Thanks!

[Dean Center]

I put a 12" roughed ash blank on the lathe today to finish turn. I started in turning the outside round, and when I got half way to the rim, I started to get bounce and had a heck of a time dealing with it. Freshly sharpened gouge, push cut, with every gouge in the rack, soft hands, slow motion, none of it worked. (I don't have a properly ground 40/40) Shear scraping and NRS would bring down the resulting ridges, but left a lot of end grain tear out. I certainly did not want to sand that much tear out or irregularities in very hard ash. What a dilemma.

Then I remembered discussions and suggestions from the forum. Per John Lucas, I pulled out my Hunter tool, which took a little while to learn to use as a bowl gouge, but soon found I could cut with it, without the ridges. It left a rather coarse surface, though not as bad as shear scraping, and potentially sandable in less than a month. Then I sharpened my big NRS and used my burnishing tool to put a burr on it, per Reed Gray (Robo Hippy). Eureka! Nice, true, thin shavings instead of dust, leaving a fine surface. I have to admit I have been skeptical about a burnished burr on an NRS, but after this experience, seeing those pretty shavings and the surface the burnished tool left, I am thoroughly convinced.

Thank you, John and Thank you, Reed! And thanks to everyone else who contributes their analyses and experiences to the forum. You guys are great.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Heh! I seem to be not the only one who has that exact trouble with turning Ash.... no matter how sharp I get my gouges , etc, I almost always end up with that same "bounce" and ridges (that seem to follow grain) seems worse on second turnings, after bowl's dried a while..... But rather than NRS, I been using the Thompson fluteless (that I learned about also from Reed) myself for that same issue .. but like your burnished NRS it does a rather nice very fine shaving