• Congratulations to Alex Bradley winner of the December 2024 Turning Challenge (click here for details)
  • Conversations are now Direct Messages (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Gabriel Hoff for "Spalted Beech Round Bottom Box" being selected as Turning of the Week for January 6, 2024 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Confused and disgusted

K

Kudzu

Joined
Jul 15, 2005
Messages
7
Likes
0
Location
Heart of Dixie
Website
www.kudzu
I lurk here but don't post very often but I need some help bad!

First a little history. I learned to turn on an old Craftsman tube lathe many years ago. Turmed a lot of small bowls with just spindle gouges. Self taught and didn't know any better. While no really works of art I had no problem finishing the bowls to look good. Getting a good finish was not a big problem for me.

Had to quit turning for several years. Built a new house, bought a new lathe. Opted for an old heavy cast iron Yates American lathe. I added a chuck and a couple of P&N bowl gouges and start turning again. Still love it and find it great fun.

Now I can not get a smooth finish regardless what I do. Doesn't seem to matter what wood I am turning I have the same darn problem. I can't figure out to post a photo so here is a like to two.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Notice the marks about 1 inch down. This is largely end grain tear out here, but I have similar marks on everything I have turned. Never had this problem before. At least not like this! I might have had a few do this but I know it wasn't every bowl.

I have tried scraping with the sides of the bowl gouge. I have tried scraping with a round nosed scraper. I have tried shear scraping and it's better, but I end up with what you see. The only thing I haven't tried is using the spindle gouges on the inside. If I had thought of it I would have tried before I started writing this.

The outer edge of the bowl, maybe 1" in, I spent at least 10 minutes with 60 grit paper sanding with the lathe spinning. As you can see that didn't get rid of all the marks. At this rate it could take a couple of hours to get the inside of the bowl smooth with the 60 grit! Then I would still have to work on the outside.

FWIW the gouges are sharp and sharpened regular. I get nice curly shavings except in the end grain areas. I rough them out quickly and then start the fine cuts. On this bowl I was getting very small stringy wispy shavings on the finish cuts. This bowl is a DNA dried sweetgum.

Now, I am open to ideas of what I am doing wrong. I quit turning for several weeks because of disgust. Had to do some spindle work and decided to chuck up this bowl blank and see what happened. Well nothing has changed.

I don't understand what has changed. I don't think it would be the lathe, I suspect the bowl gouge might be part of the problem. But ultimately it's got to the something I am not doing right. Just have no idea. I live in an area where there isn't a turning club around or I would join! It's just frustrating to have been able to produce nice looking bowls and now not be able too.
 
Hard to tell from the pictures, but I have a suspicion or two. I think it's possible it's the gouge but without more info, I'd lean more towards the material itself. You don't mention type or moisture level in the wood, I'd guess it's dry. Also possible wrong gouge or catching?

Pure guesses on my part.

Paul
 
Try this

Couple of suggestions. Looks like in the picture that you are getting a bounce from the knot in the wood. Couple of options to deal with this. Steady the bowl with your hand and shavings on the outside of the bowl. Try changing the speed.
Second thought is your gouge. I have had good success with a traditional grind on a bowl gouge as I move closer to a finished piece. The fingernail grind works well in the roughing stage, but the 45% traditional grind is a better finishing grind.

Third thought is to use something to seal the grain before you make the final cut. I have used sanding sealer, paste wax, mineral oil, a wiped on coat of the final finish. All to much the same thing - allow the end grain to be cut rather that pulled out.
Final thought is to take the piece off the lathe and start again with a blank that doesn't have knots in it. Come back to the current piece in a couple of months after you have gained more experience.

Hope this wells.

Dennis Belcher
 
If I remember right - you and I met up at Ft. Payne about a year ago during a get together. I don't think you are too far from the farm here in Talladega County and you are welcome to run over and work on my lathe and we will see if we can figure out how to correct the problem. PM me if you would like to set up a time.

Wilford
 
One of the reasons I put the deep "bowl" gouge away after the interior is hogged out, and reach for the "continental" or "forged" gouges. I prefer to call them by one of those names, and not mention the word "spindle," so as not to offend the gouge police. Couple of wonderful things available with the gouge having the same thickness all the way across.

First is a bevel cut at the same angle all the way around so what supports at one point on the edge will still support at the same angle an eighth away. Variable angles ground on a gouge make it more vulnerable to tipping and catching where they are steep, or heel bruises where they become shallow. Couple this with cylindrical patterns and poor toolrest support as some try to pare with the wings and it's easy to get into trouble.

Second is the deepest part of the cut is the final trailing edge rather than the leading, which provokes more bumps and catches, though you can certainly lift a bit of the bevel off the piece and get aggressive if you care to to really move wood. With a double tilt on the gouge it's almost catch proof due to curvature of the gouge and rounding of the nose, while the broader curvature also allows much more bevel reference for stabilization and keeps support behind the shaving rather than tearing it out.

Then there's the piece itself, where flex can get you in trouble even with the best of angles and a sharp edge if you persist in impatiently pressing rather than waiting for the wood to slide down the edge and sever itself. Lots of people speak of using scrapers for the final passes without thinking what they're doing is actually getting firm toolrest support, taking thin (albeit unsupported) cuts, and being patient. Doing the same with the gouge would make the scraper superfluous. If you've got a generous family, might even get a steady to help in those 1/4" or less circumstances, saving your left hand to steady the tool rather than the piece and saving the meat at the base of the thumb from those cut/burn agonies that come when you bring it off the edge of the piece unaware.

Have a look at some cuts at http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n28/MichaelMouse/ and let the wood remind you how it wishes to be cut. Least pressure on the tool and a continuous shaving are your objectives.
 
Posted on another forum and got an answer and tried it. Of course I violated the first rule of trouble shooting. I did two things at once, so not sure which was the cure. I made a slight modification to my grind and (probably the cure) I changed my technique.

It was suggested that I when making my final cuts my shavings should look like little cotton balls. I thought that was a great description. While my shaving were fine they were not that fine. So I messed around till I got what looked like cotton balls for shavings and the bowl looks 100% better.

MM, I well aware of the Gouge Police. 🙂 I Just never had a dog in that fight.

Wilfred, we never meet but we have emailed. I am bit further North than your thinking or I would take you up on that offer. I am closer to the Tenn. line so your 3 hours +/- away.

Thanks for the input from everyone. Hopefully I am on my way to curing this problem. Of course I strained a shoulder/neck muscle (hand) planning a table top yesterday and it's killing me. It hurts to sit here and type so I am not sure if I can turn today or not. But I am going to try.
 
Kudzu,

Glad you found a cutting solution to avoid the 60 grit gouge work. But, if reduced to course sanding - especially with the endgrain tears in the pix - it is faster and gives better results to lock the spindle with the problem area at 3:00 and sand only the problem area until it's gone. Then free the spindle lock and resand spinning with the same grit to blend the surface before moving on to the next grit.
 
Lathe Speed

Kudzu,
Probably irrelevant, as you seem to have found the answer, but will post anyway. Minimum speed on my 25 yr. old single tube Craftsman was about 800 rpm, and until recently I was pretty uncomfortable turning most pieces that fast. But I still turned a lot on stuff on that lathe. Anyhow, with new lathe I started turning everything a lot slower, but finally realized it was helpful/necessary to turn the speed back up to make the fine, smooth, finish cuts. Also "self-taught", and just hate it when the teacher knows even less than I do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top