The Bane of my Exhistance

[Dave Fritz]

The wood is soft maple. How not to get that tiny little hole in the middle. It seems the deeper I go with the spindal gouge, the deeper the hole goes. Darn hole is about 1/16 of an inch. The wood is very prone to tear out compared to hard maple or cherry.

 

[Dennis J Gooding]

Eighty grit sandpaper should do it.

 

[hockenbery]

Slowwwwww the cut down. Shallow cut 1/64 or less....
as you cut to the center with a light cut a tiny parasol will appear.
concentrate on catching it in the flute. This will eventually get you to turning a clean surface.

its Better to cut at tiny bump in the middle rather than digging a hole
the tiny bump will sand await in seconds with 220 or 320.

 

[Odie]

As with others, I do the same. Leave a little bump in the middle that easily sands away.......

-----odie-----

 

[Dave Fritz]

Thanks so much. What's funny is I leave a little bump on the bottom of bowl tenons but never thought of it in this application.

 

[robo hippy]

It is possible to get that perfectly cut, but it is difficult. Like others have said, slow the cut WAY down. The proverbial "if the frog is at one end of the log and jumps 1/2 the way to the end of the log, can it ever get to the end of the log?' Kind of the same thing here with feet/minute, is the dead center actually moving at all??? If it is end grain, then a NRS can work very well. Leaving a small nipple works great.

robo hippy

 

[john lucas]

To keep.from.getting hole in the middle.slow down. The wood is moving past the cutter so slow it barely cuts. If you push it at this point it tears out the wood leaving a hole. I heard Mark Sillay say it best. You think about moving the tool. You move so slowly that just thinking about moving the tool is fast enough. He was turning very small thin points on a spindle. Another tip is to rotate the flute to 3 o'clock. This closed flute position let's it cut slower and wont cut if you go beyond center which will also leave a.slight dip.

 

[Richard Coers]

Lean the gouge way over, drop the end of the handle way down, and shear scrape the bump off. That makes it a pull cut instead of a push cut.

 

[hockenbery]

I turn little domed pieces with a bowl gouge using a pull cut
i make several cuts each getting closer to the center so the outside edge gets more cuts creating the curve.

Almost to the center


To cut the center start a little below center and push the handle down to cut up to the center.
here the center is being cut


then pull the cut to the rim

thse are screen shots from an ornament disc demo.
the video is on YouTube