You do know how to improvise and you can solve any problem from your own inner creativity. All creativity comes from deep inside of us. There is an infinite reservoir of it at the center of our being. If you want to explore a technique to improve access to it, look up tm.org on the net and follow the leads. This will let you know where the nearest teacher is to you.

Edwards

Transcendental Meditation is something I should probably learn about to improve my creativity and other aspects of my life. Thanks for the guidance.

Thanks for your comment. Sanding on the lathe is hard on the hands. There are several things I have learned and will pass them on to you. Whenever you can put insulating layers between your fingers and the workpiece it helps. This may be as simple as folding the sandpaper over to have a double layer. Or it may help to wear a glove. Another thing is a piece of felt block to put behind the sandpaper. Power sanding with soft discs frees the fingers completely of heat build up. Sanding at lower speeds is supposed to be more efficient and saves the finger pads as well.

However, there are some situations where these things don’t work. An example is a hollow vessel that will not accommodate your whole hand, a glove and sandpaper, too. In tight places like that I like to use a stick to hold the sandpaper against the spinning wood. Another technique is to get a surgical clamp and clamp the sandpaper in that. Some are quite long and allow reach into deeper vessels. Many woodworking supply catalogs will have them for sale or you could find them on the internet. Kelly clamps are sturdy and have a curve in them which allows you to reach recessed areas.

The longer you work wood the more you tend to improvise. That means designing your own specific tool for a specific purpose. Deep inside of all of us is a vast reservoir of knowledge. Actually all knowledge is there and when we have a way to still the mind we can access that knowledge. My preference for quieting the mind is the Transcendental Meditation technique. Immediately after learning it 42 years ago I began to experience this upsurge in creativity and this is when I started my woodworking in my spare time. It eventually evolved into my current small business. Just know that the solution to every problem lies within you and with a good technique you can have ready access to that solution.