Setting your piece of wood on the lathe wrong will cause you to lose precious wood. Now, if you have wood a plenty, then it's not that important, but a good spalted piece of Olive does not come every day, so you better make sure you use it as best as possible.

Looking at the angle and shape of the wood, you choose a spot that looks right, in the center, and you hammer the drive center in. You need to make sure the teeth of the drive are grabbing wood, and not just bark. After the drive is set, you gauge its angle by aligning the hammer handle to the drive and see how it crosses the wood. This would be a good time to adjust it for the angle you choose is best for you.

Once you are happy with the location of the drive, mounting the drive center into the morse cone in the lathe spindle is helped by the support of the tailstock.

Since we are looking to make a natural edge form type of vessel, we need to remember that once we start cutting on wood, that part won't have a natural edge any more, so the room for error grows here. Think before you make your cut. Where will the top and bottom be? What parts will have a natural edge (top, bottom, middle or all of them)? All these things you need to consider before you start cutting on the wood. Reducing the wood is easy, getting the wood back on is a little problematic, so we try to avoid it.