Safety Reminder

[Jake Truxal]

Thought I would take a minute and remind my fellow newbies something I would think everyone already knows but I'm sure we all have momentary lapses where we think we can do some small task safely and bypass normal safety precautions. I know I have on occasion but never again after what happened today.

I was turning a 10" x 5" X 1/2" walnut bowl. It was completed and ready for sanding except for a small chip out of the top edge from when I was hollowing. As luck would have it, I was cutting the top edge off the bowl to remove the chip and caught an edge and the bowl exploded.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS WEAR A FULL FACE SHIELD !!!

Fortunately I was wearing my face shield as the exploding pieces hit square in my faceshield with such force as I am sure they would have taken an eye and half my face with them.

On the bright side, I was able to glue the larger pieces back in and cut the bowl down to 3" (with a crack running halfway around the bowl that I have to work on) so it wasn't a total loss.

On a related note, after 35 years of general woodworking (newbie to turning, but woodworker for a long time) I was taking a shortcut on my tablesaw last year. I had an irregular piece of wood roughly 3 x 5 and was too small to use a fence normally and rather than rig up a jig for one simple cut I decided to do it by hand and although I hadn't experienced one in 35 years I found out the hard way that table saw kickbacks really do occur. This chunk of wood hit me on edge square in the gut and totally knocked the wind out of me. I was doubled over trying to breathe for 5 minutes and had a bruise that took a month to heal. So again, Please - SHOP SAFETY FIRST !

 

[Tony Latham]

Jake:

Thanks for the "tune up".

Out of curiosity, how fast was the bowl turning that came apart? I just finished a box elder bowl that was missing a chunk of edge from a bark inclusion and it certainly could have happened to me...

Thanks,

TL

 

[Malcolm Smith]

Good to see this thread. Any one who has done a lot of turning has had a bowl come apart when they had little reason to expect it. It's a time when one can feel happy about having had the speed set appropriately for the size piece, but even if it was, being struck in the face is likely to do injury. I use a pressurized dust mask so I have the same protection you were happy to have had. Also the glasses I wear behind the mask are made of shatterproof material.

A couple of points. Check the speed before turning the lathe on. I suspect that accidents occur because the last item mounted on the lathe was much smaller. Many lathes have several ranges requiring moving belts. I have a rule that this be checked on my Oneway before I turn it on. Also, I stand to the side when I turn the lathe on. My lathe has a switch that easily allows this as it is not on the headstock (thank you Oneway).

We all watch tapes of famous turners at shows. They are almost never seen with a full mask or any dust protection. This may lead to a lot of turners working this way. It should be pointed out that they have little choice as they need to be heard. We have a choice.

Malcolm Smith.

 

[MichaelMouse]

I was turning a 10" x 5" X 1/2" walnut bowl. It was completed and ready for sanding except for a small chip out of the top edge from when I was hollowing. As luck would have it, I was cutting the top edge off the bowl to remove the chip and caught an edge and the bowl exploded.

Without detracting from your message, you were not by any chance guilty of one of the traditional new guy mistakes, were you? When trimming the top edge, it is VERY important to pivot the tool from an initial bite in the center of the material either outward or inward. Pushing the tool into the edge from either direction without benefit of bevel support is a recipe for a disaster similar to what you experienced.

 

[Jake Truxal]

Actually Mike, I have to admit I did something very stupid that ruined all the time I had on the bowl. Wanting to stay away from the bowl gouge (because I still get lots of catches with it and I didn't want to risk gouging the bowl so close to completion). I used a 1" flat skew chisel flat on the toolrest at about a 45 degree angle outward, it was working very niclely. I was 98% of the way thru, but because I kept having to shave the part i was cutting down to get the point deeper into the wood I got this crazy idea that since I was so close to thru the wood I would just stand the skew on edge vertically and slice thru the last 1/16 of the wood. Well you know the rest of the story from my previous post ...

As far as speed, I have 4 pulley positions, the top speed says 2750 rpm, i was only on the 2nd (next to slowest) pulley. It was just my stupidity of the tool misuse.

It was most frustrating because of the 10 or so bowls I've made so far, it was going to be the first one to actually finish with the originally intended size and no cracks. Every previous bowl so far, I ended up reducing in size to cut away gouges from a catch. I still have alot to master with the bowl gouge. I have surprisingly gotten pretty good at sharpening the fingernail profile on the grinder without a jig though, so that is progress

 

[MichaelMouse]

I'm not a fan of scrapers at all. Using the bevel not only steadies the tool, it helps steady the work as well. When I use a scraper I rotate it into light contact and then pull or push along the rest, pretty much as I do with a gouge. Only problem is that the scraper doesn't give bevel support and depth control.

If cylindrical gouges were all we had to chose from, I'd have to use them for finishing cuts. Since they're not (yet), I use them for hogging, and large radius gouges for finishing. In presentation they're like your "shear scraper" folks have defined things, but there's a bevel on the piece to limit roll and penetration. With a cylindrical gouge you can get much of the same, but the sweet spot is so narrow you dull quickly.

 

[Jake Truxal]

Mike,
What width and profile bowl gouge do you use for your final finishing cut?
I currrently have a 1/2" fingernail bowl gouge. I've never tried a traditional profile. Will a wider and traditional profile be easier to get a smooth cut with?

I have a couple gouges that were given to me that I have never used, I'm not sure if they are spindle or bowl gouges. Do all bowl gouges have the deep flute like my fingernail profile gouge? I'll post a picture on a seperate thread, hopefully somebody can tell me which is what.
thanks.