.
Then it was cleanup, watching the other guys finish up their projects, only Christophe was attempting a trembleur. His also came out quite nice, a little better than mine in fact as he managed to turn his stems down to about 1.7 mm, mine are at least 2.5 mm, due to the vibration problem I had at the beginning, and the fact that I am going to have to carry mine on an airplane, while he only has a few hours drive to get home. Lionel and the other Christophe, were doing escentric turning. Jean-François is rather famous for his escentric, usually whimsical, turnings. So they didn't have one big project, but were learning the principles and skills needed for such work.
So the shop is all cleaned up, everything is back in its place, and everyone is relaxing. For a class treat we went to the village square, sat at an outdoor sidewalk café, and had someone else fox and serve our supper. Of course, in the French tradition we didn't set off  until after 8 pm, and didn't get up until after 10. One of the reasons they like sitting so long, I figured out, is that by the time the sun sets and it cools off a bit, the flies and bugs go away! I had some shrimp pasta, the others had hamburgers.
So ends this part of my adventure. I have certainly enjoyed it, and hope I have learned a lot.
See everyone soon.

Thursday, June 25

Back to my trembleur today. The vibration problem continued, so we switched to a heavy duty steady rest, that helped allot, and by the time I was able to get a few more inches done, it was short enough to spin nice and smooth. So the turning became a real joy from then on, and i was able to experience how the tool and wood is supposed to interact. I could have probably gone down under 2 mm (1/10 in), but since I am planning on bringing it home, and it will have to travel a bit, Jean-François said to keep it at 2.5 mm.
So basically it is done. I didn't have any disasters, praise God. There is just a little finishing on the end, or maybe even redo it, as I was just winging it at the end and am not too pleased with that part, but that's a small thing. So it was a good day. Hope yours was also.

Wednesday, June 24

The Trembleur is a test of the turners skill. Yesterday I started on a twelve inch high trembleur. Today as I was attempting to finish it, one of my thin stems just broke. Really I was barely touching it. I found out that I had some tension wrong, and that contributed to the problem, but I really don't know why it broke. Anyway we were able to glue it back together to finish that practice piece. After lunch Jean-François told me to start a real 36 inch tall trembleur. You start with a 3x3 inch piece of wood 36 inches long. The wood is a French sycamore, I don't think it's exactly like our sycamore, but a finer grain wood. That has to be turned down to a cylinder just a little under 2 inches in diameter, and as smooth as you can get it, so that your steady rest will run true and smooth. Then continue to turn most of the wood away. I admit I had a little vibration problem, adding a second steady rest helped some, but it was still rough turning. But I did get about 6 inches done, and not too shabby. So only 30 more inches to go. I hope I can do that successfully in the next two days.
Miss everyone, see you soon.

Tuesday, June 23 Aiguines, France

Woodturning! What can I say. I really enjoy it and am enjoying the classes. Our instructor is Jean-François-Escoulen himself, the founder of this school, and a world class, museum quality, turner. He is well known for these trembleurs, one of which I will be attempting to turn these next three days. He is also known for off center, or escentric, turning, making some amazingly weird objects. There are only three other guys in the class, all Frenchman. There is also a class on jewelry making which has three participants in it, two from France one from Belgium, all French speaking, of course. Luckily the two instructors speak English fine. So Jean-François gives me lots of personal attention, and I completed several practice projects, all involving thin turning. This trembleur I'll be attempting to turn involves a series of decorative objects all connected by the thinnest turning possible. It's all turned from one piece of wood, of course. And by thin I mean 2 millimeters! It's not too bad to get 3 mm, but Jean-François wants it no thicker than 2.5 mm, and 2.1 even better. Just in my practice I've had the gouge slip under a thin finial creating a most unwanted double spiral cutback, and a catch that not only broke the thin turning, but knocked the whole block of wood askew in the chuck. Had to start over on that one. So a lot can go wrong, even the simplest things like accidentally leaning on one's steady rest can ruin hours of work. But then that's life, isn't it.
So I'm having fun. Hope you are too. Good bless.

