Pat Matranga, Nashville, TN. has a Masters in Rehab Psychology, but while in Nashville in the music business she discovered the Tennessee Association of Woodturners and it was love at first turn. Her first lathe was in the backyard. She has since upgraded homes and vehicles to accommodate her lathes and turnings.

The demonstration included basic tool safety, surface design, several small projects, natural edge bowl, letter opener and pen & pencil turning finishing with a discussion on the business of woodturning.

Pat emphasized being comfortable while turning using an anti-fatigue mat, good shoes, dust mask, eye protection, hearing protection, good light and having the lathe and grinder at the correct height.

The bowl gouge was her first and only tool for quite a while, so she learned to use it for several tasks. The basics are the same whether used for spindle turning or bowl turning. The goggles she likes are the ones that seal around her face and covers over her glasses. They come from Dust-Be Gone in Florida (239) 694-3627. The correct height of the gouge is just below the centerline of the turning with the tool guide as close as possible to the turning. Turn as fast as you feel safe. Use a series of cuts going into the wood with the flute at 45 degrees. Use a stance that is comfortable and as always rub the bevel. Keep the handle against your hip. Practice in your own shop going in both directions right and left. Find out if you are more comfortable right handed or left handed. In the sheer cut the gouge faces 45 degrees to the wood and rub the bevel as you move it in the opposite direction from the usual cutting edge. The techniques for the roughing gouge are very similar to the bowl gouge.

The skew chisel: Raise the tool rest so that the skew is above center with its edge entering the wood about half way above the centerline. Touch the wood about 1/3 up from the bottom of the skew edge. Again learn to cut in both directions. The skew produces a fine cut but does not remove much wood. This takes a lot of practices so that you do not get a catch. Do not go above the center of the skew rubbing the bevel. Using a small skew she then demonstrated cutting groves in the blank. Using the tip of the skew but still rubbing the bevel cut into the wood where the grove is wanted. Cut from both directions until the groove is at the desired depth. Keep the skew vertical. She discussed using the grinder to sharpen the skew. Keep the angle and use a light pressure. A hollow grind will occur. Once the skew is sharpened you can touch it up using a sharpening stone laying flat on the bench. She is careful not to round over the edge and when it is flat on the stone she moves her entire body back and forth along the length of the stone.

Natural edge bowl. The blank was attached to a face plate using hex head sheet metal screws. They are easy to drive using a hex driver in her drill. Pat used a large Forstner bit in her drill press to remove the bark forming a flat on the bark side of the blank. The tail stock is used to support the blank. Start at a low speed since the blank will be out of balance. After turning the outer bowl to its rough shape, she cut a foot on the bottom, using a parting tool, to use with her chuck keeping the center mark from the tail stock for later use. In shaping the outside of the bowl, she reverses direction at the bark edge to help keep the bark in place.. She keeps the 1 thick roughed out bowl in a brown paper bag hanging from the shop ceiling for a few days before the final turning. For natural edge bowls it is better to cut the wood in winter when the sap is not running. Final thickness is a matter of taste, but Pat does not care for ultra thin bowls.

After removing the faceplate the bowl is mounted a chuck. The inside of the bowl is then turned. As she proceeds she angles the tool rest into the bowl. Pat works from the outside toward the center in achieving the final wall thickness. The bowl was then removed from the chuck. Normally she would use a vacuum chuck to do the reverse turning but in this case she used the vacuum chuck as a padded base for the inside of the bowl. As this is mounted on the lathe the tail stock is brought up to the original tail stock point on the bowl. The foot is turned down so that the wall thickness is more pleasing and the base is smaller. It is ready for power sanding and the finish. At this point the bowl is ready to be signed. Wood burning, Sharpe pen or an engraver can do it. She prefers the engraver.

Pens: Pat uses a custom made mandrel that will hold three pen blanks. The pen blanks have the 7 mm hole drilled and the brass tube glued inside the blank. They are mounted on the mandrel and the tail stop brought up. She turns a bevel at each end of the blank as she rounds them to reduce the fragility of the blanks. Then starting with 220 grit, Pat sands up to 600 grit. Paper towels are used rather than cloth towels as the cloth towel can catch and wind around the blank. Mylands Friction Polish with a shellac base and wax is applied using a paper towel with the lathe running. It produces a very glossy finish. If you want a less shinny finish it can be dulled by using a very fine steel wool for a very short time. Keep the wood in order as it was cut and numbered so that the grain will match. The final assemble is done with an arbor press. A bench vise or drill press will also work. The tip is pressed in and then the pen mechanism adjustment tube. It is not pressed in all the way but checked when the insert is put in the assembly. If it is not out far enough press it in further. The top end with the pocket clip is then pressed in. Always make sure that the parts are aligned in a vertical direction to prevent cracking of the sidewall. She then places Vaseline on the tube and the unit is assembled with the grain aligned to the proper point. The tip of the pen comes with a wax cover that should be removed before it is ready for use or sale.

After lunch Pat placed two Zebra wood blocks on the mandrel to make letter openers. Using a bowl gouge she turns them round, then tapers one end and rounds over the other. She sheer scrapes them before sanding, starting with 150 grit and ending with 600 grit. Between each grit she wipes the blanks with her hand to remove loose grit that might be on the wood. She likes cloth backed sandpaper. Always slide the tool rest out of the way and sand from the bottom of the blank. Pat stops the lathe and hand sands with the grain. She applies Mylands Friction finish. She then assembles the letter opener tightening the nut by hand. A marketing tip is to engrave a custom name on the blade. Pat then added three more blanks to the mandrel to make a key chain, an ornament and a small magnifying glass. This time she used pink ivory, cedar and ebony woods.

