A little history – as many of you know, I have been pursuing the art of the hollow form for more than 20 years. I learned to judge the wall thickness using the basic principles of look, listen, and feel. With much practice and determination I was able to to produce quality forms with consistent wall thickness. With all that practice, I could virtually see the tool inside the vessel in my mind – I always told my students to try and visualize where the tool is inside the form when hollowing. Over the years I have taught many people this fine art of the hollow form. Throughout this time, I strived to help people see in there mind what their tool was doing inside the hollow form. The advent of laser guided hollowing helped some, but in my opinion, took the focus off the visualizing what was going on inside the vessel and put it on following a small dot on the outside of the vessel. Many forgot to look listen and feel the form as well. So I set out to design something that would help me teach the process as well as help turners visualize what they were doing inside the hollow form. I tried countless contraptions- heat sensing devises even considered x-ray (obviously too dangerous and expensive). After almost giving up, I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep and had a thought, what if I drew the tool on the screen of a monitor and when the tool disappeared the drawn image would be left on the screen. I could not really visualize it at the time, so over the next several days I cobled together the first prototype of what you see today and literally was blown away at the simplicity of the set up and the precision which I was able to achieve. I tested and refined the design over the next several years, keeping the concept a secret from everyone except my family (hard for me to do as I enjoy sharing my ideas with others through demos and classes) . The name of this new tool was obvious to me- I called it The Visualizer. In early 2014, I decided it was refined enough and introduced it during my demos at the Tennessee Woodturners Symposium and several others throughout the winter and spring and at the AAW symposium in Phoeix AZ in June. I have finally been able to catch up on the orders from those venues and decided now was a good time to post this info on my site.
The Visualizer is a simple but extremely effective tool built from industrial quality parts designed to last in a rough environment. Difficult to explain the concept but the video below is worth more then 1000 words. The Visualizer will change the way you hollow. It will give you the ability to see exactly where the tool is inside your vessels, which gives you absolute precision wall thicknesses. It is designed to quickly attach to either the 3/4″ or 5/8″ Stabilizer. It can also be adapted to other hollowing systems. This revolutionary new design will allow you to take hollowing to the next level and beyond.
Order yours here today or contact me with any questions you may have.
Thanks for watching
Trent