I can't see a thing!

[John Hicks]

Ok, I can never seem to see inside the bowl or vessel I'm turning. Hunched over the lathe and struggling to see where the gouge is, seems to be the norm.

I've tried the light sold on WW and can never seem to get it in the right position to get light inside the bowl! Not to mention the goose neck is way too short and you hit your gouge handle on it if it's close enough to do any good.

I even tried that small led with magnets that is supposed to go on your tool rest; again, it won't stay and all the tool rests I have don't really have a flat spot to mount it, plus the bowl ends up rubbing the electric cord. The only thing I found good for general light is a chicken coop clamp light with a led flood light inside; but of course your body gets in the way when you are hollowing out the vessel. What do you guys/girls do for lighting??

 

[Zach LaPerriere]

I have three gooseneck lights, one fastened on an articulating arm from the overhead, the other two from the headstock. It seems like I usually have at least two lights on for the inside of a bowl.

 

[Richard Coers]

What's to see except for the final check? My fingers do most of the testing for wall thickness, grooves, and nibs at the center of the bottom. I only pull in a light to check for minor imperfections before going to sanding. Pull in strong lighting to check for sanding scratches though.

 

[hockenbery]

1. Hollow vessels - You can’t see inside a hollow vessel. Even the Bosch visualizer is only an illusion albeit a wonderfully accurate one. I use an auto inspection light to look inside when I want to.

2. bowls inside and out. Vision of the curve is greatly determine by which hand I put forward. For me right hand forward on the outside left hand forward for hollowing. DO NOT BEND OVER to see if you and you back wish to both enjoy turning. On th inside of a bowl when cutting on the ne’er side wall you can often see where you are you are cutting by watching the wood disappear from the far wall.

 

[hockenbery]

Keep your back straight and watch the far wall.
The open bowls are easier to see into. bowls deeper than wide, you can usually see the far wall until quite deep. But these I turn mostly by feel. Hollowing a goblet cup is all done without looking inside except when the lathe is stopped and then it is mostly feel. The one thing I do need to see is picking up a cut from the bottom center of a goblet with a hunter tool or termite.

The thread below has demo videos of how I turn a bowl for drying and how I return a dried bowl to finish.
http://www.aawforum.org/community/index.php?threads/working-with-green-wood.11626/

this is screen grab from the demo on turning a green bowl




Screen shots from the dry bowl part of the demo.
Most of the shaping of the wall is focus on the wood removal spot and evaluation the cut surface.
Let there be light. This is small gooseneck LED the club owns.

when at the bottom and working on a high spot I feel I watch where I cut or watch the high spot.

 

[Dave Bunge]

I attached a bracket to the headstock of my lathe, then attached one gooseneck lamp directly to the bracket and 2 smaller lamps to an articulating arm that extends from the bracket. The smaller lamps are LED units from IKEA that cost about $11 each, have been written about on the forums in the past. See picture below. This works reasonably well. At some point, I will probably put longer arms on the articulating section.



I agree with Al that on the inside it is often easier to see what's happening if you watch the wall 180 degrees from where you are cutting.

When inspecting for sanding scratches, I get best results using only one of the lamps in a raking orientation (light shine almost parallel to the surface). If it's really important or I'm in doubt, I'll turn off all other lights in the shop except for the single raking light.

 

[Timothy Allen]

If you have a sliding headstock, you could try bringing the bowl down to the end of the lathe, where you can stand in front of it and get a better view. If you don't have a sliding headstock, you can try standing on the back side of the lathe so you don't have to reach around, and can maybe see better what your are doing (imagine standing where the camera is located that took Hockenberry's photos!).

 

[Mike Johnson]

Once you get enough turning hours on a tool and you have the muscle memory instilled in your brain you do not need to watch the tool cutting. As Hockenbery noted above you can view the cut being made by the tool on the opposite side of the bowl. You can usually visualize what the tool is doing by the feel of the tool in your hand. Spending many hours turning on a lathe you need to develop a good healthy comfortable stance and tool technique, being hunched over a lathe trying to view down the opening of the hollow form will limit the hours of turning you can comfortably do in a day.

 

[odie]

I have three of these magnetic sewing machine lamps on my headstock.....they work great......and are cheap. I also have them on several other machine tools, and work areas. If you can wait for delayed delivery, they are less than $5 each w/free shipping, from China. Otherwise they are about $7.50 shipped. I purchased about 10 of them several years ago, and have several spares.

-----odie-----

 

[Lamar Wright]

I bought the same light Odie bought for my wife's sewing machine. Liked it so well I bought several for some of my machine tools as well.

 

[Tom Albrecht]

I purchased about 10 of them several years ago, and have several spares.

-----odie-----

No wonder we can't find those! Odie's hoarding them!

 

[odie]

No wonder we can't find those! Odie's hoarding them!

Now where is that laughing emoji when you need it!

-----odie-----

 

[Dean Center]

I believe I saw those at Craftsupply, listed as one of the KJR lights they carry. Maybe $18.