Recently I decided to turn a piece of Australian Blackwood that I had into a small bowl.  Now this is an extremely hard wood and since it was not too thick (2") I decided to try a "trick" that was published on Woodworking.com's website (http://woodworking.com/ww/Article/No_Chuck_No_Problem_7343.aspx) entitled "No Chuck? No Problem!"  Essentially what you do is mount a faceplate on your lathe and attach a "dummy board" to it.  Then you spray it with CA and mount your stock onto the dummy board.  Sounded just like the solution I wanted.

 

After getting the stock mounted, I turned on the lathe and procedured to turn the bowl.  After about 2 minutes, all hockey sticks broke loose and the next thing I knew was that blood was pouring into my eyes.  In that split second before the blood I saw that the Blackwood had broken loose and went flying.

 

After getting the bleeding to stop (good first aid training from the military) I found out I had a 1 1/2 inch gash just above the left eyebrow that went down to the bone.  Well off to the urgent care center and fortunately I had a woodworker PA attend my wound.  He said that he had seen several cases similar to mine where the stock separated from the substrata (dummy board) and caused injury.  Fortunately for me though I had safety glasses on and a protective face mask so I avoided damage to the eye.  Some people have not been so lucky.

 

Anyway before I went to the urgent care center, I looked around for my eyeglasses which had been knocked off.  I put them on and almost immediately said to myself, "Oh s**t!!"  My left eye was not focusing and I thought also had damage to the eye.  Well it turned out that the left lens to my glasses had popped out and that is why I couldn't focus.  But for a moment there.....

 

Long story short, I got 16 stitches to close the wound, went back and found the offending piece of wood and "debriefed" myself as to the accident.  Found out that the CA did not fail but that the substrata did.  Moral of this story - avoid using the substrata unless you have no other option and then be extra careful because you never know if it will fail on you.  Attached is the offending wood in its final form.

Man Phil, glad your ok. That was a close call, but it's a good thing you were wearing protection. I had to smile a tad at the eye not focusing because the lens popped out! That sounds like it was a nasty gash. And it sounds like that will scar up just nicely for later showings to remember.

Thanks for posting your experience, just another reminder, that no matter what we do as far as precautions go, woodworking can have it's own temperament and turn around to bite ya.

By the way, very nice bowl sir. Very very nice. I'd like to say it was the worth the effort, but that' getting carried away.

Wow Phil glad it was not worst than what it was. Good thing you were wearing safety protection. It is so easy to think, "awe it won't take but a minute and I know what I am doing." for something bad to happen. I was worried as I was reading that the CA had not setup or that you might have gotten a catch and pulled it lose. I would not have thought about the substrata coming apart.

Woodcraft was running a Nova chuck on sale for half price. I picked up one as an extra just to keep from change face plates all the time. It was a pretty good deal, you might want to check on it. A good chuck sure makes turning somethings a lot better.

Nice bowl and that one will always have a story to go with it.

Thanks for sharing as it helps us all remember that it only takes a second for an accident to happen.

Glad you are OK. By the way the bowl looks great!

I an curious about a couple of things. You say you sprayed CA. What type of CA were you using? I have never seen it applied by spray. You also state that the CA joint did not fail. However, is CA a good choice for blackwood? I have used CA finiishes on blackwood. I had a real problem getting them to stick.

What wood were you using for a substrata? I have only used pine with no problems. I have heard plywood is a real no no as the plys can seperate from each other.

Again glad you are OK. Thank goodness for PPE.

Phil Rasmussen said:

Greg it was the activator that was sprayed on and the actual CA applied to the stock. The substrata was 3/4" pine. I have had problems with CA as a finish on some woods. My biggest complaint about CA as a finish is that it is not nearly as smooth as the poly I use but it is is great for those woods that are unstable. By the way, have you tried CA on corn cob?

I finally had a chance to look at the article you linked. I see the accelerator now. That's something that the pine separated and not the glue.

I use CA for my only finish on corn cobs. I use 2 coats of thin followed by 4 or 5 of medium. I struggled with a CA finish too until I watched a video by William Young on using CA and BLO. Its my go to finish for any pen now. I had some real problems with it on some Paduk the other day. It still ain't right. I will have to sand it off and try again.