First Bowl

Hi, Tanus. Not used to seeing you here!

If you found Darrell's site, take a look at his tool making pages. There are easy to follow directions to make tools that will help you through the different aspects of turning. I believe with your limited repertoire of tools you will be "up against it" if you are trying to get walls interior walls uniform and smooth. Darrell's site offers some solutions; make sure you don't miss his new videos.

I think you may need to accept that you will need other tools if you want to make your turning efforts enjoyable and less difficult to master. Whether you make them or buy them, it seems that you need more than a couple of tools to turn both spindle and bowl orientations on the lathe.

To the group though, I am aware that there are turners that use only two or three tools (scrapers mostly) to do absolutely everything. Good for them (or you).

But for me, I was never sad bought a 3/8" bowl gouge, a 3/4" roughing tool and a 3/8" spindle gouge. Leaving my old Delta set behind (which had tools that were neither bowl or spindle friendly) and purchasing those three tools made lathe time real fun.

My 0.02.

Robert

Well, I am much more experienced than you are having turned 3 more bowls than you have, so here's my 2 cents. I haven't done 2 bowls the same yet and I have made enough mistakes already for at least a dozen bowls or two. You should see how far the bowl goes when it breaks loose from the wood that's screwed to the faceplate. Here are the reasons, so far, that I have had trouble getting to the inside of the bowl: When attaching the bottom of the bowl to the headstock with a "faceplate mounter" as you did:

1. I used a live center in the tailstock to support the outer end (the "inside" of the bowl to be) and therefore left a "top" shaped center in the bowl for the center to contact. That made the distance between the edge of the bowl and the "top" very narrow. I ended up making the "top" a lot smaller to give me some more room.
2. Same as #1, but the tailstock itself got in the way of the tool I was using. To minimize this problem, but not eliminate it, I set the tailstock ram as far out as it would go.
3. Same as above, but used a spur center at the headstock. This still requires a tailstock support so my problems and solutions were the same as 1 and 2.
4. When attaching the bowl to the headstock with the faceplate mounter, I can remove the whole center of the bowl (the top)because I don't HAVE to have a tailstock support, but I do use it untill I have gotten the inside started. Once the "top" is removed, I still have trouble because its hard to get the tool rest close enough to that inside edge of the bowl to have good control. I made an S-shaped tool rest and it helps a lot. I used tool steel for mine, but a piece of hardware store steel should be okay for a short run.
5. If all else fails, (don't tell the real bowl-turners that I said this) 60 grit sandpaper (or maybe even 40)will do wonders to clean up the rough parts. Of course I've never done anything like that. I just heard that it would work well. The sandpaper WILL get hot.
6. Keep this a secret too, but the parting tool is pretty good at taking little clean up cuts as long as you have good support and plan the pivoting of it.

By the way, I still plan to make more bowls anyway, so I did buy one of those 4 jaw chucks. They really work well.

Pete Stanaitis

------------------

Tanus wrote:

HI Robert. I mostly lurk on this site. I'm really so inexperienced, I don't have much to contribute.

I was afraid I was going to need more tools. And SWMBO thanks you for encouraging me to spend her grandchildren's inheritance on a more worthy cause. I suspect I'll go over to LV and buy something rather than make it. I like Darrell's site and its tips but I'm in a bit of a time crunch, and buying makes more sense than making at this stage.

That's the kind of thing I was looking for, Robert. Essentially I can't do elegantly what I want to do with what I have.

Thanks.

Tanus

I've been having good luck with the glued on mounter. It seems to be holding quite well, even through the rounding out process. The shop is unheated unless I'm there, and that glue job has seen

-30°. If it'll handle that, it's likely good til I need to disassemble.

I had thought of using both head and tailstocks for this job, and decided against it, figuring I'd run out of room like you did.

I have the same problem with the tool rests. Mine are both simple straight pieces of metal. I like the idea of the S-shaped rest, and I may either buy or make one. I'd seen them before, but never thought of it til you mentioned it. That will solve half my problem. If I could convince my drive motor to go the other way, I'd have the whole thing solved.

Thanks for the ideas.

