3 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

 

 This was the first time I was "cutting" air, and I really found it uncomfortable...I suppose with some experience it will get to be just something that has to be done at times, but it was a nail biting experience so far for me.

 

Yes, the cutting air gets a bit tiring after a few bowls. After I've made a few, I go looking for a nice, plain blank so I can turn a traditional bowl.

I hope this helps. My friend had a walnut crotch. We cut it in half and cut the pith out. With my half I made the part where the pith cut off the bottom of the platter. The first picture is looking at the top and the second picture is looking at the bottom.

 

Oh, wow...that grain is spectacular!  That's the kind of figure I've always wanted in a gunstock (seriously).

Good job getting figure on both sides and pretty close to match

Another question on my exercise. I'm getting tearout on the outside of whatever this thing may turn out to be (this is that same piece of wood I started this thread with). I've done several things to see what part of my technique may be causing this. I sharpened the bowl gouge, I took much lighter cuts, I upped the lathe speed (at this point it's about 6" in diameter, and I'm running almost 900 RPM), and I tried cutting with different parts of the chisel (side, tip, etc.) but i can't seem to completely eliminate. Is this a technique thing or is it just squirrelly wood? I haven't tried a scraper yet, since thre is still a flat spot where I'm cutting air...I'm a little hesitant (that wussy thing) to use a scraper.

 

Edit in: I found one solution, I tried using my bowl gouge as a scraper, something I saw one on of the videos I've watched. It's very slow going, but it does eliminate the tearout. I laid the gouge on it's side so the edge was doing the scraping.

Edited June 15, 20242 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

So many things to factor in. Without knowing exactly what you are doing let me give you some examples. The direction of cut is important. On the outside of a bowl going from the rim to the base will give you tear out where going from the base to the rim can eliminate it. The angle of your grind is also important. Also if you are on the bevel or off of it too far. You will get a lot smoother cut with a 40 degree grind than you will with a 60 degree. I will use one of my pieces as an example. I was turning this box. It is basswood so it is very soft. I tried my spindle roughing gouge, two bowl gouges, a regular scraper and a negative rake scraper. All of them left tear out. I took my freshly sharpened swept back spindle gouge sharpened at 40 degrees. I dropped the handle to anround 45 degrees and took two very light finishing cuts and the tear out was gone. I was able to start sanding this at 400.

 

Well, using the scraper technique I edited in above, here's what that spot looks like now. I did try both directions and it didn't seem to matter. I'm probably not smart enough to work on bevel angle grinds just yet, but I can try adjusting how I rub the bevel and move the edge into the wood. But for now I got rid of it.

Fred that looks great. Huge improvement. Do what ever works for you. A great person to watch on YouTube is Tomislav Tomasic. He explains everything better than anybody I have seen.

 Kudos to you Fred for taking on a new trade. Dan has offered to teach me several times and I couldn't commit.  Looks like good progress.

I have to say that all the real turners here (I'm obviously not one of them) are quite helpful  and they even don't make fun of my stupid questions.   (At least not in their reply)

Edited June 17, 20242 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

Turning brings a lot to woodworking and everyone should experience it.  My opinion anyway.

42 minutes ago, HandyDan said:

Turning brings a lot to woodworking and everyone should experience it.  My opinion anyway.

I find more and more that I try to add at least one turned object to anything I make- knob, spindle, etc.

Way behind on my reading so just now seeing this. Thanks Fred for being open with your questions. No doubt will be helpful for others.

 

That wouldn't be one of those pieces of mulberry you so graciously let me dump off there during the Meet & Greet a few years ago? If you need more, I can probably round up a trailer load.

Dave I do think this is one of those pieces, You left some with me and i think you gave some to someone else. I still have some more, and given how long it takes me to do these things I'm good for quite a while.

On 6/18/2024 at 11:21 PM, Grandpadave52 said:

That wouldn't be one of those pieces of mulberry you so graciously let me dump off there during the Meet & Greet a few years ago?

Bing!! lightbulb just turned on; I think I brought some of that load back for Dan.

6 minutes ago, DuckSoup said:

Bing!! lightbulb just turned on; I think I brought some of that load back for Dan.

 

Bing!  I believe you did!

6 hours ago, DuckSoup said:

Bing!! lightbulb just turned on; I think I brought some of that load back for Dan.

Bing, bing...yep, I think we loaded up all you could haul...well safely. 

6 hours ago, HandyDan said:

 

Bing!  I believe you did!

I'm running a summer special right now...take a truckload, get a second truckload free. Better stock up before winter Dan.

Well, here's where my experiment is at the moment. I had mentioned earlier that cutting air was uncomfortable. Now I've started on the inside and I'm using a hollowing tool to cut the sides back. At this point I can only say it's a butt puckering activity. So far it's been very hard for me to make very light cuts, I'm using a carbide tool for the work....at least it's a lot easier than the bowl gouge.

39 minutes ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

Well, here's where my experiment is at the moment. I had mentioned earlier that cutting air was uncomfortable. Now I've started on the inside and I'm using a hollowing tool to cut the sides back. At this point I can only say it's a butt puckering activity. So far it's been very hard for me to make very light cuts, I'm using a carbide tool for the work....at least it's a lot easier than the bowl gouge.

 

I do not know how thick you want the wall but if you use a parting tool to cut the bark to the side thickness it will be easier to not knock the bark off. This is just a simple plunge cut but may be deep depending on the slope on your log.

Thanks Gerald. I'm going to try and get 1/4" walls at the flat spot, the rest of whatever this is will be quite a bit thicker. This hasn't went at all the way i pictured it, but it's still been a good learning exercise.