Monday, June 22

Another day of rest. The woodworking classes are Tuesday through Friday. So Mondays are a day of travel, which worked out well for me getting here, and now leaves a day of sightseeing before the next session starts. So I took a drive around the Canyon of the Verdon, sometimes called the grand canyon of France. The little Fiat that I rented is a lot of fun to drive, but the roads are often narrow and curvy. It was actually al little tense driving some of those roads a thousand meters above the canyon river with steep drop offs and no guardrails. But oh such beautiful scenery - quite magnificent! I had lunch at a little eatery that served only crepes, sitting high atop the bluff that overlooks the canyon, a rare and unique place. Then more scary winding steep roads to get back, but quite thrilling nonetheless.
So I'm back here at Aiguines and people are starting to arrive. There will be two groups this week, our woodturning group, and a small group making jewelry. So supper should be within the hour, is just past 7pm now. So until tomorrow.

Sunday, June 21

A day of rest. I took a little trip to another neighboring town,Reiz. I found the cathedral and Mass was at 11, so I joined with the local (small) congregation even though it was, of course, in French. I couldn't follow much, but could always tell where we were. Outside there was a festival of some sort with street vendors, local foods, antiques and junk, and so on. It was quite interesting, and I enjoyed the activities. Also neat history, as Riez was also the site of a Roman settlement. And there still stood four ancient columns from a Roman temple. Everything else has been erased into time and decay, yet these four columns have somehow managed to not only remain, but to remain standing after all these centuries.
Happy summer solstice to all.

Saturday, June 20

Ah, a free day. Most everyone has taken off, and the school is quiet. While I am free to stay in my room, use the kitchen and library, the workshops are locked. You can't just use them without an instructor present. But I needed to find an ATM in the next village, so I took off for some sightseeing. The nearest village is Les Salles sur Verdon. It is situated on the shore of Lake St Croix. A quaint little village with a lot of its 17th century charm. So I explored it a bit and walked the shoreline a bit, but not much else. So I headed to the next village - Moustiers Sainte Marie. That was an amazing place. It is literally built on the sides of a canyon on the side of the mountain. It's hard to describe, but at the very head of the valley is an ancient church, reached by a long, step, winding pathway, but wide and worn smooth by centuries of pilgrims climbing up there. Seems there was a monastery up there at one time, with the monks living in cave cells all through the cliffs. Anyway there is a record of some king or VIP, making apilgrimage there back in the fifth century. So it made a nice little pilgrimage between the turning  classes. I really liked it. I found a burger stand and ordered a bacon burger with fries, then began to feel guilty ordering American food instead of trying the local cuisine. However when it arrived it doesn't look anything like a burger, so all guilt left me, and I got to try the local cuisine anyway.
Took the lovely ride back down the mountain, around the lake, and back up the valley on the other side back to Aiguines. Jann, the instructor whose shop/gallery we visited yesterday was having a grand opening this evening and he invited me to come on down. I didn't know what that wound entail, but I thought it would include food! Indeed it did, a big open house for their friends, and a nice buffet. So I had my supper and headed back to the school.
A good day to you all, and a good night.

