Virginia Woodworker Enjoys Woodturning Specialty

“Woodturning by Sophie A.,
on flickr.com”

One of the many subsets of woodworking is woodturning, the process of turning wood on a lathe and carving it with various tools. Some woodworkers adopt it as their particular niche. A Virginia woodworker named Nick Aloisio became fascinated by woodturning and now creates products for the kitchen using the process.

Nick Aloisio is an Abingdon, Virginia-based wood turner and part-time electrician. He was first introduced to woodturning when he saw some projects that were created by the process in a woodworking book about ten years ago. He had no previous experience with woodturning or using a lathe, but was immediately interested and wanted to know more. He bought a lathe and worked on his own for a while, but it was when he took a class that he fell in love with the process. He says that watching the wood take shape as the instructor molded it as it spun on the lathe was such a graceful and beautiful sight that he knew it was what he wanted to do. Being in a class ans seeing what could be done also solidified many of the woodworking ideas that he had in his head.

Aloisio was also fascinated by the history of woodturning. It is over three thousand years old, beginning with the Egyptians. They used a two-person lathe, in which one turned the wood using a rope and the other used a sharp tool to cut shapes into it. The Romans improved the design with the addition of a turning bow. A foot pedal had replaced the hand-turned lathe by the Middle Ages and a motorized lathe was developed in the Industrial Revolution.

Aloisio skillfully creates and sells different kitchen products by woodturning. He creates  saltshakers, bowls, pepper mills and bottle stoppers. White oak, walnut,  silver maple, chestnut, and cherry trees provide the best wood for woodturning. Aloisio uses only wood  native to his area. Most of the woodturning process is done with wet wood. Bowls are  rough-hewn and left to dry for several months before Aloisio goes back and does more  shaping and sanding. When the shaping is complete, he applies food-safe walnut oil for  shine. The result is usually a twelve or thirteen-inch bowl. He sells his products at the local  farmers market.

Nick Aloisio has made woodturning kitchenwares his niche. It is an interesting form of  woodworking and he gets his woodturning ideas from window shopping in kitchen  appliance stores.

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