Tips Articles – World Wide Wood Turners

Avoiding Barrel Distortion in Photographs
If you’ve ever been bothered by your camera changing the shape of a piece, you may be experiencing barrel distortion. Barrel distortion is caused by the shape of the camera lens, which compresses light waves in order to focus them on the image capturing plane. Below, I intentionally held the camera very close to the subject. ...
Laser Engraving for Wood Turners ( Part 3 ) – Todd Fipps
… Continued from March 26, 2025 Choosing Safe Materials for Engraving: Wood and Beyond Selecting the right material for laser engraving is just as important as choosing the correct machine settings. While wood is the most commonly used material for woodturners, laser engraving can also be applied to leather, acrylic, metal, glass, and more. However, ...
Laser Engraving for Wood Turners (Part 2) – Todd Fipps
… Continued from March 19, 2025 Newsletter Health and Safety Considerations: Engraving with Confidence and Caution While laser engraving is an incredible tool for adding intricate details and personalization to wood-turned projects, it’s important to recognize that you’re working with a powerful beam of focused energy— essentially controlled fire. That means safety should always be a ...
What Makes an Urn by Brenda Thornton
My name is Brenda Thornton, also known as Band Aid Brenda. This name was given to me by Capt. Eddie because, for quite awhile when I first began coming to Wednesday meetings, I had a band aid. After going to a woodworking symposium where I turned a pen, I’ve been turning about 5 yrs now. ...
Carving Station with Bob Grinstead
During the 2025-03-19 meeting of World Wide Wood Turners, Bob Grinstead showed us his homemade carving station. Here is some information about the station, allowing your to use it to create your own ...
Laser Engraving for Wood Turners (Part 1) – Todd Fipps
Getting Started with Laser Engraving Woodturning is a craft rooted in tradition, but that doesn’t mean it can’t benefit from modern technology. For generations, woodturners have used chisels, gouges, and fine carving tools to add embellishments and details to their work. While these methods produce stunning results, they also require years of practice, steady hands, ...
Using a Steady-Rest While Turning Large, Flat Pieces By Howard King
Using a Steady-Rest can be used to help turning large plates and platters. Most times, turning a flat piece to a very thin thickness (less than a quarter of an inch or 6 mm), such as a disc or platter, is not much of a problem. Especially if it is a small diameter around ...

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