Kurt Hertzog Tip and Tricks

“Wood is stupid” – it don’t know or care how it was shaped into whatever object so want. Accordingly,

there are many ways of doing anything turning.

“Variable speed lathes are a must – turn fast / sand slow”. Isn’t it amazing how a writer seizes on shared

opinions.

“Every tool you own but for scraper is a skew”. This one requires some deep thought for as with C A, Kurt

mostly uses skews as negative rake scrapers. So I guess you could actually add “and skews are scrapers”.

Tool tips: Kurt has a skew that at the point in angle such that it is pointy on one side when observed from

above. I already had a skew sharpened that way so no prize for Kurt there. Here’s the take away. If you

look at an old set of turning tools there is likely what I’ve always called a spear tool and consider useless.

This tool if you look at it from above ends in a point that is flat on top and in appearance is two sides of a

triangle. From the bottom both sides of the triangular shape are bevel at about 30 degrees (my guess as I

considered these useless and always sharpened them into scrapers). Kurt’s tool was sharpened with a

slight curve to each triangle side when viewed from above and the top flat was polished. The bevels from

below had been relaxed into a slow curve. To operate you go straight in and angle tool in direction of

desired cut, pick up a cut and proceed. It makes shearing cuts remarkably like a skew but I’d say less likely

to behave badly as skews are sometime known to do – I don’t currently have the base tool but think I could

show you how to sharpen if you came to me with one.

Best Aid: Travel tool rack. Essentially square, revolving on a lazy Susan, for point up storage of about 16

tools and very compact for holding so many tools.

Why didn’t I think of that: Kurt makes beautiful stick pens that use the design and wood to cover existing

mechanism of an Exacto knife - nice and a present for me.

Kurt does but not me: Kurt has an absolutely ugly grind on his spindle gouges, just awful looking, but he is

darn good at using that grind. Even after seeing him use it, I’m a no thanks.

However, my purpose here is to go cover some pen turning tips. But, first understand that these are my

take away, Kurt might not agree, nor might they be the most important to another. Kurt is a prolific writer

and he offers everything he has written on his site http://kurthertzog.com. Kurt also update articles on his

site for any changes that he might make over time (like getting rid of that spindle gouge grind). Here goes:

-Kurt is another guy (add to my concern on this issue) that avoids C A glue for some applications while using

it as one of his preferred finishes.

-He uses a lot of the Prismacolor double end marker and understands that they will fade. However, he is

the first turner that I’ve seen use alcohol and Qtips to lighten and blend his color on the object.

-For cleaning his high speed bits, used in dental drill type hand pieces, Kurt uses a piece of aluminum angle

iron. Jeez, I’d have thought at 3 to 400,000 a bit would gum up if held to aluminum! BTW, the dental burs

are standardized to model number and “L” at the end of number stands for long.

-Blue tape is good (very little residue). One use for it is to build up diameter on pen mills (also called barrel

trimmers, though, Kurt never called then that.

-For small items, tooth picks and bamboo skewers are catchers and holders mounted in the tail stock.

-Mount an extra pen mill in a wooden handle. It is used to trim back the turned and finished pen part until

the diameter of the turned part precisely matches the mating pressed in brass part. When both are

identical, the press fits can occur.

-A spent or cheap pen refill, 1/8” to 1/4” drill rod, a bad mandrel, etc. can be used to make up a pen

disassemble kit.

-“There are two kinds of snakewood; that which has checked and that which will check”. I myself bought

some ebony at the Richmond symposium and used it to make pens. Of the first batch of five, all split. C A

glue is very rigid and brittle thus if there is wood movement (isn’t there always) the glue doesn’t cooperate.

In cases where Kurt anticipates problems, even for gluing in pen tubes, he uses poly glue (gorilla glue)

which never goes hard – probably because it never fully dries. I offer this tip with some reservation for if

you had gorilla glue foam up and go everywhere you’ll understand my concern.

-Some of us tool junkies might not look with favor on this idea, however, Kurt prefers to drill, dress tube

ends, etc. on the lathe. Kurt has Jacobs chucks in various sizes as he thinks having a small Jacobs for small

bits increases the likely-hood of it being centered. For pen assembly, Kurt recommends using your lathe

with homemade wooden aids.

-Do not know if I can explain this one well enough, but, you can make a wooden piece with hold in front to

fit over you live center. Then assemble you universal mandrel with bushing, wood, etc. but without the

knurled nut on the live center end. Insert assemble and adjust such that the wood on the live center serves

to put pressure on bushings and wood but not on mandrel rod which is easily bent or bushed out of

alignment with pressure on the knurled nut or pressure from live center point. Kurt calls this homemade

wooden miracle worker a “mandrel saver”. I suggest you go to his article, “Making Bushings, Mandrels, and

Tail Center Items” to make sure you make yours correctly. On Kurt’s website in the articles area.

-On drilling, I prefer good brad points in the under half inch sizes. Kurt pointed out that many have an off

center point. He suggests that we dig out some of those old twist bits that have been used a stud finders in

drywall and put that unused drill doctor to work.

Note: No reason to think my take-aways would be your favorites. However, I can recommend that you

sign on to Kurt’s website at www.kurthertzog.com and read through his past articles listed there. Once a

magazine releases one of Kurt’s articles Kurt posts the article to his website. For the new turner they are

an excellent step by step “how to” on a particular woodturning project. For the old curmudgeons among

us they offer an excellent reference.