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.