Rick Angus

USA

Rick Angus enjoys turning wood and understanding the details of efficient tool handling. (A sharp tool can be a wonderful dance partner if properly led.) Acquiring skillful technique with sharp tools improved his joy of woodturning immensely and allowed him to focus on design and shape of the objects being created.

During his formative years of turning, Rick learned the regimented classical spindle techniques from Alan Batty and George Hatfeld with cross-grain bowl and hollow-form techniques learned from David Ellsworth and John Jordan—amongst many others.

Formally trained as an organic chemist, Rick uses his scientific curiosity to investigate the art of woodturning in the analytical way of a scientist. The result is an analysis of how tools work and the ability to put them to work in the proper manner. In addition, he studied design and visualization techniques from the art community.

His work began mostly with cross-grain open bowl forms produced from half log segments. The grain patterns are chosen for symmetry—or not! The addition of long-grain (spindle) vessels such as vases and lidded boxes allowed the expression of a much taller hollow form. Incorporating lids to these vessels has been quite a bit of fun. Most recent work has focused on spindle turning with finely sharpened tools. Smooth graceful shapes with sharp detail are his hallmark.

Demonstrations

End-grain Lidded Box with Contrasting Wood Inset at Joint
End-grain boxes made from one piece of wood are fun to make and a delight to open to see what is inside. Woods with attractive figure, color or grain lines interest me the most. One challenge to designing these boxes is the matching of figure or grain lines at the joint between top and bottom of the box. Since the solid piece of wood must be parted into two pieces to remove the wood from the interior, the wood lost to the parting process also removes some of the figure, color or grain lines that originally attracted me to the stock. This parting cut becomes the joint between the top and bottom of the finished box. Upon reassembly of the box, one often finds that the interesting pattern is disrupted at the joint; many people find these mismatching lines distracting and unappealing. By insetting a piece of wood, the same dimension as the wood in the joint, the mind ‘sees’ the original pattern even though it is interrupted by a contrasting segment. By increasing the contrast between the main wood of the box and the inset piece, the disruption of the interesting features that led me to choose this wood become minimized. This feat is accomplished by creating the boxes external shape from a single piece of wood, locating the position of the joint, parting the piece at the joint line, shaping the interior of the two pieces and to one piece, adding the inset. The inset is made from an end-grain piece of contrasting wood disk of suitable size, fitted it into the joint of one section of the box (top or bottom, depending on design) using loose mortise and tenon joinery. (The joint is not glued as in furniture construction but is left snug or loose depending on the desires of the maker.) The exposed part of this inset piece can be the same dimension as the parting cut used to separate the top from the bottom of the box or larger as you wish. The simple act of adding the contrasting inset gives us the option to add another feature to the box design. While the insert may fill the lengthwise void left by the parting cut, it need not be of the same profile as the rest of the box. For example, a protruding bead of contrasting wood may be included to provide a gripping point to the lid (or bottom!) or a recessed ring may be used to add a shadow line to the

Total Tool Control
Join me for an adventure investigating/exploring the fine details of how tour tools cut the wood. Our focus is on the interaction of the bevel and the knife edge as it with the wood and how to use this knowledge to slice chips from the bulk of the wood, leaving behind a baby-skin smooth surface. Since cutting wood requires forcing a hard, sharp tool into the fibers of wood, something must give. The wood yields to the harder steel as it penetrates the wood, and wood gets damaged by compression. We learn how to aim and guide the tool in the way that forces all the yielding of the wood to occur on the chip side of the bevel. This leaves the desired smooth surface on our pieces while putting all the damage to the wood into the chip.
We investigate the entire cutting surface of all the major woodturning tools. This includes spindle roughing gouges, chisels and other gouges; hybrid tools such as the skew gouge and the point tool; a variety of scrapers such as flat-0º-rake and negative-rake scrapers. We even learn the power of a (not-so-traditional) card scraper for leaving a terrific finish on cross-grain turnings. The value of controlling the many profile shapes and bevel angles of our tools is immeasurable. There is a wide range of bevel angles possible for each type of tool; we look at the range critically to find that each tool type has a small range of angles that fall in the general category—these all will provide good service for the usual tasks—and how the extreme angles of the range can be useful in specialty situations. Through a thorough understanding of how to view the actual cut and not just the chip, you can benefit from the best control of your tools possible. With this knowledge, you can choose from the broad range of tool profiles and bevel angles available to put the most beneficial tools for your tasks in your bag-o’-trix. This is the most important demonstration that you didn’t think that you needed.

Turning Utilitarian Goblets with a Cross-Grain Base
Goblets made from wood are a treat to use and make great gifts for a special occasion. Making then is fun and the process adds end-grain hollowing to standard spindle turner’s repertoire. The cross-grain base introduces added durability to the goblet. The project begins with orienting the center of the billet on one grain line; this we do by marking the center at one end and following that grain line on that center point out to the edge, along the edge and back across the other end of the billet before making the second center point. This assure that the thin stem of the goblet will follow a single grain line from stem to bowl. With the billet thusly mounted, we reduce the wood to a cylinder and mark the position of the goblet bowl, stem and foot. From here, the exterior of the bowl of the goblet is roughly shaped and the interior is hollowed and finished. (For a “Toasted” interior finish, the interior of the bowl is lightly burned with a torch; this adds a smoky flavor that enhances some beverages. Examples of “toasted” bowls will be shown though the actual burning will not be demonstrated.) Wall thickness is then reduced, and final shaping done to complete the bowl portion of the goblet. With tail support of the bowl, the stem is shaped. A cross-grain base is made using a custom wooden chuck and has a hole through the center. The stem is glued into the base to complete the goblet. A little fine sanding completes the project.