Friday, June 19

Back to the workshop again at 8 am. I started a different kind of piece. It still involved a 65 mm sphere, and would provide  practice turning spikes out from the center. Someday I'ld like to turn a Chinese ball with spikes emminating from the center, through the seven layers of spheres. Unfortunately, there was only one set of the special tools needed for that project, and it never freed up at the right time. So this project consisted of 16 spikes emminating from the center, but all in a row around the circumference. Then half the ball would be turned away. There was still a piece of boxwood with a defect on one side,so perfect for this project. It was indeed tricky turning those spikes, but it turned (pun intended) out alright.
Besides the five of us in this class, there is also another workshop and another class of six students going on. That instructor has a personal workshop here in the village and a gallery/shop. So we went to see that. It was in one of the old building in the village, 18th century or maybe 17th? So the inside was heavily adapted. The workshop was on the ground floor on various levels, and a damp old cellar where he stored wood. The gallery-shop was up a narrow flight of stairs, floors and a walkway had been added making quite a quaint gallery. He, of course, had very nice items.
Back at the school, there was only about an hour before it would be time to end and cleanup. But I still found a small branch of boxwood to turn a tall pedestal for my Chinese ball. I did that, helped with cleanup, took a nap, and am writing this blog. It's 7:30, and we'll be heading to a restaurant in the village for a final banquet together.
Love to all. Dave

Thursday, June 18

Today was pretty much a day of turning. Since I had f finished my second ball ok, I  was given a lovely piece of boxwood root burl to practice again, but with the hope of turning out a really nice piece. It was almost finished when we stopped for lunch, but then after lunch we all went to the woodturning museum in the village. Aiguines was famous as a woodturning center in the last century because of the abundance of boxwood on the mountainous slopes in the vicinity. They were especially known for turning wooden balls which were then covered in iron nails and used for a game that must be like bocce. Anyway, an interesting museum which also had a bunch of contemporary works of the fanciest of these Chinese balls you've ever seen.
Back at the workshop, Jean-Claude then demonstrated an ornamental lathe, also called a rose engine, another interesting branch of turning, but we didn't do much more than have a short demonstration.  After that it was deciding what to do next, but before I barely got going, it was time for supper, or at least the time before super, as I had plenty of time for a long walk, climbing up to the old village church, still preserved as a chapel, with a great overlook of the whole area. As it was getting close to 8pm, I hurried back hoping I wouldn't be late for supper. Since it wasn't ready yet, I started this blog, and is already 8:30. It's such a lovely evening someone suggested we eat outside and so tables are being moved and set up, so maybe soon.
Love to all.

Wednesday June 17, Aiguines, France

Another day of woodturning. We were back at it at 8 am. With our newly turned perfect spheres, we began to turn them into Chinese balls, a sphere with concentric spheres inside it. Basically this just takes special tools. Yesterday we made our own jigs for turning our spheres. Today we just used the tools from the instructor and school. First you need a sphere chuck. This holds the sphere while it is turned. You need to be able to hold the sphere securely, and then rotate it to one of the other dodecahedron points. Jean-Claude had homemade chucks made from glued up plywood, that were threaded to tighten them. Simply unscrew the holding ring a little bit and you could rotate the sphere inside. Then you need a special set of tools to undercut each of the other layers. Plus something to hold those tools. Jean-Claude designed a flat tool-holder and a flat table-like tool rest. Together they hold the tool perfectly level and allow you to make your cuts.
You mount your sphere in the chuck, and then align one of your dodecahedron points up with the exact center of rotation. No easy task. The first tool, a triangular pointed tool, goes in the tool holder, and a triangular hole is cut in your sphere. When done take that tool out of the tool holder, and put in the first knife to undercut the innermost sphere. This is the easy part, takes about 3 seconds. Repeat for the next four tools, and you end up with your first point done. It is sanded, and then plugged with styrofoam, to hold them in place while the other points are turned.
Untighten the chuck, rotate your sphere, align the point, and repeat the turning for that hole. This is done twelve times. I managed to finish a 5 sphere Chinese ball by lunchtime, using the sphere I  had turned myself from sycamore. After lunch Jean Claude presented us with some boxwood spheres that are turned perfectly with the aside of a sphere jig. Boxwood is a premier turning wood, and a joy to turn. Jean claude suggested I try a seven layer ball. So I spent all afternoon doing that. And I must say it came out alright.
So goodnight for another day. God bless you all.

