How to stop splatter

If you’ve ever visited another woodturner’s shop, nine times out of 10 the area behind the lathe is a disaster area marred with splatter that has occurred during the finishing process. No matter how careful turners are, a bit of splatter seems inevitable, and over time, that splatter can build up and turn really ugly and difficult if not impossible to remove. A quick and inexpensive solution is to create a “curtain” to hang behind the lathe when finishing or wet sanding. A simple way to accomplish this is to adhere a section of an inexpensive tablecloth or shower curtain from a dowel or other length of wood. Drive a screw eye into each end of the wood rod and use those to hang the splatter gatherer behind the lathe. The curtain comes in especially handy when spraying finishes as well. And, if you don’t have dust collection at your lathe the curtain also works well to deflect flying chips.