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I have long admired the fine lines that Odie turns into many of his pieces. I usually don’t embellish my turnings, relying instead on the colour and grain of the wood to speak for itself. But in this case, I decided to try the fine lines. This is box elder with a natural edge on one side and a work in progress. I decided to make it a thick-walled bowl with possibly a domed lid. After sanding, I used the point of a sharp skew chisel to make the lines. After cutting 4 of them, I noticed a variation in the depth. Apparently the left side of the bowl was softer than the right side and the sanding process reduced it by perhaps several thousandths of an inch, just enough to be noticeable when I turned the lines. There’s also the possibility that the left side was rounded over more than the right side during sanding. So I guess the lesson here is to limit the location of the embellishing lines to areas of solid wood. Any other suggestions?
1F2DE59B-F7FE-4D0A-8A73-07C1C34BAE20.jpeg
 

Bill Boehme

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Where is the rest of the piece? Are you still looking for it?

My suggestion is to work on perfecting the tool finish so that you don't need to sand as much. Sanding will always alter the geometry simply because wood is not a homogeneous material as you have observed. Once the perfect geometry has been altered by sanding, you won't be able to create nice even detail lines.
 

hockenbery

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It’s close. Nice looking piece. Sanding will create an uneven surface.
Could be from the turning too. When I ride the bevel over the air gap like you have I have the tool handle locked to my side the forward hand keeping the tool stationary on the rest. But it’s not perfect. I would expect cutting deeper by a few thousandths across the air gap is likely possibility.
 

john lucas

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Ditto what everyone else is saying. It's amazing how flat you think a surface is until you start to add texture or lines. All of the sudden it shows up. Of course we wood turners are probablly the only ones that really notice. Excellent piece.
 
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I went through a stage where I would do a pencil test. This was holding a pencil, very gently against a spinning bowl to see how close to perfectly round it was. I never got a perfect pencil line all the way around a bowl. I got best results with smaller pieces, and with a shear scrape for a finish cut. There always seems to be a tiny bump in most bowls, which corresponds to the grain orientation. With a shear scrape, you are not rubbing the bevel, you hold the tool steady and let the wood come to the tool. This always seemed to yield a more perfectly round piece.

robo hippy
 
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I went through a stage where I would do a pencil test. This was holding a pencil, very gently against a spinning bowl to see how close to perfectly round it was. I never got a perfect pencil line all the way around a bowl. I got best results with smaller pieces, and with a shear scrape for a finish cut. There always seems to be a tiny bump in most bowls, which corresponds to the grain orientation. With a shear scrape, you are not rubbing the bevel, you hold the tool steady and let the wood come to the tool. This always seemed to yield a more perfectly round piece.

robo hippy
Thanks Robo, will keep that in mind next time.
 

john lucas

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I suspect there is always a little bit of wood movement as well as tool bounce on grain changes so that we never really get a truely round bowl. At least not round like a piece of steel on a machinist lathe.
 
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I have always figured that one reason bowls tend to go oval is because of higher speeds and grain orientation. Odie can get his bowls almost perfectly round so his details are crisp and even.

robo hippy
 
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