Newbie really struggling

[Scott Brandstetter]

So I had fun today and finally got the chainsaw out and cut up some bowl blanks from some downed trees in a new section of my country neighborhood. Of course I couldn't let them sit so I took one of the most basic blanks and thought I'd try a simple bowl. Up to this point I've only turned very small bowls from the log pile. This particular piece was approx 12 x 4. Anyhow, this is where I need help. I just can't get the relationship of the bowl gouge as it get's close to the edge of the bowl. I swear, I have read every article and watched as many videos as possible but just can't seem to hold, twist, turn, or angle the gouge the correct way. The bowl I turned tonight I caught the lip and ruined the edge.

I am planning to take more classes but thought that maybe, just maybe, one of you could give me a suggestion that would make the old light bulb go off before I can get to the next class.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Breck Whitworth]

Scott,
It sounds like your main problem is when entering a cut near the rim or edge of your bowl. It is very easy to get a blow-out here that ruins the rim. You are using a push cut to hollow the inside of a bowl. When you get close to the edge be very careful to move the handle of your gouge way away from you over the bed of the lathe. Otherwise the tool may blow right across the edge of your bowl and ruin the rim when starting your cut. To ride the bevel you have to have a starting point for it to ride on. Once you have started your push cut it will be easier to ride the bevel into the center of the bowl. The spinning action of the bowl will always pull your gouge right across the rim and ruin it unless you carefully cut into the bowl using the technique I mentioned then once you have a starting place it will be easy to finish your cut. I hope this helps until you can find a better source.

 

[Scott Brandstetter]

Scott,
It sounds like your main problem is when entering a cut near the rim or edge of your bowl. It is very easy to get a blow-out here that ruins the rim. You are using a push cut to hollow the inside of a bowl. When you get close to the edge be very careful to move the handle of your gouge way away from you over the bed of the lathe. Otherwise the tool may blow right across the edge of your bowl and ruin the rim when starting your cut. To ride the bevel you have to have a starting point for it to ride on. Once you have started your push cut it will be easier to ride the bevel into the center of the bowl. The spinning action of the bowl will always pull your gouge right across the rim and ruin it unless you carefully cut into the bowl using the technique I mentioned then once you have a starting place it will be easy to finish your cut. I hope this helps until you can find a better source.

Breck, thanks so much for the response. I read as much as I can I know you are always there to many on this forum, I appreciate you taking the time for us new guys. I think maybe a light did go off thanks to your response. I scratched my head standing at the lathe wondering how I can handle the middle of the bowl but couldn't get the edge or rim. I think it's exactly what your are saying. If I use the same angle that I do with the center, it now makes sense I have to move the handle far further across the bed of the lathe to repeat the same angle....which I haven't been doing. Now I can't wait to apply this in the morning. It also makes me wonder if I don't have my lathe in the right spot in my shop. I have it a foot or two parellel to a wall, and maybe that is "binding" me a bit.

Thanks again for the response. I don't have a lot of knowledge on wood turning yet but if you have a question on motorcycles that I can help with, fire away. Have a great weekend.

 

[odie]

Just for clarification, are you asking about how to enter a cut on the interior of a bowl beginning at the rim and proceeding toward the center of the interior?

If so, then Breck gave a good explanation of how to start the cut. In addition to this, I'll add that rotating the gouge on it's axis, so that the bottom of the flute is 90° to the cut will help, as well. Once the cut is established, the flute can then be rotated to the desired position.

ooc

 

[Scott Brandstetter]

Just for clarification, are you asking about how to enter a cut on the interior of a bowl beginning at the rim and proceeding toward the center of the interior?

If so, then Breck gave a good explanation of how to start the cut. In addition to this, I'll add that rotating the gouge on it's axis, so that the bottom of the flute is 90° to the cut will help, as well. Once the cut is established, the flute can then be rotated to the desired position.

ooc

Odie
Thanks for the reply and with the hope of absorbing everything I can, I want to make sure I understand what your saying. This may be hard to explain in text but here goes. If I have the bowl mounted on the lathe and the bowl gouge on the rest pointing in the center of the bowl, that is at 90 degrees? So, when approaching the rim I have to continue to rotate the handle as I move toward the rim to keep it at that same 90 degrees?

