I happened to mention to someone today that the humble wood lathe is perhaps the least useful machine in the shop. I’m willing to argue that point, but there’s really no reason. Unless you are being truly creative and making very interesting things, you can normally just go buy something similar enough to whatever you’re planning on turning.

For instance, long ago in my woodshop class in high school, a great many tiny baseball bats were made by the eager students. I’m not sure how many of them were ultimately used to bludgeon someone. Probably slightly less than ten percent.

Anyway, in spite of the fact that I have had a full sized lathe sitting on my floor for over two years – perhaps over three years, since the days all blend together, and I have not yet discovered any reason to move it. Well, I did move it a bit when the workshop flooded. But I swear it hasn’t moved from that new location.

I have been using a lathe over the past week or so, though, making some imitation Fisher Price Little People in my limited spare time. I tend to get a bit obsessed about some things, and this time it is these simple little toys. The original ones had heads riveted on the body. The heads can turn, they have hair, they have plastic scarves or whatever. I’m just making the general shape with the goal to paint on the details. These, incidentally, are not for me to play with, but for my daughter and her ever-increasing collection of Fisher Price playsets that all come second- or twentieth-hand without any of the people who are supposed to occupy the spaces. That leaves them more like somewhat creepy unoccupied doll houses.

She was quite excited to get the people I have given her already.

Using the lathe is a genuine treat, though. You put in the wood and you can stand there for an hour just making it shrink down to pencil-size. That, and for no purpose other than just using a chisel on the wood, the ultimate joy of watching something disappear in the most genuinely satisfying way, is probably as close to being mindlessly and idiotically happy as you’re ever likely to get.

So, of course, I started looking for more things to make on the lathe. Some time ago, I bought a Japanese wooden doll called a kokeshi. The one I bought is very smooth and glossy with moving parts but the actual traditional one is more like the Little People I have been making. So much like them, in fact, I wonder if the very first such figures made were copies of the traditional form of the kokeshi, which is simply cylindrical with a ballish-shaped head, with all the detail painted on. No arms, no legs.

Anyway, I got it in my head to try making something like a kokeshi doll. I made it using a dowel but should have went with a slightly larger diameter, to get more shape. It’s not an actual kokeshi doll, simply because I’m more or less clueless as to what their real specifications are. I made it the way I make everything: I looked at a couple of examples and made something I thought was more or less like it.

Who cares? All that matters is that the kid likes it. And that I get to spend some time watching a piece of wood shave away at a pleasing rate.

The picture above shows my original dead-clown (currently suffering much abuse at the hands of my daughter) and one painted yellow as a first coat. I used the airbrush for that, although I don’t know why. Just to use it, I think. And the pseudo-kokeshi doll needs some touch ups and a clear coat.

To start to paint, I decided to use an airbrush I bought cheap. I bought it because I had already bought a paint-spray compressor. Well, that’s what it purported to be, but it refused to spray any paint when I wanted to use it. So, I recommissioned it as an airbrush sprayer.

I have come to the conclusion that everything I get is either broken or was garbage to start with. I spent over an hour trying to convince a ridiculous tiny air sprayer to spray less than a teaspoon of paint on a few places on a wooden doll. I could have done it forty thousand times with a brush in the same amount of time. I could have sprayed it more easily with my mouth, no, with my nose. I did finally discover that the paint was a bit too thick and had better luck trying a different bottle.

But I think I’d rather set myself on fire than use another sprayer of any kind. I have had no good experiences with any of type of paint sprayer for anything whatsoever. But I admit it’s my own fault, since I obviously just buy garbage.

Perhaps, though, they only made garbage.

No, that’s not quite true. I just don’t want to pay for anything good. Then I end up paying too much, anyway.