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So I saved another one!

Bobby Smith

Bobby Smith

Joined
Oct 23, 2018
Messages
252
Likes
159
Location
Omaha, TX
So I had bought me a kiln dried blank a couple weeks ago. Finally decided to try turning a dry bowl. It did turn a little harder than the green wood but I was able to get over that by trying to keep my tools sharpened. I like using a mortise and I decided seeing's how I would take this to finish I wasn't gonna change that right now. Well that turned out to be a bad idea. Anyway, I had my lip just a little too thin and I knew it, but thought I work careful anyway so I'll give it a shot. I put the tailstock on it for a while until I needed to get it out of the way. Was gouging away when I got a bad catch. Off the bowl went. Luckily only gouging at about 870 rpms. Just jumped to the floor. Nothing hurt but the lip of my mortise . I almost thought darn, another for the woodpile as I haven't made a jam chuck yet. BUT, I did just get in my Cole Jaws. Put the bowl on them, moved the tailstock in, and was able to make a tenon. I think I will stick to using tenons now as I also learned that I can clean up the bottom with my cole jaws if needed. So here is my bowl. Done with Sapele wood.
 

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Very nice bowl. I have cole jaws and I use the tailstock with it till the last little bit of center. I now have a vacuum system and I do the same. As long as the tailstock can be used I use it. Sometimes with a vacuum chuck it will slip a bit and still stay on but the tailstock keeps it centered.
 
Very nice bowl, Bobby. Jam chucks are simple and I frequently fabricate one out of a leftover piece of a previous project. I had ignored using my Jumbo jaws (Oneway equivalent to the Nova Cole jaws) for many years, but now that I have them on a dedicated chuck I have rediscovered their usefulness and use them when not using a jam chuck or a vacuum chuck. I also have a 20 inch set of bowl jaws (the Vicmarc equivalent to Jumbo and Cole jaws) that I use when making a basket illusion piece.
 
Thanks y'all! I thought it turned out nice. The wife loved it. Lol So I'm gonna make a jam chuck for sure. But I have a question. Lets say that you use a tenon for the bottom of the bowl. You finish the bowl but you want to change up the bottom to do something smoother. How would you do this with the tailstock against the wood? Lets say you wanted to make a recess in the bottom.
Thanks for all the comments y'all!
 
Yea Al, I am not at that comfort level narrowing down to the tailstock. I get nervous about it breaking on me if I get it too narrow or catch it trying to shape. I've had one small project a couple months ago that broke on me narrowing down to the tailstock to get ready to cut-off. It snapped first. No damage done, but I still don't like the idea of wood flying in the air and not know where it's going. Lol I guess that will just have to be something that time and experience with turning will fix. For now, I guess I'll just stick with tenon bottoms or what I am comfortable with using cole jaws.
 
Nice shape on that one Bobby. You are evolving. I use a recess almost exclusively, except on spindle/end grain pieces. Catches are a pain, but you will get around them, well most of the time, eventually. Best guess is that you had the catch when turning the inside of the bowl??? That inside wing is the one that wants to catch. I ALWAYS keep the flutes rolled over to 45 to 90 degrees to prevent that catch...

robo hippy
 
Lamar Wright said:
Great job Bobby....you have come a long way indeed! I like what you did on the rim and a beautiful finish to a nice piece of wood.....;)
Click to expand...
Thanks lamar! Besides the one mishap, I felt good about this one. Made me feel I accomplished something this time. Plus its a little bigger at 6 1/2" x 2 1/2" deep.
 
Bobby Smith said:
I am not at that comfort level narrowing down to the tailstock. I get nervous about it breaking on me if I get it too narrow or catch it trying to shape
Click to expand...

Perfectly normal. You will get there one day if you want to. One of the big benefits of a quality bowl class is you get to do the reverse chucking under a watchful eye. You come away not only with skills,but confidence in holding the work.

You can practice with scrap wood to build skills and confidence.
Use a scrap of 2x4 jamb it against your chuck jaws, turn it close to 3.5” round, turnna tenon, put it in the chuck, make a small hollow, reverse chuck it and turn the tenon away. If you leave then tenon on you have a jamb chuck just round over the rim edge so it won’t mar the good bowl.

You can do it all with a spindle gouge. Just go slow and methodical.
Every cut 1- put the tool on the tool rest, 2- put the bevel on the wood nit cutting, 3- move and roll the handle to engage the lower cutting edge. ABC anchor bevel cut

As you cut a cone of wood develops between the live center and the bowl. 3EA12D63-8A2F-4DD5-A41F-27870E07B746.jpeg
This is easily be broken if you
Put too much bevel pressure against the cone as you cut it
Push the point of the gouge into the pointy end of the cone
Let the gouge go under the cone( keep the tool rest close and little higher than center.)

On the other hand if you don’t do those things the cone will support the bowl nicely until the pointy end gets narrower than 3/16”
 
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