Getting Lathed: A new project

I was recently commissioned to make 5 simple, pine display racks for a local artist. I sometimes do these projects to supplement my income a little and challenge me to interpret someone else's designs. They tend to be pretty simple, direct and good practice for my own work. In this case, the artist in question is also someone I highly respect and admire, so that's a bonus too!

The artist gave me dimensions and a general guideline for the pieces, which will eventually be painted nice and fancy and used to display some ceramic figures. The display rack (that's the best description I can give it) is 26 1/2" tall, 16" wide and 10 3/4" deep. I couldn't find any wood that was 16" wide, so I had to use one of my favorite tools - a Dewalt Biscuit Joiner (not edible) to join two 8" wide boards together for the back, top and bottom.

The fun part came in creating the front spindles. The artist wanted the pieces to look handmade and folky, which I sort of interpret as "rough". Therefore, I wanted the spindles to look kind of beaten up and chipped. I chose basswood - a soft wood often used by old men to carve boots, horses and the like - because I knew it wouldn't turn very smoothly on the lathe, and lo and behold I was right. Check out the lathe in action - the piece is turning really fast (not sure of the RPM, so just accept that "really fast" means "really fast"). The section to the left looks stationary because it's already been rounded. But the section attached to the lathe on the right side is still square, so it looks blurry - that's the "really fast" in action.

I plan to post a short video of my rusty old lathe in action pretty soon. A few recent conversations with the folks at Silicon Prairie News and ACuriousParty have inspired me to buy a video camera. Can you say Woodworking Podcast? Giving me wood just thinking about it!