Bowl Turning Is An Artform

[Jim Frye]

I've been spending time learning to turn a bowl. The arthritis in my thumb limits my time at the lathe to about 20-30 minutes at a session, but I'm getting better at it. I have learned to handle and sharpen the bowl gouge so I'm not tearing things up every time I touch it to the work piece. Another thing I've learned is that I probably shouldn't have used hard maple as my first try, but I will press on. Patience is a virtue here. More as I progress with learning this new woodworking skill.

[Jim Frye]

Well, I almost have the outside of the bowl roughly shaped. I made inner and outer templates to guide the shaping. A little more gouge work and then I can sand it before reversing to do the interior, which has me a bit concerned. I don't have anything like a Nova chuck and am using a face plate to mount the workpiece on the lathe. Oh, and here's a picture of my shop built lathe that I'm using.

[LCHIEN]

Precision Benchtop Woodturning System? Have I heard something like that before???

[Jim Frye]

Precision Benchtop Woodturning System? Have I heard something like that before???

Yes, very tongue in cheekiness.

[leehljp]

"I made inner and outer templates to guide the shaping"

I am not the professional by any means, but I will say that your idea to follow the templates is one of the best things one can use and do. Freehand in new turning - makes lots of shapes, but not all shapes are really attractive. DAMHIKT - and a dozen times over!

My one suggestion that I learned by accident was - learn how to sharpen the good HSS tools properly and finely tuned. "Precision Shaping" became hugely easier with the sharpest tools. Many turners will use carbide inserts to get to close to shape (in bowls and pens) and then turn to HSS for fine tuning. Some say that carbide inserts are as sharp as HSS, and that might be true in some cases, but good HSS tools can be finely tuned to a higher degree than carbide inserts, and the "feedback" in the "feel" becomes evident. In many cases, the sharpest tools reduces sanding considerably.

[Jim Frye]

I have my variable speed 6" grinder/hone set up just to the right of the lathe. It has an 80 grit aluminum oxide wheel on one side and an 1 1/2" wide charged cotton wheel on the other side. Makes it easy to step aside and get a new edge quickly. If this exercise goes well, I may invest in some new tools. I currently have a Craftsman carbon steel set and a Delta HSS set. This is all sort of a shoestring setup to see if wood turning was something I would like to do other than a necessity. When I put this lathe together in 2001, I had neither the budget, nor the space, for a dedicated lathe setup. The design I came up with is somewhat of a benchtop unit even though it weighs 120 pounds, but I ended up spending only $125 building it. It stores on a rolling dolly made from a laminate countertop scrap and clamps to the fixed work bench that is bonded to the basement walls and floor for vibration absorption.

[Jim Frye]

Absolute disaster of a session tonight. Catch after catch in an area I was trying to reduce. Fortunately, they are rather shallow, so won't affect the finished shape. I failed to follow my golden shop rule of walking away when things go awry and kept pressing on. More after I correct this mess.

[leehljp]

I am not proficient with a skew at all. I have tried it dozens of times and spent hours on trying to learn how to handle it; I followed CDs and DVDs of the great turners and even YouTube, but I still get catches with the skew. SO I just leave the skew alone!

[Jim Frye]

The next thing I turn certainly won't be made of hard maple. I've come to the conclusion that I need much more skill to work this wood, but the lure of using up some scraps led me to using it. Some of the wood I used to glue up the blank were from a sawmill that had sketchy kiln drying. Some of the wood I purchased from them actually warped while acclimating in the shop prior to being used in other projects. The air flow in the kiln was not even so the wood had stress built up in areas of individual boards. Still learning at this advanced age.

[Jim Frye]

Spent an hour at the lathe this evening and almost have all of the catches worked out without impacting the shape of the outside of the bowl. One thing I'm a bit surprised at is the glue lines are all very thin between the various pieces that make up the blank. Since the blank is made up of layers of 13" wide glued up boards stacked together, I was concerned those 13" wide joints wouldn't be thin and consistent.

[Jim Frye]

Good day at the lathe today. All of the multitude of catches are gone or minimized to the point where they can be sanded out. It's supposed to rain all,day tomorrow, so maybe I can get the outside (bottom) of the bowl done for applying the finish.

[Jim Frye]

Well, it took a few hours, but I was able to get all of the catches eliminated and the outside of the bowl is ready for finish sanding. I was able to save the shape, but lost about a 1/4" on the overall diameter to accomplish that.

[Jim Frye]

Finished sanding the outside of the bowl to 220 grit and have started the process to mount the faceplate on the bottom recess so I can start to turn the inside of the bowl. Since I don't have a bowl chuck like a Nova chuck, I will use the faceplate mounted on a glue block that is glued to the bowl base recess with a brown paper bag separator. Big challenge is to get things centered so runout is minimal. So much new stuff to learn.

[Jim Frye]

I have finished reversing the bowl to hollow the inside. Even though I measured multiple times, I ended up with a wee bit of runout (3/32") at the rim that will be sanded out before unmounting the bowl from the faceplate.

[Jim Frye]

Well, that was a disaster. The off center mount caused enough vibration to break the paper bond between the bowl base and the faceplate block. I had the block centered in the bowl base, but had the faceplate a tad off center. It's too difficult to remount the faceplate, so I will turn the block true with the faceplate and then build up the end that fits into the bowl base recess with some veneer strips so it fits snugly in the bowl base recess.. The learning curve goes on.