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Bowl Blocks

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Mar 21, 2006
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Vienna, Virginia
Talking kiln Dried wood now, if the blank is not quite as thick as you need for a particular bowl, do you guys resort to glueing a waste block on the blank to turn to form the tenon for the chuck? If so, is a cheapo piece of pine adequate or would a harder piece hold better in the chuck? I have an apprentice chuck and would be compressing the tenon with those ridges. I would make the tenon about 3/8" thick.
 
A glue block is definetly the way to go to save your "good" wood. I would favor a harder wood than pine, such as maple and if you are turning a domestic wood yellow glue dried overnight will work. Many exotics are too oily for yellow glue. When using exotics clean the joint with acetone before using the CA.
 
Do It Often

Want to be careful on several things.

1. Use a sound hard wood. I save (Nah! Really?) scraps of 1x boards for this purpose. Don't be cheesy with size either. The more glue area the better the hold, and don't try to spin a 14" platter off of a 2" waste block.

2. Make sure that your waste block is thicker than your chuck jaws' depth. My DT chuck jaws are about 1/2" deep so I use a 1 " glue block. This way, when you compress the jaws, they don't grab at the glue joint and split your block off the turning blank.

3. Make sure that the joint between waste block and turning blank is very good. The surfaces should match just like any other good glue joint in wood (face grain to face grain). Don't expect your glue to fill gaps and provide the strength you need to keep from launching your turning if the joint fails at 1,400 rpm [damhikt].

4. Lathe makes a good overnight glue clamp between tailstock and spindle.

m
 
Glue block

TurningDog, I do not use a waste glue block, I just use the chuck jaws part way open, and the tail live center to hold my shallow bowls, platters.
I will mark the center on what will be the top, then draw a circle, band saw just to the outside of that. I then place the tail point in the center hole, bring up to the jaws face, turn a tennon on what will be the inside of the item, back the tail point away turn the item aroundm,grip in the chuck jaws. Tunr the bottom, sand through the grits.
Now if you do not have a vacuum system the following will not apply!

Once the bottom is sanded, I remove the item still in the chuck, turn it around and put it on my Johnny Tolly tail stock adapter. Put my vacuum drum chuck on the head stock, bring the tail stock with item on, up close to but not touching the vacuum drum chuck, lock down the tail stock, turn on the vacuum and advance the item until vacuum is achived. At this point, remove the chuck, sit it aside, bring the tail point up for support, turn the item inside, sanc as much as possible, then at the very last move the tail point away to remove that last little "nub" finish sand the "nub" area.
 
I use hardwood glue blocks all the time.
The two mating surfaces must be perfectly flat to prevent mishaps.

I use either medium or thick CA glue. Yellow glue also works well also, just clamp and let it sit over night before turning. The only time I ever had any problems was when I used expoy. Maybe it's me, but I swore off the stuff.

I started out using 4/4 stock, but a few months ago a friend gave me a big box load of 8/4 cut offs. I find using thicker glue blocks allot better. It moves the piece farther away from the chuck, and I can get more than one use out of them.
 
Of course you could always use a dovetail recess. Doesn't take much on dry wood. You visually keep all the depth you bought. Inside might not be quite as deep, but not more than an eighth of an inch or so.
 
Mark Mandell said:
Would not be my choice. Too much chance of "delamination & launch" :eek:

m
Not at all. A baltic birch ply glue block if propperly used isn't going to be extending past your jaws not that the very top edge of your jaws have any gripping power anyways and the whole thing has no more chance of ungluing and coming off the blank than any other glue block would.
 
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I frequently use a large forstner bit about 1/2" into the block, then expand my jaws to fit into the hole to turn the bottom first. As part of the bottom design I will make a ridge for the jaws to expand into when I reverse it. Works good for me but the bottom really bothers some purists. I do it just due to a lack of patience while waiting for glue to dry. If I do use a waste block it's usually a scrap of something hard like maple, walnut, or pecan. Sometimes I try to glue up several at a time but if nothing is glued I use the method above. Never have had a customer question why the bottom has a groove in it, just other turning snobs. :)
 
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