As far as turning goes, I’m closer to terrible than terrific. Trying to make eight identical, rather thin, spindles for a Shaker stool, I found that I just couldn’t get the surface finish and precise diameters that I wanted without resorting to a lot of tedious hand-sanding. About halfway through, I tried using my block plane. With the lathe spinning slowly, I rested the skewed plane on the rough-turned spindle, and moved the tool slowly forward. After a few bumpy passes, it began producing wispy shavings. The resulting finish was super-smooth, and the control afforded by the plane enabled me to turn the spindle diameters that I wanted.
