OK, maybe I get excited about some pretty boring things. But, I was extremely lucky today to pick up an absolutely incredible piece of English Walnut for reel seats. This piece measures about 13″ x 13″ x 3″. While this looks like “ultra expensive” Circassian Walnut, it’s actually Oregon grown English Walnut. It’s probably one of the finest pieces of walnut I’ve ever seen, and it will make some stunning reel seats. While it has a sizeable crack running through it, I can work around it. I should be able to get 12 or 14 reel seats from this piece. I can’t wait to get out to my lathe and turn some pieces.
As you know, I have no intention of spending my limited time left on this vale of tears making my own reel seat inserts. However, I do make my ferrule plugs from butt section cut-offs. The used wood lathe I bought came with two sets of knives, a big heavy duty set and a small set which looks like it came from a hobby shop. All of them probably need sharpening. Is there any place that does this sort of work? I can do my plane blades OK, but this is beyond my capability.
Hi Skip,
I use standard wood lathe tools (gouge, parting tool, skew) when I turn my reel seats. Because I use some pretty hard woods, I need to re-sharpen often. I do that on a grinding wheel on my bench grinder. There are a lot of good videos on the WEB that demonstrate how to sharpen wood lathe tools.