I'm working on a small platter, and having a hard time getting the inside of the edge smoothed out, I keep getting tear out. I'm thinking about taking a small bowl gouge and use light cuts but it would be easier for me to run the lathe backwards and reach over to the opposite side to 1) see what I'm doing, and 2) maybe get it smoothed out with no tear out...thinking I'll be able to take lighter cuts than I can from my side of the lathe. Is this something that's done routinely (and safely)? This thing is in a chuck and I'd tighten the locking screws down good before trying this. This strictly to make it easier to see what I'm doing. Here's the tear out that I don't have the patience to sand out.

PS, it's hard maple

Edited December 23, 20232 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

Looks like tear out to me.  I would use a round nose scraper in that situation.   It's hard to tell how close you are to finished dimension from the photo.  It might be small enough to power sand (sanding disk on a drill while the piece is turning) if you are close to finished size.  

 

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Well, I have a round nose scraper so i guess I could try that.

You can absolutely do that. Especially helpful if you only have access to the "front" of the lathe. Just make sure your chuck/faceplate has the set screw tightened so it cannot come loose as the cutting force will tend to "unthread" it. I've used this method to do closed rims before getting curved hollowing tools.

Thanks, Lew...appreciate it!

If you use the bowl gouge, it takes a little practice to get the feel of working "backwards"- don't ask how I know

Don't know about the backward. Fresh sharpened bowl gouge or scraper. take very light cuts to look like producing angel hair. Be patient as that much tearout will not go away easily. Remember LIGHT CUTS.

Robo Hippie got me using his shear cutting method.  I don't do many bowls but found this works best for me.  What you've done so far is looking good.

 

 

Edited December 23, 20232 yr by HandyDan

Turn the lathe up to around 1700 rpm and take a very light cut. Resharpen the tool before you do it.

 

OK, this was a good learning exercise. I did whip the tearout, but not a few other things. I tried several of the suggestions and something worked, but I'm not sure which one...I think it was the freshly sharpened bowl gouge and very light cuts. I wanted to try Reed Gray's shear scraping technique, but I don't have scrapers like that...my only one is a 1/2" wide round nose. I intend to buy a couple of the larger ones after Christmas. Anyway, this all started with Lew's post a week ago or so and the video about turning a platter. I didn't want to try anything like that guy had (huge) so I had a 1.5" thick piece of maple and decided to work on it. One thing I tried was to use the large ring I won here last year in the wounded warrior's Christmas raffle. You screw this thing down and mount it on your chuck. I was nervous about it but it really worked well. Enough babble, you can see the platter below with some superblonde shellac on it. The photos enhanced some of the things I did wrong, like not getting all the sanding streaks out. They honestly don't show up at all if to look at it, but the camera caught it. Also, the bottom of the platter is anything but flat...it's much lower on the edge than it is in the center; something I'll tackle on the next one.

13 minutes ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

I tried was to use the large ring I

I love those things! Haven't use a faceplate since getting mine!

 

Beautiful job on the bowls. Perfectly flat bottoms are not easy to do but with practice you'll get there. About those round nose scrapers, check out some of the videos from Richard Raffan. He uses them a lot on his turnings.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@RichardRaffanwoodturning

WOW!  Great job on this one.  Looks really good!!!!

 

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Here is a video from Lyle on using the bowl gouge to shear scrape. 

 

 

Looking much better. Sometime using the bowl gouge to shear scrape is easier than a scraper.

Before you buy a scraper look into making one. I bought a nice piece of HSS on Amazon for $17. The piece of steel is 1.25” wide, 1/2” thick and 11” long. I made my own handle so it cost me around $20 total. I have 8” of steel out past the handle so it should last a lifetime.