Ouch!

...sorry to hear this, ouch indeed.

Put a dark background behind a light-colored wood, light behind a dark. It'll help you visualize the edges.

I prefer to sand with a supported handpiece on a flex shaft for this, and for other reasons.

"George" wrote: Put a dark background behind a light-colored wood, light behind a dark. It'll help you visualize the edges.

I prefer to sand with a supported handpiece on a flex shaft for this, and for other reasons. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ George is right. A natural-edge bowl usually has a wavy edge, and reaching inside to sand inside is inviting trouble. I would be inclined to power sand with a flex shaft, with the lathe stopped.

For visualizing the flying hazards of the edge with the lathe running, I find a laser beam is very useful. However, I'm talking about doing this while turning, not sanding.

Even normal open mouthed bowls present a danger sanding by hand. After years of no accidents, I got to ambitious sanding a bowl and moved my fingers holding the sandpaper too close to the center of the inside bottom surface.

It flung my index finger around in a circle in a split second and sprained it badly. I was lucky nothing broke.

I now have plenty of sand> Hello,

"William Noble" wrote: if I may slightly disagree with the esteemed Mr Leo, if you power sand with

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For those fortunate enough to won Stubbys, or other lathes that will turn very slowly, you are right. For those whose lathes have a bottom speed in the hundreds of RPM, reaching in is risky. Maybe turn or rock the lathe with one hand while power sanding with the other. It is often possible to use the sanding disk to produce slow rotation of the workpiece. (Maybe loosen or remove the drive belt.)

Curt, thanks for this. I believe in somebody or other's law: "Learn from the mistakes of others, because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself." Sanding by hand is exactly the kind of mistake that I can see myself making.

In return, I will contribute my own experience: breaking fingers does not improve with repetition; the second time you break one is not more fun than the first.

And I've broken all the fingers I want to break.

BobMac