It has been a long time since I have done any wood turning, at least since December 2010 when I turned out a bunch of Christmas gifts in a hurry. Since then, I've been getting more and more involved my Amateur Radio hobby with the Fulton County ARC, so much in fact that I was taken by surprise when I realized it was July and I had not even spun up my lathe once. To be fair to myself, I did complete a major workbench project in my shop to make woodworking more enjoyable. So this weekend I thought I would give the new bench a try to make sure I calculated optimal height for my lathe which should help reduce fatigue when turning more time intensive projects. To give it a test, I grabbed the first chunk of tree I saw on my shelf, an unknown species, and said "I'm turning you". I suspect it might be ash, but not entirely certain. I chucked it up with the thought of turning some kind of vessel or container. When I start turning without a solid end plan, anything is possible and I usually let the grain guide me. The end result is this container with a purple heart lid (I will use that entire sheet of purple heart, I swear to god I will). I noticed the start of a fracture near the lip from a hidden check already in progress, so I grabbed my tin snips and a sheet of hobby metal and made a quick band to hold off any further separation. The container is about 5 inches high and about 4.5 inches in diameter at the widest point. This was strictly an exercise in testing the bench height and my comfort with the setup. With any luck and cooler summer weather, I hope to start creating pens and yo-yos again, along with larger turnings like bowls and containers.