About eight years ago my wife called me in to watch a program on TV one Saturday afternoon. It was Norm Abrams “The New Yankee Workshop”. He went into the woods, cut a chunk of log, brought it back into the workshop, split it in half and out of one half he turned a bowl on his lathe. I said, ‘I can do that’ I went out on our farm and found an ash log that had been lying there for years. I cut off a foot long section with my chain saw, cut it in half, screwed on a faceplate, mounted it on my Home Depot Rigid Lathe, got my Sears turning gauge and turned my first bowl in 2003.

My work is mostly turned from re-claimed Middle Tennessee timber and I never cut a healthy live tree to make pieces, unless it is being removed for development. Some wood I’ve used is of historic significance, such as a four hundred year old white oak that had a large branch to fall at 9th & Main Street in Franklin, TN. – A hundred year old Sugar Maple on Highway 96 east in Franklin, Tennessee. Woodturning has now dominated my waking hours. I enjoy turning many different forms from bowls to hollow forms. I hope you like my work. –  Ken Gaidos