With that said, re-thinking the turning earlier in the day, I never brought my handle far enough over the center of the bed to achieve that same 90 degrees. One more question that this leads me to is this....When turning the inside of the bowl, is there a right or wrong whether to start at the center and go toward the rim or vice versa. Thanks again for all of the help

 

[odie]

Odie
Thanks for the reply and with the hope of absorbing everything I can, I want to make sure I understand what your saying. This may be hard to explain in text but here goes. If I have the bowl mounted on the lathe and the bowl gouge on the rest pointing in the center of the bowl, that is at 90 degrees? So, when approaching the rim I have to continue to rotate the handle as I move toward the rim to keep it at that same 90 degrees?

With that said, re-thinking the turning earlier in the day, I never brought my handle far enough over the center of the bed to achieve that same 90 degrees. One more question that this leads me to is this....When turning the inside of the bowl, is there a right or wrong whether to start at the center and go toward the rim or vice versa. Thanks again for all of the help

My apology, Scott........

After I posted that, I thought it might be a little confusing. This is where a picture is worth a thousand words, but we don't have that luxury at the moment. My fault, because now I'm a bit confused about what you are asking in your response.

OK......If the lathe is rotating in the standard counter-clockwise direction, and the cut is entered at, or slightly above the 9 o'clock position, the bottom center of the flute will be directly pointing away from the center of the bowl....using 90° to clarify this was not the best way to make that description. You will be starting the cut with the right side of the flute facing down and resting on the tool rest, with the cut starting in the very center/bottom of the flute. This helps to initiate the cut, but isn't necessarily the best flute orientation for the entire cut as it progresses through towards the center. Depending on the shape of the bowl, often times the best flute orientation will not be the same through the entire cut. In other words, rotating the gouge on it's axis during the execution of the cut will, often times, give the best possible cut.

Breck's point about pushing the handle away from you and across the bedways, is good advice, and my input is in conjunction with his explanation......not to be taken as separate.

Hope that is a little clearer than mud!

ooc

 

[Bill Boehme]

The translation of going from the written word to visualizing how things are done can be quite difficult in the beginning and it doesn't help that woodturning requires you to have an intuitive "feel" for using the gouge when you haven't yet experienced what that means. I think that if you do not live close to a local club, the next best thing is the DVD on bowl turning basics by Bill Grumbine.

 

[Scott Brandstetter]

The translation of going from the written word to visualizing how things are done can be quite difficult in the beginning and it doesn't help that woodturning requires you to have an intuitive "feel" for using the gouge when you haven't yet experienced what that means. I think that if you do not live close to a local club, the next best thing is the DVD on bowl turning basics by Bill Grumbine.

Bill,
Thanks for the response. I will look up Bill Grumbine and order his DVD. I do plan to join my local club and still make my weekly trip to WoodCrafters.......met a really nice fellow that always smiles when I walk in. I think he loves to see the new guys and help them out. In regards to the intuitive "feel", I agree whole heartedly. I really think I have a mind and a touch for this but, I think my biggest problem, is wanting to conquer it quicker than the good Lord allows. You guys have skills and I can't wait to come close to it, at some point.

 

[Hu Lowery]

finally something I am good at!

First off, regard anything said in this post with great caution until vetted by more experienced turners. What I am very very good at is destroying bowl rims starting inside cuts!

The first thing to address is the twist of the bowl gouge in your hand, the angle of attack of the cutting edge. The top edges of the flute when it is laying on the tool rest, the C should be just like the C in my message with the open part of the C facing the bottom of the bowl. Then open the C only a few degrees, have the top of the C the tiniest bit behind the bottom of the C so the cut starts with the bottom of the gouge. Even when cutting aggressively deeper in the bowl the flute should never be laid over past 45 degrees and half that is plenty for those of us just trying to get a finished bowl produced.

