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Bowl Mishap

I went to the shop to turn a bowl today. I had a dry 10" X 10" X 4" Honduras Mahogany blank that I bought some time ago. I turned the outside shape with a 4" foot and a 2" tenon. I power sanded the exterior and reversed the bowl to hollow it. After hollowing, I intended to reverse the bowl again and turn away the tenon, leaving a simple 4" concave foot.

I trued the rim and started to establish the wall thickness, using my new Crown PM bowl gouge. All was going well. The bowl was hollowed about halfway down when I got a king-sized catch and ripped the bowl from the chuck, leaving the 3/8" X 2" tenon behind in the jaws.

The bowl is intact, except for a deep gouge in the rim, which can be turned away. I salvaged the tenon from the chuck jaws and carefully glued it back to the bottom of the bowl using medium-viscosity CA glue. I'm going to leave it clamped overnight and try again.

Considering the ease with which I was able to rip the tenon from the bowl made me wonder, is a 2" tenon adequate for turning a 10" diameter bowl? I suspect that it may be on the small side. Thoughts?

Reply to
Barry N. Turner
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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.

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Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Barry N. Turner wrote:

Reply to
Leo Van Der Loo

Reply to
Leo Van Der Loo

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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Reply to
mac davis

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