Tuesday, June 16

Today was a full day of wood turning.  Breakfast was at 7 o'clock in the morning and classes began immediately at 8 o'clock. We worked until 10 when we took a little break, then continued working until 1 o'clock lunch, with about an hour and a half break. After lunch it was back to turning with a break it about four o'clock. We kept going until almost 6:30. They said supper would be at 8 o'clock that evening, but it was almost 830 when it finally got to the table but of course the French love sitting around talking, so it was almost 9:30 before we finished and cleaned up. And so I'm in my room trying to get this blog off. I am in a little village called Aiguines in the French Alps. It is a very beautiful and scenic place, although I haven't gotten out to explore much yet. There is an old castle here in town and a great view out over Lake St. Croix. Today was pretty cloudy and cool;  there was even a thunderstorm in the afternoon, and there is always a breeze, so it hasn't been hot.
There are five of us taking this woodturning class; 3 Frenchman, Guy, Daniel, and Christof, a lady from Canada, Ruby, and myself. That it means of that there is a lot of French being spoken and not a lot of English though the instructor Jean-Claude Charpignon speaks English just fine. It was a great day of woodturning as we began learning how make a Chinese ball. So the rest of this blog will be a little more technical about woodturning, so that I'll have my notes to be able to write an article for our wood turning site. So I'll understand if you want to stop reading now.
We began by learning how to turn a perfect sphere free handed. To do so, you first turn a cylinder 65 millimeters in diameter and 67 millimeters long, with a line drawn exactly at the center. You then make a chuck with a 90 millimeter diameter hole going 30 millimeters deep. This will hold the cylinders you just turned. You pound it in sideways, and then you begin to turn its corners down to the line made in the middle of your cylinder. When this is done you have a perfect half of a sphere On a half cylinder. Then you need a second jig with just a 64 millimeter hole 30 millimeters deep in which the half just turned now is forced in tightly. Then you can finish turning the other half of your sphere in the same way.  After a little sanding you should have a perfect 65 millimeter diameter sphere. If it's not exact, it probably won't work. I thought I was doing pretty good but I had several of my spheres fly out of my chuck. It seems I was trying to use a push cut, which I use all the time when turning bowls, but it didn't work here. Finally, when the second one flew across the room, the Jean-Claude came over and showed me how to do a proper cut. You needed to rub the bevel, holding the bowl of the gouge at a 45 degree angle with the handle down. And then I had no problems and, in fact, manage to produce four nice spheres. The question will be: are they exactly 65 millimeters in diameter. They seem to have gotten smaller like 64 and a half millimeter in diameter - which might not work. But we still managed to begin marking off the spheres with 12 points of the dodecahedron. Then we need a whole new setup -  with a special jig to hold the shere and a special set of tools to begin cutting the interior spheres. I had just begun to start on my first hole when we quit for the day. So it was a great day of wood turning. I really enjoyed it. I've learned a lot and I'm looking forward to the rest of the week, after getting a good night's sleep, of cource.
I hope everyone had a good day I'll write more tomorrowl

Sunday - Monday, June 14 - 15

Finished Mass at the usual time this morning and headed down the road in the rain to the airport. With Ann's help made it there in plenty of time. The flights were all on time, in fact after waiting a couple hours in St Louis, it was fly to Detroit, rush to make the connection, fly to Paris, rush through Charles de Gaul airport, I'm sure it was more than a mile hike! And finally fly to Nice
France, for a good eighteen hour trip, but arriving more than a day later with only the sleep you can get on the plane. But thankfully without a problem, and my luggage also. So it is already Monday, I rented a car there and headed up the Alps. The turning school is located in a very beautiful place in the mountains, near a fantastic canyon.so it was a very beautiful drive and I didn't seem to have any trouble finding the route, but I stopped often to admire the scenery, and check the map.
So I'm here, getting settled in, meeting the others who will be in the class and around, and waiting for some supper, so I can get to bed and be ready for tomorrow.

June 2015

It's another year and I'm taking another trip! Hope I can continue this blog and let you know what I am doing.