bowl savers

You have just named them all. The Wood-Cut is probably the easiest to use and perhaps the least expensive of the three. The Oneway is next easier to use, but is the most expensive. The Kelton Centre Saver is the most flexible, but the most difficult to learn to use. To the best of my knowledge, there are no others on the market.

I should say, however, that you can core bowls with a straight parting tool. Richard Raffan often does this from the headstock end; i.e., the bowl blank is mounted on what will be the top of the bowl. Richard turns the outside and foot and then parts off with a parting tools. I've seen him get three bowls out of a blank doing it this way. The inside of the parted off bowl is not curved, but is a straight taper. That makes to outside of the cores also straight tapers.

Fred Holder

I'm a new Kelton system user. It can get somewhat intimidating, but it does work well. Two tips: get Mike Mahoney's video-the instructions that you get with the set up are pretty useless and use green wood.

Kip Powers Rogers, AR

Guess my post yesterday didn't go through. I have all three of the systems. You can use a parting tool and remove a cone, but it is too much of a waste of wood, unless you want cone (straight sided) bowls.

Of the three, I use the McNaughton (KM) the most. It is the fastest to set up and core with, and you can core any shape except hollow forms with it. Since it isn't on a pivoting center, you control where it goes. It has a tendenct to drift to the outside of the cut so you have to perform course corrections (come back to the top and trim some off the inside, or some off the outside, or bump the tool rest to the inside). Also you can't see where the tip is so you have to guess. I developed the habit of aiming shallow to prevent making lampshades. Now there is a laser pointer that you can get, or make yourself. This allows you to aim for the perfect core every time. If you are off course, you can see it and correct. There is a learning curve with it. You probably won't need the whole set of blades. I use the medium and small curved blades from the standard and mini set for 99% of the cores I remove.

The Woodcut is a nice little unit, emphasis on the little. the big blade is a 5 inch radius. They claim that you can core up to 13 inches with it. I suppose this is possible, but the bottom of your core will be concave. The one thing that I don't like about it is that it is designed to have the tailstock attached to the unit. I never use the tailstock when turning bowls, so this doesn't work for me. There is some chatter with harder woods and bigger cores, but it works very well.

The Oneway is the most expensive of the group. Of the three, I prefer it for bigger cores, 14 inches and bigger. The support finger that goes under the blade makes it nice and steady for the big cores. Besides the price, there are 2 other things I don't really like. You have to turn off the lathe to advance the finger. This isn't much of an inconvenience, but it does take extra time. Also, it is a pain to sharpen. You have to unscrew the cutter from the blade, then using your fingers or a jig, you have to hold it up to the grinder. The other systems can be sharpened/touched up with a daimond hone, then it is back to work.

What lathe do you have? All 3 systems remove a kerf about 3/8 inch wide, with the exception of the mini KM set. The ease and/or difficulty that you have when doing this with a scraper or gouge will tell you how well it will work on your lathe. Use the low speed range on your lathe if you have one. For 1 hp motors, the Woodcut and the mini KM work the best. The Oneway and the standare KM work, but you have to go easy with it. 2 hp works best for coring.

Do start with green wood for your first attempts. Do make sure that your blank is firmly attached to the lathe. With the KM and the Oneway, you can leave a face plate attached for remounting the core. You can't do this with the Woodcut. I take the largest core first. I mount the blank with a recess/expanding chuck (done on the drill press) on the top for turning the bottom. Turn the outside and a tenon or recess, then reverse, and core. Finish turn the blank that is on the lathe. Take the core, and remount with the existing recess, turn the bottom and outside, core, etc. You never have to take the chuck off.

See if you can find someone who has the systems and watch them, and even try them to see how they work for you.

robo hippy