Christmas gifts

After a long break I finally decided to write something about what I had lately done.
Of course it's not so hard to guess that the post will be about Christmas gifts.

Not so long ago I bought a small lathe and since then I am able to make much wider range of items in my workshop. Now I know why people tend to like lathes so much, they are quiet, so you can sit with the machine even in the evening and spend very relaxing time making something you can call art :)
But there's much more important advantage of the machine, it helps the user to make something symmetrical on the whole circumference - just HELPS, because rest of the work relies on you and your hands, you use casual hand-tools and you have all the power of decision which you have when you use a simple chisel.

I've always thought about power-tools as tools which need to use some coordinates and points of reference during their work. Look at the table saw, you need the piece of work to have at least two straight and parallel sides to be able to cut it safely and effectively.
Someone would ask where's the difficulty in making things straight and parallel ? First, you need to use a next machine - a planer or hand-plane and that's the greatest problem of all.
To plane things effectively you need to know at least two simple rules :
1. Your plane blades must be as sharp as possible.
2. You need to read the grain, plane with the grain, otherwise it will chip and leave a nasty surface.

The first rule will be the rule of almost every tool you use in a workshop, keep them sharp, it's not a real problem if you know how to sharpen and have some tools to do that. But the second rule of planing is the saddest limitation of the craft. The most beautiful wood lays in your cellar, it has annoyingly twisted grain, wormholes and it's often attacked by any kinds of colorful fungus - what makes it not usable in most projects due to the fact you can't plane it well.
But hey, do you remember the first cabinet I made ? So, do you think the problem go for a cup of tea with other life-problems when I was making the piece of furniture ? If you think it did, then it did it again.