Tulip tearout

[WillRiseley]

After turning some tulip before and struggling with tearout I'm working on a large tulip bowl and cannot stop getting tear out. I have tried freshly sharpened gouge, a variety of cutting angles and sharp scrapers but it's still there..

It's to deep to sand out no matter how light a cut I take. Any tips?

 

[Bodrighy]

I assume you mean tulip wood not the flower LOL? It is quite a soft wood at times and the tear out is often caused by having the tool too far away from the bevel. Get it really sharp, put the bevel against the wood and slowly rotate until it is just shaving. Also giving it a good coating of sealer before hand can help. Sanding is unlikely to do any good.

 

[WillRiseley]

Yeah it's tulip wood, I imagine the flower variety may be a little floppy on the lathe. Don't have this problem with anything else just tulip seems to be the wood of the defil

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

flood it with sanding sealer or even better the very runny superglue you get from poundland. Get some incredibly fine dust from the project so its a colour match (pref scraped off the filter off your DX as that will be like talcum powder) and sprinkle that on the wet glue over the punky grain. Using gloves smear it into the punky grain and let it dry for a good 10 minutes. Re cut with a freshly sharpened gouge and see if that stabilises it. Alternatives would be to sheer scrape with the back of the wings of a freshly sharpened gouge or a round nosed scraper held at 45 degrees for a sheer scrape. Personally I prefer a gouge every time.

 

[woodfarmer]

Yeah it's tulip wood, I imagine the flower variety may be a little floppy on the lathe. Don't have this problem with anything else just tulip seems to be the wood of the defil

Try spindle turning fresh willow. it is so soft you can see the wood flowing around the cutting edge of the tool. like trying to turn a balloon using a stick of rhubarb .

 

[Spindle]

Hi

Is the wood fully or part seasoned - has rot set in - any chance of a photo ?

Regards Mick

 

[leisurefix]

For the outside of the item you are turning try using the cutting edge of a wing of a roughing gouge, but with the gouge turned almost upside down, so it is kind of like a skew chisel. I find you get really nice finish on soft woods doing this. Having the rounded bottom of the flute facing up means you cannot get a dig in, which would be a risk if using a conventional skew. The angle of the grind also makes it easier too.

The inside is more difficult, lower the height of the tool rest, and use a shallower grind. Again you can rotate the angle a bit to try and get more of a slicing cut. I find that using a really small 1/4" gouge works well, the grind I use has wings at 90degrees, rather than swept back. I then use the lower part of the wing and part of the bottom to get a slicing cut.

Best thing though is to turn Tulip wood when it is still wet (I realise it is a bit late for that now!).

Regards, Andy.

 

[Mark Hancock]

For the outside of the item you are turning try using the cutting edge of a wing of a roughing gouge, but with the gouge turned almost upside down, so it is kind of like a skew chisel.

Andy
The OP hasn't said what the grain orientation is but if it's cross grain the use of a spindle roughing gouge is not advisable and potentially very dangerous.