Tanus

do a search for oland tool. I just made two of them and only spent less than 20 bucks. took about 11/2 hours to do both. these things are great! I am waiting for some m2 cutters from amazon but in the mean time I busted the flutes off a drill bit and ground the smooth end to an edge. grind a flat on the top and round the end to around 20 to 30 degrees. I used 5/8 rod and a 1" copper union for the ferrel on a 20" handle.

skeez

You can stick the straight tool rest into the bowl to get your rest closer to the wood, I do this very often, you can also stand on the backside of the lathe to do the turning, or at least some of it, I've done this often enough, especially when making a more closed-form bowl, but it is handy to have a remote switch you can use so you don't have to walk back and forth to stop and start and stop the lathe. My lathe and some work are here to peruse if interested

get a decent bowl gouge - you DO NOT need an S shaped tool rest - agree with Leo's post - I've turned some fairly large bowls and sold them at galleries in the 30 inch and up range - I just use the straight tool rest that came with my lathe - I may angle the rest into the bowl mouth, but I still end up with an overhang meaured in inches - this is not a problem with the right tool, but it's fatal if you are using a spindle gouge on the inside of the bowl.

you will need a bowl gouge no matter what you do - and a gouge is cheaper than the aftermarket tool rest.

"> I have the same problem with the tool

Cool. That sounds so easy. I need to get more into this kind of thing. Thanks.

Tanus

Hi Leo,

Sometimes it's just interesting to see how far one can go. You're at a stage that I likely will never get to, but it's wonderful to see what others can and will do in this hobby.

Going around to the backside of the lathe is possible, but tricky because of my setup. A remote switch will help that out, but I need to experiment with it some more. I'd thought about it before, and figured there might be a better way. Judging on what you're saying, there isn't. That's what I love so much about forums like this. Ideas, ideas, ideas...

Tanus

Again as in my response to Leo, thank you for taking the time to give a newb a few pointers. It makes life so much easier to find out basics this way.

Tanus

I finished that bowl. Unbeknownst to me when i started, the blank was two pieces of walnut laminated to form a 4" thick piece.

I never did get round to using some of the suggestions you folks kindly made to my first request. I had a bit of a time limit and wanted it finished so I improvised and ended with something that has whet my appetite.

I don't have pictures, btw. It's nothing much to look at anyway. 9" bowl that's been finished with tung oil. It looks ok.

Learned a few things about sharpening, about spindle speed, and how to hold something to turn it. Learned a bit about mess and dust in places I didn't know dust could go. Learned a bit of respect for spinning things and how quickly they might spin things into you.

Learned that this hobby has at least one thing in common with other woodworking. It's gonna break the bank if I keep up with it.

Learned that even in a very small shop, you can always squeeze just one more piece of iron and that right now the shop's biggest plus is its ability to allow things to go vertical.

As mentioned, it whet my appetite. I've got a ton of things to do in the shop, not the least of which is to continually learn and re-learn more and more basic techniques, which will cut into turning time. But with this simple bowl that wouldn't get me $5 at a craft fair ( I figure that translates to about $.07/hour) I've got something that has me wanting to do more and more.

Thank you guys for helping - the ones who responded and the other ones who are the core of any group.

Tanus

Glad there is another addict in the neighborhood.

To some point I agree with you about this hobby breaking the bank. The initial cost can be overwhelming and expensive, but once you have the the equipment and tools, you can turn wood without spending much money at all. It is amazing how much free wood can be picked up from local people. And after you get good, its amazing how many people ask you to come by and pick up some wood they've saved for you. Really, the only expenses lately have been finishing supplies and sanding materials. Like any hobby, there are always things you want, or things you think you "need", but with a little digging on the web, asking questions here (and other places), and a little ingenuity, you can build most of the things you want that are nearly better than anything you can buy.

Good luck and have fun. And don't hesitate to share on here, that's what makes RCW so interesting to me, all the different experiences everyone shares here.

JD

When someone asks me what kind of wood I like to turn, my answer is "free."

I like free stuff, because firewood it was at the beginning, and if it becomes firewood at the end, I've lost nothing but time.

It frees me up to take chances, to try things, and not to have to worry about wasting a paid-for blank.

I have several that I paid for, and I haven't gotten up courage to put a chisel to them.

Old Guy