Turning Out Masterpieces
By Melissa Farrell

Whittling wood as a teenager with his jackknife, Dave Thuemmel, a retired Port Austin dairy farmer, is living his dream in his woodshop turning wooden bowls and other wooden objects on his lathe. Thuemmel discovered his love for woodworking in a high school woodshop class where he decided he wanted to turn wooden bowls when he retired.

Unlike many people who have drifted far from their high school dreams, one can find Thuemmel hard at work, shaping, sanding and varnishing wood in his woodshop. 

Wood turning is the art of fashioning wood into various shapes by using a lathe - a machine that rotates the wood on a horizontal axis - while a wood turner uses various tools to shape and sand the wood, among other things.

“Wood turning is a great hobby,” he mentioned. “I can work out here in the winter and lose all track of time.”
And that is exactly what he does.“When I start working with a piece of wood I have a rough idea of what the object will look like, but I may hit a bad spot in the wood and have to maneuver around it, which sometimes determines the shape,” Thuemmel explained. 

This Port Austin wood turner is also an avid reader, continually perusing through wood turning magazines, always on the lookout for new ideas and different techniques to try. Thuemmel creates many of his own techniques, never afraid to experiment or try something new.

Thuemmel is always on the lookout for prime turning wood, but luckily he does not have to travel far to find his material. Sometimes it is as easy as walking behind his house, stumbling upon a decaying woodpile, or receiving a telephone call from a friend who is also on the watch for him. To many people, decaying wood is just rubble, however, to a wood turner, spalting, a by-product of the rotting process, is a delight. When the temperature is right, spalting can cause beautiful patterns to form in decaying wood.

“What some people consider junk wood, I find beauty in,” Thuemmel said. “It is wood just waiting for someone to craft in a way to bring the beauty out.” 

His wood creations, including wooden bowls of all types, shapes and sizes, clocks, serving platters, vases and goblets, and candlestick holders, are typically created from maple, elm, walnut, cherry, ash, and sometimes white pine.

He uses greenwood to turn bowls because dry wood is more likely to crack. After cutting a vertical portion of wood from a tree, Thuemmel heads back to his wood shop in the garage where he uses a clamp or vice to keep the piece of wood in place while he turns it on his lathe.  He uses various chisels to shape the wood, working it down to a uniform thickness of about an inch. 

Sometimes turning large pieces of wood can be challenging because of their size. Once the rough turning process is completed, the objects are stored on shelves in his woodshop for three to four months to dry. But that doesn’t slow Thuemmel down. He works on many projects simultaneously.   Once the shaped-wood is dry, he works the wood down more, and then spends a lot of effort and time sanding the surface smooth.
His favorite part of the process is putting the finish on the wood. He uses a food-friendly finish on kitchenware, typically walnut oil or a salad bowl finish.

Of the finishing process, Thuemmel exclaimed, “The grain of the wood jumps out!”

Just as Thuemmel likes to use different techniques, he also enjoys experimenting with various finishes. This talented Port Austin woodworker began making bowls because he enjoys working with wood, and he appreciates its inner beauty. When he first began his hobby three or four years ago, bowls started piling up in the house and the shop, and his wife encouraged him to give some away!

Today, Thuemmel is a member of the Thumb Arts Guild and displays his work at local art shows throughout the summer months, with every intention of crafting many more of his wooden creations.