TobyB
Established Member
FRUSTRATED!
Had the opportunity to try to make a couple of Xmas presents, and not happy with what I have achieved ...
Got given a couple of 100 x 40 cms beech logs from a branch off a friends tree. Chainsawed in half and made up some rough blanks for a number of bowls ... have tried natural-edge and centre=bowl-rim versions based on various books advice about wood shrinkage, etc.
It's been terrible to work. End-grain tear-out +++. Tried various with different bowl-gauge grinds from different directions (going back to Rowleys Foundation Course amongst others). Tried scrappers (plain and shear) - made it worse. Sharpened tools repeatedly - probably wasted a lot of metal. Ended up using buckets of sanding-sealer and very light cuts gouge to get anything even poor, and then doing a massive amount of sanding, starting at 60 then 80 grits, to end up with a moderately acceptable surface ... but very disappointed with result.
Fed up, pulled out an olive-ash blank to try to make a 45 cms diameter platter. Initially seemed fine, when I did the outside. Then worked down the inside - bit at a time to support the rim - then it started to rattle around. Went back to the books - and tried very slow (eg Raffan "drop speed to 15-20%) and very high ("wood can't react against the tool" speeds, various gouges and angles, scrapers, etc (Raffans bowls & Chapmans new approach seemed to have helpful advice) - think the surface was flexing around or had hard/soft-regions to deflect things ... used a cotton glove on my left hand to support behind to no avail, scraping maybe flattened the ripples but the tear-out was awful (worse than the beach!), attempts at very light gouge cuts were fine for a bit until it dug in on a ripple/ridge leaving to even more damage to repair ... sadly it all went terminal when trying to sand it out as salvage-job when a terribly minor catch of the 180 grit in a tear-out resulted in the whole thing shattering!
So - NOT my greatest efforts
Letting off steam (as you can all tell) ... but finding turning bowls/platters of more than about 25 cms diameter extremely difficult.
Any sage advice, etc to be had?
Cheers
Toby
Had the opportunity to try to make a couple of Xmas presents, and not happy with what I have achieved ...
Got given a couple of 100 x 40 cms beech logs from a branch off a friends tree. Chainsawed in half and made up some rough blanks for a number of bowls ... have tried natural-edge and centre=bowl-rim versions based on various books advice about wood shrinkage, etc.
It's been terrible to work. End-grain tear-out +++. Tried various with different bowl-gauge grinds from different directions (going back to Rowleys Foundation Course amongst others). Tried scrappers (plain and shear) - made it worse. Sharpened tools repeatedly - probably wasted a lot of metal. Ended up using buckets of sanding-sealer and very light cuts gouge to get anything even poor, and then doing a massive amount of sanding, starting at 60 then 80 grits, to end up with a moderately acceptable surface ... but very disappointed with result.
Fed up, pulled out an olive-ash blank to try to make a 45 cms diameter platter. Initially seemed fine, when I did the outside. Then worked down the inside - bit at a time to support the rim - then it started to rattle around. Went back to the books - and tried very slow (eg Raffan "drop speed to 15-20%) and very high ("wood can't react against the tool" speeds, various gouges and angles, scrapers, etc (Raffans bowls & Chapmans new approach seemed to have helpful advice) - think the surface was flexing around or had hard/soft-regions to deflect things ... used a cotton glove on my left hand to support behind to no avail, scraping maybe flattened the ripples but the tear-out was awful (worse than the beach!), attempts at very light gouge cuts were fine for a bit until it dug in on a ripple/ridge leaving to even more damage to repair ... sadly it all went terminal when trying to sand it out as salvage-job when a terribly minor catch of the 180 grit in a tear-out resulted in the whole thing shattering!
So - NOT my greatest efforts
Letting off steam (as you can all tell) ... but finding turning bowls/platters of more than about 25 cms diameter extremely difficult.
Any sage advice, etc to be had?
Cheers
Toby