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Fixing a "Screw" Up

Robin Thompson

Robin Thompson

Joined
May 19, 2011
Messages
92
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18
Location
Sarnia, Ontario
Recently, in one of my rare posts, I indicated I had received numerous turning blanks when I purchased a used lathe. Many of these blanks were purchased as bowl blanks by the original owner and rough turned soon after he bought them. They have been sitting on a shelf since 2002. The thing is, this turner took the advice of the salesman that sold him a VL300 (his first lathe) and acquired numerous chucks, face plates and a Oneway Woodworm. What he didn't do was inquire how to use them. All the bowl blanks were mounted using the Woodworm. The inside was rough turned first rather than shaping the outside and creating a tenon or mortise for the chuck so the bowl could be mounted and reversed. Once the inside was roughed out he told me he reversed the blanks and held them by the lip of the bowl on a set of Oneway Jumbo jaws. So now what I have is roughed out bowls blanks with about a 3/4 inch deep hole in the bottom of each. I can remount the blanks and turn them but would like your thoughts on how to resolve the issue of the remaining hole. And I don't want to make a bunch of funnels.
 
It is not quite clear from your description why there is a big problem. If the worm hole is 3/4-inch deep, there is plenty of room to turn a tenon on the foot of the dried bowl blank. There was a long thread "Warped Bowl Turning" last June that discussed various methods for re-centering bowl blanks to turn (or true-up) tenons on the base of bowls.
 
I don't have a problem with remounting and turning the bowl. I can turn a tenon on the bottom of the bowl. There will be a 3/4 deep hole in the center of that tenon. I can reduce the depth of the hole simply by turning more off the outside bottom but I still have to finish the inside. At best I will have a bowl that has a bottom thickness of 1/8 inch. For a bowl with a wall thickness of 1/4 to 5/16" I really don't want to go that thin on the bottom so I am going to be left with a hole of whatever depth.
 
As long as there is going to be a hole centered withing the foot, maybe you could use it like it was part of the plan in the first place. It could be the basis for your "signature style". Maybe fill it with another contrasting wood with your burned initials in the center......or, use your imagination with that in mind.

-----odie-----
 
First how thick is the wood from the bottom othe hole to the bottom of the ? An 1/8”
You won’t have to turn much off the inside bottom.
CC5FB36E-2292-4482-9CC7-1B27D8D8491B.jpeg

If the blank has a nice shape making a tenon might mess up the shape.
I use tenons almost all the because I don’t like working with holes in the bottom.
If the bowls are large enough using a recess could save the shape. And you already have a hole

56BD593A-0A4E-4329-8B8F-96FE900CCD15.jpeg You may need to make a small flat to give the sidewall more support for the expansion jaws depending on the curve

If you have to have a hole you could fill it with epoxy and he glue a cabochon in the hole
 
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In the "good old days", according to a fellow club member who has been turning for over a half century before scroll chucks (or waste blocks) came along, green felt was the "way" to deal with those pesky screw holes. I think that Odie is on the right track. If it's too deep to make it a feature then maybe some decorative element could be used (something other than green felt :D) such as a contrasting disk or a button or a cabochon.

EDIT: I see that Al has hacked into my brain and saw what I was thinking. :D :) While not making any admissions, I just happen to know a few ways to conceal a bottom that is "scary" thin.
 
Al, I went with a recess on this blank because as you say the shape would have been messed up. I am very close to 1/8 inch from the bottom of the hole to the inside bottom. Odie, I was thinking of a plug and in the cabinet shop I manage when we have to plug a hole we say if you can't match it , contrast it. I do have a few pieces of Corion in different colors. I had not thought about initials but that is a good idea. Thanks you all for the input.
 
Reading your discription the first thing I would say is why you where told to turn the bowl with the hole for the wormscrew in the tenon. When I rough turn any wood I start with a piece and put it onto the wormscrew and turn the outside first with a slighly oversized tenon and put a very small dimple in the centre for later on then remount it in the chuck with the tenon and then turn the inside turning away the hole used to mount it to start with. This gives the opertunity to turn the bowl to whatever thickness that you want.
When I am ready to return the bowl from rough turning I mount it onto a jam chuck and bring the tailstock up and into the very small dimple to centralise the blank this allows me to return the tenon to the final size of the jaws and tidy up the outside before turning it around and completing the inside.
 
Robin, how valuable are these blanks to you?
Are they really worth the effort to complete?
Might they just serve as practice pieces?​

Maybe you could slice, dice, and reassemble to eliminate the woodworm screw hole — making something similar to this Frank Haworth bowl:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yswkNlixgg8
 
Now that is an option. I have some nice blanks that are worth saving. Most of the turning I do is segmented so I might give this a whirl. Thanks for the video Owen.
 
I just returned from a few days in Juneau for an art market and stayed with friends who have a great collection of wood bowls.

Several of their bowls have a heck of a story. In Haines, Alaska a man nicknamed Squeaky Smith passed away with 2000 very well made bowls completely filling a room. His wife slowly sold these bowls to galleries. So my friends have a number of his bowls they bought over several years, all after Squeaky turned his last bowl.

I would guess that many of these bowls were quite old when sold as new. One thing I delighted in was seeing faceplate holes in some bowls and a couple woodworm screw holes in others. Some were filled with a dowel, some with putty.

I personally would never leave these holes, but Squeeky did and they are part of the history, and to my mind they belong there and are perfect.

My personal take is that finish turning another man's rough turned bowl means that you're working on a collaborative effort. Why not just fill the holes however you see best fit, and call that his half of the signature?
 
Bill Boehme said:
There are some things that only bother woodturners. Assuming that the rest of the bowl looks fine, most people don't periodically pick up their wooden bowls to stare at the bottom.
Click to expand...
Bill you might amend that to include woodworkers. And maybe that is true of any craft, people do not see what the craftsman sees as an error , only the beauty of the piece.
 
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