_____Stu's___Dungeon__
Joyful Honda
Treasure
Lesson Room Cabs
In the beginning
2
3 4 5
6 7 8
9
10 11
12 13 14
15
Jointer1
Jointer2
Router
Table1
Router Table 2
The Doors
Do
Pa
Give Me A Brake
Cyclone
Cyclone 2
Cyclone
3
Cyclone 4
Liquor
Shop Reno Tenjinsama Shrine Tree Tour
Beer Shelves
Wine Shelves
Five Cuts
Drill Press <NEW
DoPa 2007 <NEW
Turning
Jean Francious Escoulen
Eli Avisera Demo Day One
Eli Avisera Day Two
Lathe Stand!!
Turning
Roughing
It
Sharpening Station
Bowl Blank Processing
Captured Hollowing Rig
<NEW
Logging In Tokyo
Woodlot Woodlot
2006 Woodlot
3 Woodlot 4
Chainsaw Mill
Chainsaw
Mill Mk II
Turning Demonstration
by Jean Francious Escoulen
I had the very great privilege of taking in a turning
demonstration by Mr. Jean Francious Escoulen.
The demo was put on by the Far East Woodturners Society (FEWS)
of which I'm now proudly a member of.
Mr. Naoto Suzuki, who runs JAWS
arranged the visit
(Jean Francious Escoulen in the middle, his daughter Emily on the
left,
and Mr. Naoto Suzuki on the right)
Here Jean and his daughter introduce themselves. Emily is a student at a
university here in Tokyo, she has been here for one year studying Japanese, and
I have to say that here Japanese is VERY good. Jean's lovely wife Monique also
attended, and she is a world class cabinet/furniture maker in here own right.
What a talented family!
Mr. Sano hosted the demo in his amazing workshop.
The demo took place in Musashiurawa station, which is about 30 minutest North of Shinjuku on the Saikyo line. I went with my friend Alex Reid, who had to travel up from Zushi, on the South coast, and must have been up very early! We were picked up at the station by some of the FEWS members in cars and had a quick 5 minute drive to Mr. Sano's house.
The Demo was held in a great space that Mr. Sano has, it is usually parking for his two cars, but today it was a demo space. Beside the parking area he has his workshop, and I counted 6 or 7 lathes in there! His Bandsaw makes Big Blue look like a toy!
The ceiling is a good 8 feet.
The big old planer he has is really nice too. His collection of tools shows a lifetime commitment to woodworking, and a definite addiction to woodturning!
In the lathe room he has two Vicmarc VL200 lathes set up on the one wall
A Beaver lathe set up at the end of one bench
(I'm very interested in buying one of these lathes)
Mr. Sano, our gracious host on the left, and
Jean hand sharpening a detail gouge on the right
Here are a few of the examples of the eccentric turnings that Jean brought
along.
Here are some examples I found on the web
Chess anyone?
One of the things that Alex and I both found very interesting, to the point of "HOLY COW" was the Bedan tool that he uses so much.
This tool is used like it shows in the picture, with the bevel up, when cutting a convex curve the very corner of the tool is only used. He rolls the tool on it's axis, to raise one corner up, and this lets the cutting corner dig in. He says it is like a skew in that respect, and if you get catches on the skew, you will get catches on the Bedan.
Here is Jean with his daughter Emily explaining some finer points of using this
neat tool.
At points, he uses it as a large parting tool, the wood chips just flies of the
lathe!
Using the corners of the tool, he very, VERY quickly cuts super smooth convex
curves.
Next up he turned an egg, I swear it took less than 2 minutes, amazing!
Here he is parting the egg off, again, with the Bedan.
Two minutes egg!
Using his thumb as a support on this super thin form
Super thin, all done with the Bedan tool
Multi Axis Turning
Now we get into some fun stuff, the stuff that makes Jean so famous, his multi axis turnings.
He starts with a square piece of wood, he does NOT rough it out into a cylinder.
Looking at the wood from the side, you can see the three axis, Jean starts with
the both centers on number one
Starting off on a multi axis turning. this one will have three axis.
Here Jean sands the first axis cut, as once you move it, you will never get it
quite right again.
This is what the first cut looks like when done
Here he has gone to the second axis, which just happens to run right down the
middle of the blank.
(Jean's angles were tighter than the ones I used in this drawing)
Here Jean is showing us where the next cut will be (and where NOT to put your
finger).
Making the third axis cut
Now back level you see the effect he gets (not withstanding my lousy drawing).
You can keep doing this and get many more kinks, only limited by the size of the
wood blank.
After he cut the three axis, he then put a cylinder on each end.
It was an amazing demonstration.
I had to leave early due to work, but a great experience none the less.
A pic of myself on the left, Jean in the middle, and Alex on the right