Turning Bowels

A good book--I like Richard Raffen Turning bowls

Some cheap wood--you'll make a fair amount of designer firewood

A good bowl gouge. I like the Sorby 1/2" fluted gouge. Works a lot better than a regular gouge for bowl work

After that, some time and a sense of humor to laugh at the mistakes.

It's loads of fun, enjoy.

And, if you really meant that you wanted to turn bowels, a box of Ex-Lax ought to do the trick.

Walt C

Run now, never turn the lathe on.

Upps, too late

Cheap chisels (until you know what you are doing, like this one

This is a nice set for bowls if you don't mind the $70...

IMO, good mid-range tools that should last through several sharpening attempts..

NOTE: I wouldn't/woodn't suggest doing a Google for "bowel turning tools" unless you're an aspiring surgeon.. *g* Mac

Find a near by woodturners club, and attend. Nothing like seeing the chips fly, and being able to ask questions. Look up American Assn. of Woodturners for their club listings. robo hippy

"Mark Russell" wrote: some days the fingers and brain don't connect ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Mark, your proposal to turn *bowels* turns my stomach.

Hi Ralph

Yes I know you mean well, but those are hardly bowl turning tools, except maybe the small scrapers, and it seems to be mostly the case with the low cost sets that they do not have bowl gouges in them, a good quality bowl gouge is costly I know but is well worth the price, IMO

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

What would you consider a good bowl gouge? What would be a good price for one?

What's the capacity of the lathe? For the 10" types either 1/4 or 3/8 flute. For a 12" type a 3/8 or 1/2. Note that sizes are quoted differently by some manufacturers. You can get M2 for 50-75 dollars.

Your regular tools will be fine for the outside of the bowl, and if it's fairly shallow, the inside. The bowl gouges are longer, for those times when you have to reach a ways over the rest. Not that you shouldn't strive to keep the rest as close as possible.

No bargains at Woodcraft, but these are reputedly decent stuff.

Hi Mark Going to try this again, my just send reply has disappeared into thin air, :

O yes Darrell's website.

Hi Mark

I would second robo hippy's advice, find a wood turners club, you will get a hand up on all the different departments of wood turning, the wood, the lathe, the tools, the chucks, the sharpening, the finishing, etc.

It is also a lot less frustrating not to have to reinvent the wheel, most cubs also have a library with tapes, books and CDs about wood turning and people that are willing to hold your hand so to speak in getting you up and turning.

In the meantime some books on turning you would want and will go back to many times, Turning Bowls by Richard Raffan, Turning Green Wood by Michael O'Donnell, Bill Grumbines turning instruction, Ernie Conover and Mike Darlow are also good helpers.

Good bowl turning tools needed, a couple of good Bowl gouges and a heavy scraper, for instance P&N Professional tools, the bowl gouges I would get, a 3/8 " $30.--Can. and a 5/8" $45.--Can. at Lee Valley, and you make your own handle. A 1/2" thick by 1" wide HSS scraper runs $85.-- Can.

Robert Sorby tools are good also but more expensive as are Crown Tools those can run into the $100.-- range but have a handle as do Henry Taylor Tools, also good tools, Henry Taylor bowl gouges (measured across the flute btw) 1/4" $52.--Can and 1/2" $87.--Can.

Don't forget to peruse Darrell Feltmate's website he has one of the best down to earth informative sites, he's not trying to sell you stuff but just give good advise for all turners new orrrrr Old/used????? :o)))

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

... but think of the joy your straight line gave us!

Bowel - is this a half bowl/half dowel?

What would you use it for?

Bowls that can be used for walking sticks and eating on the walk? Drinking spaghetti soup?

Hello Mark,

I've been a professional woodturner (bowls primarily) for eleven years and would offer the following advice:

Use a good set of deep fluted, bowl gouges made from M2 High Speed Steel. I would try to get them with an Irish grind if possible, if not you can grind it yourself. If your lathe swings (2x the distance from the bed way to the centre of the spindle) 12" -16" I would opt for a 1/2", 3/8" and a 1/4" bowl gouge. If your lathe is 16"+ swing, add a 5/8" bowl gouge. If you have a smaller mini lathe with a swing around 10", just get the 3/8" and the 1/4" bowl gouge as the other two will be overkill on a small mini lathe.

I like the English manufactured tools the best, with a slight preference for Henry Taylor Tools, but the Hamlet, Sorby and Crown Tools are excellent as well. A good chuck is also nice to have, but you can wait on one of these if your pocketbook is not flush at the moment. My favourite chuck is the Vicmarc, Oneway is also a good chuck.

