My wife and I moved to the Army Residence Community (ARC) in 1997 and I immediately started working in the Hobby Shop helping other residents repair furniture and lamps for the residents. After working in the Hobby Shop for a while a resident asked me if I could repair a chair. The chair had a broken and missing spindle in the back and a spacer missing on the legs. That meant that the pieces had to be turned. We had a lathe and some old turning tools in the shop and I jumped in to learn and to turn the missing pieces. Long story short, I managed to get the pieces turned after many tries and I was hooked on woodturning. That experience resulted in taking two classes sponsored by Woodcraft, a spindle course, and a bowl course. Then it was just a matter of getting wood on the lathe and learning how to turn.

 

Like many new turners I turned some small bowls and pens. Of course, that experience led to branching out a bit over the years. I eventually began to expand my horizon and learning every time I put a piece of wood on the lathe. I expanded into making bird house ornaments, bowls, platters, salt and pepper mills, other types of Christmas ornaments and using elk and deer antler for wine glass stems. At a point in time one of the residents asked me to turn two cremation urns and that started a completely new venture. Over time I have turned some 50 urns for residents of the ARC. So far, all the urns have been turned out of mesquite.