Bowl Mishap

Hi Barry

Is a 2" tenon big enough ?, as you saw, not on your blank, though it may well be large enough with different wood, like say elm or walnut or honey locust etc. , so I would say it depends on the wood type and size.

It's something to take in consideration when you have a blank, if you make a tenon or a spigot.

I do use both, tenon and spigot, but tend to use a spigot more often when my turning gets bigger.

I have a album with pictures that shows making a larger bowl, with no tailstock help and I certainly would not have used a tenon the size I used for a tenon, I would not trust it to be strong enough.

Barry N. Turner wrote:

like others have said, it was probably the catch, not the tenon.. since we only get a catch once or twice a year, that should be no problem, right?

mahogany has kind of a weird grain, so it might have been the grain direction or even a weakness under the surface that you couldn't see until you added "stress"... Personally, I would have used either a 3" tenon or a 2 1/4" recess (a little more that the min. recess for m chuck) to have a little overkill... if you're going to flip it and turn the tenon off anyway, why not make it a good gripp-able size? (depending on your chuck capacity)

mac

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