I really recommend that you get a sharpening jig to sharpen your tools. Although it can be done freehand, it is very hard for most turners to effectively sharpen freehand. The Woodcut Tru-Grind jig is excellent and affordable and will work on 6" or 8" grinders. It will sharpen most turning tools without having to get multiple jigs. The Kelton jig is also very good, as is the Oneway Wolverine. Remember, if you can't master sharpening, it will be hard for you to master woodturning! The jigs make it easy to master sharpening allowing you to concentrate on turning wood. :-)

As others have pointed out, the bowl turning book by Richard Raffan is very good. Most of my students seem to prefer a video though, so If I may, I would like to recommend my latest DVD video, Volume #3 which covers turning the bowl from the green log, to the finished bowl in 2 hours and 20 minutes. It is presented in a step by step format, so every step of the process is shown in the video. It also contains a nice feature on sharpening your Irish ground bowl gouge on a wet, or dry grinder. Many of the readers of this newsgroup have my bowl video and it has been very well received not only in the U.S., but in numerous countries around the world.

A good site to check is

P.S. We also have two electronic books on woodturning and a DVD video on turning writing pens that is also available.

Hi Mark,

Penn State Industries has a really nice round end scraper. About 1-1/4" wide and nearly 3/8" thick. Looks like a canoe paddle! It is High Speed Steel and costs less than $25.-- U.S.

The also offer bowl gouges but I haven't seen them so can't recommend them. But that scraper is a good deal!

Harry

Thanks to everyone in the group for being so helpful. I have found a The American Association of Wood turners here in Pittsburgh. I have e-mailed them and am waiting on the details of the group.

Thanks for the input on the tools. I was looking at some on ebay that seemed inexpensive. My guess is that they will not hold an edge very long and will need to be reheat treated to get a good hardness if they can get it at all. (I happen to be a blacksmith also so heat treating is not an issue if I know what kind of steel is used to make the tool).

I have several Japanese water stones and jigs for sharpening chisels and plane blades. I sharpen by hand I tend not to grind things because I have been too cheap to buy the jigs and wheels. I'll just have to bite the bullet and get the supplies I need(time to start saving money). Who makes the best wheels for grinding?

I have a delta midi lathe 10" bowl max. I'm in the process of putting together a wood shop. I have a 30 x 60 basement that is going to be partitioned off into a game room, storage, and wood shop(until I get enough money to build a pole building for my blacksmithing and woodworking).

Bowels....?

Hi Mark,

Steve is right about which bowl gouges to use. Grizzly has some nice ones at

Puts you at the small end of the gouges. It's not so much that there's a difference in diameter which would keep you from using a 5/8 over a 3/8 in a smaller bowl, it's that the tool will be that much heavier and longer, and things will just get in the way. You will want to keep a close-quarter gouge ground a bit steeper than a big honker, though.

If you're a smith, you know that M2 is pretty much M2 anywhere you go. There's a standard for the alloy. You also know that there's not a thing wrong with high-carbon steel in the edge department, though the standard is vague at best there. Carbon is just fine for those who turn craftily to accommodate it. If it's sharp, so you don't press and heat, it'll do anything the other alloys will. Shouldn't be pressing, anyway. Makes things come out of circular. I think I may acquire a fresh carbon set to replace those I've been using for fine and final cuts for the last twenty plus years. They finally came out with similar forged patterns in HSS, but it's still not the same.

Waterstones, and even my faithful India gouge stone are overkill for turning tools, that's why most turners use a grinder. The lathe is dragging the material over the edge for you, so you really don't have to do more than keep your gouge presented properly. You're carving, but you're not the power, you're the clamp. Lot of tolerance on grit for the final edge.

On the subject of grinder/stones, it's another one of those perplexing things. People say buy a certain item and then give you a head-shaker of an answer. It begins with "buy an 8" grinder, not a six. A six-inch grinder makes a deeper hollow grind." As if the wood understands the microscopic difference in gap? "Buy the 'friable' soft bond stones, they don't heat as much, and they take off metal faster because they keep presenting unbroken particles to the tool." Which makes sense when we have heat-resistant HSS to _sharpen_, not grind away? Only recommendation I will give and follow is to use a slow speed versus a faster grinder. Makes it more useful in the shop for folks like me who are not always properly focused, and forget to make a jig setting properly, or don't watch what they're doing and nick an edge. If you're coordinated and focused, probably makes no difference.

I use the 100 SiC green stones from Woodworkers Supply. Israeli-made, I believe. The writeup says ideal for HSS lathe tools because they remove so little metal. True, and since I'm freshening an edge, just what I want them to do.