Walnut torture

Joe, you said you have been turning mahogany (you ought to hear how my granddaughter pronounces it), I would assume your are turning bowls with mahogany glue ups. If so, it is a matter of a very light touch on the walnut with your BOWL gouge, not a spindle gouge with a fingernail grind on it. That assumption being made:

Drill out the center of the bowl with a forstner bit (bigger the better) to get rid of the bulk of the material to be removed. Then, very, very lightly work from the center to the edge, cutting your thickness as you go. What I mean is, don't try to work the entire sidewall of the bowl at once. While you will probably have to come back and touch it up with a scraper or your bowl gouge acting as one, you will always be cutting into the thickness of the bowl and supported stock. (Make a cut from the center to the outside, go back to the center and cut to the outside again, until you have the inside to where you want it).

Where did you get the mahogany?

Deb

About the gouge -- is it a fingernail grind on a bowl (deep flute) gouge or a spindle gouge. What angle is it ground to?

I have dealt with some walnut that was just barely softer than the HHS gouge I was taking to it. Old (I mean ooolllllddddd) and very dry, grain all gnarly and gorgeous... and it would not (I mean wood KNOT!) cleanly cut with any tool or technique I tried. I ended up scraping a bowl out if it, to something more than my pre-determined desired thickness, then sanding the broken and torn surface for hours. And when finally I wiped on a liberal coat of oil, the grain popped and took my breath away... and sold it within seconds on a table full of thinner, more conventional bowls.

Sometimes you have to listen carefully to the wood you are turning. You have heard that your piece of walnut doesn't want to be cut cleanly by you, at this time. Your options? Put it aside until you get more experience.... or slowly and carefully scrape a bowl from it. Either way, it sounds like a wonderful learning experience and a great story in the making. Let us know how it turns out :)

Michael Latcha - at home in Redford, MI

=================================================

Evenin" Joe

Sounds like your not able to keep the bevel rubbing. That will let the gouge catch. One method I was taught was to come from the middle of the inside towards the outer edge with the hollow facing the area to be cut, pulling the tip toward you.

I hope this is clear.

The Other Bruce

Joe, A number of things could be the cause. Here's my input.

Is the grain direction perpendicular or parallel to the spindle of the lathe?

If perpendicular, this is normal 'bowl mode'. Hollow the inside from the outside in and make sure you are cutting with only the right hand (leading) side of the gouge. Don't let the absolute point or left side of the gouge cut. Also, try to feed the gouge more in a lateral arc through the piece or sliding along the rest. Avoid an in-line push.

If parallel, 'spindle mode', work from the center to the edge. Make sure your cutting is done with the leading edge as you pull it through. If the trailing edge catches, kaboom.

Then again, maybe it is one of the other dozen possible reasons causing the problem. Let us know how it works out.

David

snipped-for-privacy@aros.net wrote:

I think you need to do some reading or get somebody to give you a few lessons. As a suggestion try here for some good basic technique advice:

I would reduce the speed as much as possible and try adjustingtool rest height until you find something that works for you.Hope this helps

I think that you can save yourself a lot of torture and maybe an injury by finding a more experienced turner to give you a little coaching. Most of us are more than willing to help out a fellow turner -- that is the way we learned. Books and tapes are ok but no substitute for some one on one. And (s)he can teach you how to get that gouge ground right (it probably is not from the factory) and keep it that way.

Also, many of us refuse to use our chucks expanded into a recess. There are better ways to do it.

Bill

Deb,

Why do you assume that?

That's interesting. I've found, especially with ornery wood, that I like to work from the outside in, turning down most of the way to the bottom on the outside, so the inner wood (un-drilled) supports the rest of the bowl and there's much less vibration and movement.

Are you in need of mahogany? I know where you can get it, if you are. Up to at least 12/4 stock, anyhow, of genuine mahogany. (Nice stuff, too.)

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

Or - you don't know how....

are better ways to

A cute response. Maybe even not nice. But...

I find that a tenon will always do the job better and there is not the chance of blowing out the dovetail -- it happens you know. Anyway, I would never leave a dovetail on the bottom of anything -- I want no sign of how the piece was chucked or it is a failure as far as I'm concerned. So, I'd have to reverse chuck and get rid of the dovetail. That said, I'd rather get rid of a tenon.

I know that Raffin uses dovetails and leaves them that way on his work -- his logic is that he can then rechuck and re-turn a piece at any time. I wonder how many times a customer has brought a piece back to him to re-turn.

Bill

Your response to the first indicated that you do not know what holds a dovetail in the recess. You wrote "Also, many of us refuse to use our chucks expanded into a recess." It is not expansion into a recess that holds, it is a wedging of the nose of the jaws into the base of the piece by the dovetail. You are one of many, if this forum is any indication, who do not understand this. We have a lot of people talking about "tightening" in the recess, which is dead wrong. Take a look at

and followingto see how to add the recess to your turning possibilities.You also do not understand that if you care to decorate the bottom, you maydo so _before_ reversing to hollow, as long as you provide a flat surfacefor the jaws to bear against. I do not normally do more than sand smooth,but will gladly furnish photographic examples of this useful technique aswell, if your interest is in new creative opportunities. Last, the day a customer brings something for me to re-turn, refinish, embellish or otherwise modify what I have created to my own standard, is the day I give my first refund.

chance of blowing out

dovetail on the bottom of

That said, I'd rather

his logic is that

times a customer has

I greatly appreciate all the feedback.

I went a head and moved forward with the scraper and ended up with a pretty nice bowl.

've also decided to take a hard look at my technique. I've revisitedsome books and seen where I have a lot of room to improve. I'd like to know more about alternative ways to hold the bowl on the chuck.

Thanks again,

Joe

You did very well with your bowl, indeed. And you learned a lot in the process, which is even better.

There are but two ways to hold work in a chuck: on a tenon or in a recess. There are many other ways of holding bowls on a lathe, from faceplates to between centers to jam chucks to vacuum chucking. All have their place and use, all have those who swear by (and at) them. Explore all of them, keep what works for you. Look at the books and videos of Raffin, Conover and Jordon for starters. And always keep looking to refine your techniques.

Michael Latcha - at home in Redford, MI

Michael, "Hello" from across the street (I-96 & Telegraph) in Detroit.

Bill