I assisted at a workshop run by Al Stirt this morning. He demonstrated balancing the figure in a bowl using his shop-made bowl driver to adjust the blank such that the endgrain rings are centered in the bottom of the finished bowl. We had several Oneway Big Bite twin spur drives on hand for the students to use. Al is a great teacher and demonstrator with many decades of experience. It was inspiring to watch him shape a bowl so quickly and cleanly! He's getting up there in years and doesn't travel as much but is still pretty spry. We're lucky to have him living only an hour from the club shop. A good time was had by all.
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Stirt sighting
- Thread starter Kevin Jenness
- Start date
@Kevin Jenness - the linked bowl driver looks neat - have a question which maybe you can answer. The center lag bolt - is it fastened to the wooden block? If so, how? If not does it freely spin and move in and out?
I'm not sure how the center lag bolt is secured in the block, but it is. I guess it has threads just below the head engaging in the block which are ground off where the bolt enters a hole drilled in the blank. The center pin floats in the blank hole, allowing for irregularities in the bowl's top surface. Al said he originally had 4 adjustable bolts around the perimeter but realized he only needed two oriented cross grain which he does not adjust. I will stick with my Oneway two prong drive for this balancing technique. Big Bite
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Dave Landers
Beta Tester
Another similar option is the Elio drive center. I have one of these and one homemade deal from a small old faceplate (with 1 center and 4 outer points). Al's looks similar to the Elio in how it would drive the wood.
Currently, I prefer the Elio over my homemade one because the 3 points (1 center + 2 outer) allow easier balancing adjustments and match an uneven surface better than the homemade one with more points.
The way I use them, and the way I see them working, is that the outer points provide the "drive" and the center point basically provides an anchor that keeps the drive from skittering off-center. That is, if/when the drive posts slip, they run a circle rather than spiraling and throwing the piece off.
Currently, I prefer the Elio over my homemade one because the 3 points (1 center + 2 outer) allow easier balancing adjustments and match an uneven surface better than the homemade one with more points.
The way I use them, and the way I see them working, is that the outer points provide the "drive" and the center point basically provides an anchor that keeps the drive from skittering off-center. That is, if/when the drive posts slip, they run a circle rather than spiraling and throwing the piece off.
I have the Elio center and like it for uneven burl surfaces, but I would like it better if It were threaded or could be held in a chuck. I have had it spin and have decided to drive large unbalanced pieces with thread-mounted drives to avoid scoring the spindle taper. I should probably make a drawbar and tap the ends of some of my Morse taper accessories to avoid that.
I have the large Oneway two-spur blade and a 1" Oneway four-spur center, both chuck-mounted. The latter is better for adjusting (weight) balance points with it's adjustable length center point. The Big Bite works well for Al's grain balancing technique.
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I have an elio drive - the mid-sized one, and it works well on really convoluted surfaces. The way I wind up mounting most bowl blanks though is between centers using the Oneway big bite if I think the blank is pretty close to centered. If not a two-prong 2mt drive and a cup center is my mode of choice. This arrangement makes it easy to adjust for grain direction.
One of my first club meetings was an Al Stirt demo. (Sept 2002) I was blown away.