DVD Review - Terry Scott, Manta Ray
By Ian Outshoorn on February 23rd, 2012
Bought a new DVD (actually a double DVD) to watch and learn from. This time it's a local New Zealand turner Terry Scott, who is very well known overseas too. Terry has won multiple International awards for his signature pieces, which he calls Manta Rays. These are bowls with wings, either 3 up and 1 down or my favourite 3 down and 1 up.
In this well produced double DVD set Terry shows us every step required to produce a Manta Ray. The DVD takes us through from the perfect blank to sharpening, to the way he cuts the bowl shape and the most impressive; cutting cross-grain with a skew! Terry does make this look easy. The second DVD also shows how Terry goes about achieving the high quality embellishment on the Manta Ray. Once again there are a lot of subtleties to what he does and the texturing cannot hide poor tool work.
One thing I noticed was the way the camera man managed to capture the tool presentation as Terry described what he was doing. Often these details are missed and yet this is precisely why I buy these DVD's. The camera work was very good with the most of the close-up shots in focus. The sound level and quality is good and you can clearly hear the sound a truly sharp tool makes as it is cutting.
Terry has obviously done these demo's before as he went through the whole DVD in pretty much one take. Another thing that I noticed is the care that Terry takes with safety before he turns the lathe on. Everything is double or triple checked and shows the value in making this a part of your pre-turn ritual. If you are a beginner watching this DVD, you won't be shown bad habits by a turner who's been turning too long to remember basic safety rules.
A bonus find was the music by Al Marconi that is used on the DVD. A gifted guitar player, I enjoyed his work too.
As Terry says, now he's shown the rest of us how it's done, he needs to lift his game again in order to continue winning awards. You can buy the DVD from Terry at www.timberlywoodturning.co.nz. Tell Terry that I said hi.