Intended for people who have no prior experience in woodturning but safest if you have some general experience with woodworking tools. You will learn how to safely use the lathe and practice with some of the basic turning tools. You won’t become an expert with one course, but I hope you will discover or rediscover that turning is fun and gives you a chance to be creative and make useful and interesting objects.

You will receive hands-on training with one of our lathes, which is described in the Introduction to woodturning writeup on the Nova Labs wiki https://www.nova-labs.org/wiki/_media/groups/introduction_to_woodturning_v1_3.pdf

Once you take the course you will be certified to use the wood lathe and can practice on your own during open shop hours or whenever you have access to the shop.

Nova Labs has two wood lathes so class size will be limited to 2 people. This allows for maximum hands-on time and one-on-one instruction. We strongly advise makers who have never this tool, to help prevent injury to yourself and the tools, to continue with the supervised practice for at least one independent project after the class. Come in on Woodshop Wednesday when experienced woodshop people can supervise you as you practice. We call this a MakerQuest and it is particularly important with Yellow and Red tools like this one. Keep yourself and the shop safe. Practice under supervision.

Once you finish the course you will be certified to use the wood lathes at Nova Labs. To use other woodworking equipment, you will need certification on that equipment.

Prerequisites

1. Create a Nova-Labs.org account, and accept the safety liability waiver.
2. Attend a Nova Labs Green Safety Orientation class
3. Instructors will collect your nova-labs.org registered email, your full name, and your Meetup.com name. Instructors need to email this to [email protected] within 7 days of class with the list of equipment certified during the class.

Student are not allowed to use the tool until the safety training appears on their account.