Now what I haven't seen is any talk about the bevel of your gouge and it is critical. For the final starting cut the bevel on the nose of your flute should be exactly parallel to the outside wall of your bowl so you are making a cut parallel to the outside. However, an often used cheat is to pull the handle further towards you and make a very shallow angle cut towards the inside of the hollowed part of the bowl. Do this several times just making a tiny nick on the inside of the bowl rim, gradually working towards the parallel angle you are seeking.

SMALL CUTS, carefully supported with the tool rest close are the secret to starting an inside cut. Too aggressive, wrong angles, BLAM! Also, a tip from metal working that is more conservative than wood turners usually practice, especially good ones, never take more than one-third of your remaining material off with one pass. It is possible to take more but one third is very conservative and will help keep a beginner out of trouble. A highly experienced turner will turn a bowl in a tiny fraction of the time a beginner can. Speed ain't our game right now, getting to that sanding and finishing stage is!

I haven't looked for awhile but go to youtube and search on Lyle Jamieson. A master with the gift of explaining things to beginners and the clearest and best free video's I have found. "Free" is relative, I will be buying his DVD's and some of his tooling, exactly what the free video's are intended to do. However there is a tremendous amount of great information in his free videos. Have to admit that with my horrible internet speed here and bandwidth limitations I downloaded the video's to watch. If you can't watch them on youtube, PM me your e-mail and I'll send you the most relevant. There should be around twenty of his videos on youtube and I consider them all gold!

Finally tip, sharpen your gouge before starting to try to create a rim, and sharpen again every few passes. A sharp gouge makes things far easier, scary sharp is best. The gouge should go through the wood almost by itself. If you are having to force it with more than gentle pressure something is wrong, stop and figure out what.

Just a fellow beginner and bowl buster,
Hu

 

[hockenbery]

Scott,

Your problems could be any one or a combination mistakes.
I can tell you the process I use in turning and hollowing a bowl.
I use a side ground gouge with Ellsworth grind.

Sharpen the gouge.
I shape the outside cutting foot to rim with the rim facing the headstock.
( mount blank on a screw center 8-10" diameter for the first few)
Flute faces 9 o'clock - see picture

Sharpen the gouge
Mount the bowl in a chuck bring up the head stock.
true the rim cutting from outside of bow toward center flute at 3 o'clock..
Flatten the whole area of what will be the rim if it is not flat. Get rid of any chainsaw marks.

Remove the tail stock. This I a link to a YouTube video if a bowl I am hollowing in a club demonstration.
The hollowing is done with the flute pointing at 3 o'clock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flw..._gdata - Video Tube for YouTube - iPhone/iPad

Once I start hollowing I don't work the rim any more.

A class will make all the difference.
Do use smaller blanks it is much safer!

Have fun,
Al

 

[Bill Boehme]

Here is another video on bowl turning basics by John Beasley at the Golden Triangle Woodturners in Denton, Texas. Bowl Turning Basics

 

[Jerry Bailey]

One more question that this leads me to is this....When turning the inside of the bowl, is there a right or wrong whether to start at the center and go toward the rim or vice versa

I have found this image to help in interior cutting steps, from a free tutorial (pdf available)
Fine Woodworking, Bowl Turning basics
http://www.finewoodworking.com

 

[odie]

Here's another drawing that explains where the best direction of cut in relation to the grain is shown. This is my drawing, but it was inspired by a drawing I saw in a John Jordan video about 20 years ago.......

Note.....not everyone will have the same techniques that I do, but I seldom use scrapers on the interior of bowls. When you can use them, gouges give the best cut. The exception, and not always used here, is when the bowl has a radically inward facing wall, such as in my drawing. In this case, the interior cut from the largest diameter up to the inside of the rim may be done with a scraper in a shearing cut, or a Hunter tool. I have both a Hunter straight and swan neck tool which I commonly use in this location.

I generally would not suggest a newbie to do radically inward slanting walls on bowls until they get a little more experience. That's advice I didn't follow when I was first learning......because I didn't know any better! (I'm lucky to still be alive!) This shape of bowl can get dangerous if a little knowledge doesn't precede experience. All this is true for that little area done with scrapers and Hunter tool I attempted to explain above.......But, if you do attempt it, try a little more gentle slope than that in my drawing for your first efforts.

ooc