Maple Natural Edge Bowl

Hello Barry,

I doubt that it is you. Maple, in general, isn't really hard enough to be cut cleanly with a scarper, even a very sharp scraper. The tool to use is a very sharp bowl gouge, even then you may experience tear out in the end grain. Sandpaper may be your best bet.

Harder, denser woods such as some of the fruit woods, will respond quite well to a good sharp scraper. I still feel that the best cuts can be made with the bowl gouge even on those.

Fred Holder

"Barry N. Turner" wrote: (clip)Just when you think you have something mastered, the wood humbles you again ! ! ! Help! Barry ^i^^^^^^^^^ I don't know whether this will do you any good, but it is worth a try. Apply some lacquer sanding sealer or shellac to the wood, and they try some more light cuts. It has the effect of tying the wood fibres together, so they are more likely to cut clean, without tearing. This has helped me at times. You can also use this trick when you are sanding.

freshly-cut

===================================================== Barry, You need something to stabilize the end grain. There are several ways you can go, but some clear lacquer is probably the quickest thing you can use. Ca is also an alternative, but a bit more expensive for large areas. It's like stabilizing spalted wood. Anything you use for that should work in the area you're working on.

Ken Moon Webberville, TX

freshly-cut

This is where I usually stop, Shape it with a bowl gouge, get it to the correct shape, abd thickness and as smooth as possible on the face grain. There will be tearout on the endgrain. Then let it dry, I let it air dry, for a week or more. Then sand. Sanding before it's dry will load up the paper. Wet endgrain just doesn't cut! Wet anything doesn't sand!

mike

Thanks Fred and George. Your suggestions will be put to work. I recently came into quite a large batch of Maple and am experiencing the same issues as Barry. However I've also had some hard Maple and learned that it is an entirely different beast than the soft variety.

This may be another untested personal anecdote. I hand-sand just the two tearout spots (interior & exterior, wet or dry) while the bowl is still pretty rough. I use soft wax lubricated 100 grit paper. Then I continue finish cutting that's deeper than the two smoothed areas. Seems to reduce endgrain tearout spots in a cross grain piece, I don't know why. Arch

Fortiter,

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