Next Pat demonstrated turning beads, half rounds and coves using the skew and the bowl gouge. She showed one of her other turnings showing different sizes of beads and coves for a progressive reduction in size for a more pleasing shape. When cutting a bead, lift the handle at the end of the cut. When cutting a cove travel from the large diameter to the smaller diameter. In normal furniture most horizontal spindles are symmetrical but vertical spindles are not symmetrical.

Next Pat turned a fan pull. She removed the mandrel and added a drill chuck. The chuck has a 9/64 drill rod about 2 long. The block 2x2 and about 3-1/2 long is drilled all the way through with a 9/64 drill. This hole is for the bead chain to pass through. On the other end enlarge the hole using a 17/64 drill so that the bead chain clip will pass through it. This hole is drilled about half way through or whatever distance works best for the fan pull you are making. The small hole is pushed on the drill rod and a large cone shaped rotating tailstock is brought up as a jam chuck. The blank is then turned with about a ¾ diameter knob on the small drill end and a tapered shape with a large rounded end. The result is a shape like an angel. The pull is sanded and the finish is added. To create a bird shaped fan pull Pat drilled a hole at an angle in the side near the start of the base rounding. This is for a short feather to be CA glued into it. On the upper round a slightly larger hole is drill on the opposite side from the feather. This is where a small piece of leather folded in half is CA glued as a beak for the bird shaped fan pull. She turned a second fan pull but without the bird shape. It had knobs on both end and a cove in the center.

The marketing discussion began with Pat telling us that drawer knob pulls turned from the laminated old growth pine that came from the Union Station Train Shed demolished in Nashville. These were placed on a large plaque that she had laser engraved with the story. This provides a nice marketing piece for her gallery and craft shows indicating how a customer can order these drawer pulls.

Pat asks the following questions: What do you like to make and who likes to buy it? How do you find those people? Remember if you like it, others will also like it. Have some confidence in your work! Who are your customers and what do they have in common? She has turned platters and then had the State Flag of Tennessee laser engraved in the center. This sells well in Nashville and the Governor likes this as a gift. She has found that plain platters are hard to sell - they need help!

She does not like craft shows because of the loading, unloading, chance of rain, pets knocking over displays etc. Some people are good at cold calling but she is not. Her definition of marketing is honest storytelling. If people know the history of the wood they will be more likely to purchase the item. For example if a church is building a new building and they cut down a tree, that wood would be good for making a project for them. There are all kinds of opportunities like this example.

Corporate Gifts are another type of customer. A contractor wants to give a gift to the customer who has just purchased one of his homes. Every business has some kind of need; for instance winners of sales contests, service award, etc. For PR purposes companies like to give gifts. For one company she made 500 pens. Many corporate gifts need to be customized with their logo (filling a need). You could have a plastic disk laser engraved with their logo and on the bottom of a bowl turn a cutout to insert this. Corporate gifts from cheap gifts to gallery quality gifts are a good market.

Pricing is a difficult task. First she used the example of ceiling fan pulls. Assume you can make 15 per day. The cost of materials is 45 cents per pull. If you want to make $50/hr. Then the labor cost per unit is $10. Thus the cost of each unit is $10.45. So say I sell them at $12 each. If someone wants 100 pulls then what discount can I give and when can they have them? If I can make 5 per hour and I want to work 5 hours per day, then in a day I can make 25 pulls. Thus, it will take 4 days to make 100 pulls. At the rate of 5 per hour it will take 20 hours to complete the 100 piece order. Subtracting the material cost of $45 from the $1,200 total cost leaves $1,155 and divide this by 20 hours gives an hour rate of $57.75.

That is $7.75 more than the desired $50 per hour. Of course you must take into account overhead including rent, electricity, sandpaper, glue, finish, new tools, telephone, computer, etc. She then gave another example of a bowl. With a $75 bowl and making two per hour, she makes more with the ceiling fan pulls. She estimates that for every hour of turning she spends 1.5 hours in marketing, packaging, selling costs. For custom orders you should get some money as a deposit. If it is an item is not easily sold to others, she wants a 50% deposit. She points out that some turners are retired and do not need to make a profit. They make it harder for the professional turner trying to make a living. She then discussed direct mail campaigns. She has a post card of her signature platter that she has printed in California. They cost about $185 per 1,000. She sends this to former clients and also a prospective client list. Always keep a client list for this mail campaign. Newspaper and magazine articles are good. She has had an article in Southern Living that brought many clients. She has used radio with a 30 second sound bite. However the best way is networking. Join professional business groups and attend their monthly luncheons. Many contacts can be made at the meetings.

Always be fair and honest with your customers. Do not tarnish your reputation. Business is nothing more than establishing a relationship. There are infinite ways to generate interest in your work. Ultimately people buy because they like you. Show interest in them. Listen to what they need and want. Always look for the opportunities around you. They are always there. She ended with the hope that all received something that will be useful for their turning. However if you move to Nashville you cannot use any of her ideas! Further information can be found on her in our web site and by viewing the video in the club library.

--Carlos Kennedy

Pat's Web Site