# Bowl advice



## JR Custom Calls (May 4, 2014)

Hoping y'all can help a rookie turner out. I've made two bowls. The first thought it was a bullet and shot off the lathe across the garage. 

This one turned out much better... But it obviously needs a lot of work. The end grain tear out is terrible. I also left a good inch in the bottom instead of keeping the same relative thickness as I felt the tools chopping a lot since I was so far off the rest. Any tips on those two things? 

Also... How the heck do y'all cut your tenons off?


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## SDB777 (May 4, 2014)

With smaller bowls, I use Cole jaws....
(Flip the bowl over-opening towards the head-clamp into place and then bring the tailstock up. Grab the 'scary sharp tool' and then using light cuts, take off the tenon.)

With the bigger bowls I'll start doing, I'm guessing I'll have to make my own 'cole type jaws'? 


Don't be afraid to use the 80grit 'gouge' to help with the tare-out. The sharper the tooling and the lighter the cuts will help some with the ripping on the endgrain.





Scott (what kind of finish you using) B

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## Tclem (May 4, 2014)

Most of the time I incorporate the tenon I to the design of the bowl. I use a vacuum chuck to reverse the bowl and finish the tenon. When I decide to turn a bowl.


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## JR Custom Calls (May 4, 2014)

Ahh, why didn't I think of cole jaws? I have a set.

I sprayed it down with shellac to try and sand down some of the tear out.


Oh, and I'm using carbide cutters... They are getting close to needing replaced though


Thanks @SDB777


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## Tclem (May 4, 2014)

I have carbide cutters and they are awesome use them a lot but.... When I learned how to use my Thompson gouge and ride the bevel I only use carbide to remove bunches of wood at first. It will lay the end grains back down. Also I finish a lot of my bowls with oil and will put some finish on those places and takes light finish cuts. Not perfect but it helps me

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 1


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## JR Custom Calls (May 4, 2014)

Hmmm... I don't expect I'll revert back from carbide. I never could sharpen my tools right, and ended up giving my bench grinder to my father along with my old lathe. If this shellac doesn't help any, I'll try some oil and go light on it. I'd really like to get better at this. I love making calls, but it's nice to mix things up a bit. 

How do you go about getting deep down in there Tony? I shifted my tool rest back in to it as far as I could, but I was still a good 2" away from it in the corners.


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## Mike Mills (May 4, 2014)

As far as orbiting the bowl I tried to do a blow up of your pic.
Some problems may be 1) your tenon seems very long, long enough to bottom out against the base of the jaws. I usually make mine about 3/8". 2) your jaws seem to be too small for the tenon. Based upon the amount of wood between the jaw ends you may just be gripping with the tips of the jaws. 3) In the pic, at the red, it appears the wood turns away from the top of the jaws; the top of the jaws should sit flat on the jaws.

I finish the bottom (recess or tenon) with a friction chuck. I can normally get it down to <1/4". I then cut that off and sand off of the lathe.

I can't give much help with the carbide cutter. I do have a square one and it cuts well going into side grain such as roughing out. I have never tried it on end grain (twice on a normal bowl exterior).

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## JR Custom Calls (May 4, 2014)

The tenon is slightly too large for the jaws... I measured wrong (imagine that?). But not by much. According to my measurements, a 2.5" tenon is what was needed... and I goofed up and only cut it down to 2.75 or so. It doesn't bottom out, but it's close. I guess my previous experience led me to believe that I had too little jaw grabbing wood, so I figured the more tenon I had in the jaws, the less likely it was to shoot across the shop. And yep... the bottom is somewhat rounded. 

This bowl is about 6" in diameter if that helps put it in proportion.


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## Tclem (May 4, 2014)

I have a curve tool rest to get it there real close and I use to use a round carbide cutter but just don't get that smooth cut like a gouge. I'll use it to remove a lot then finish deep with the gouge


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## ghost1066 (May 4, 2014)

If you stick with carbide cutters doing bowls get ready to sand a lot. I have six of them here and learned to turn bowls with them. All of them did the same thing when it came to final cuts they will not produce what a bowl gouge will. Sharpen when you are ready to do your finish cuts and then light cuts. 

You don't have to spend a ton on a gouge, I didn't, to get one that will cut. I did change from the Elsworth grind which I hated to one that works for me. Getting the bottom thin is the same if you can't get in close super sharp tools and light cuts until it gets to where you want it.

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 1


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## DKMD (May 4, 2014)

I'm no expert with the carbide tools, but I would try rolling it to about a 45 degree angle to get a shear scrape. With a bowl gouge, a standard grind with a relatively short bevel really helps me with the transition and bottom inside a bowl. Shear scraping works well for me on the outside of a bowl... Either with a gouge or a scraper held at an angle.

Nothing wrong with the 80 grit option either... Sometimes there's nothing better.

I hate that you gave up the grinder... A wolverine/varigrind setup makes it almost fool proof, and there are some places where standard tools work best.

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 2


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## ghost1066 (May 4, 2014)

Shoot Doc I sharpen on a benchtop belt sander. It works fine once I learned to use it and I can touch up an edge in about 2 seconds with it now.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## woodtickgreg (May 4, 2014)

A couple of tips. You can sharpen your carbides on a fine diamond credit card hone, just lay the cutter flat on the hone and rub it in a circular motion. It doesn't take much to make it razor sharp again and really makes the cutters last a long time.
Next is when you are nearing your final shape crank the speed up on the lathe and take very light cuts, this will reduce the tear out. Carbides like higher speeds. Sometimes no matter what you do you will get tear out, then I sand with the course paper and go through the grits. Heck, I have even had course paper cause tear out.

Reactions: Like 1 | Thank You! 1


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## kweinert (May 5, 2014)

What makes a bowl (or other turning) sit solid with a tenon is that you need a flat space on the bottom of the bowl. Your tenon should not touch the bottom of the chuck. The other thing is that your tenon is too large in diameter and you're only gripping it with the edges of the jaws. Here's how I think of it - think of your jaws as being machined out of one piece of metal. They turn all the ins and outs and then put it in a cutter to slice into quarters. This means that when your jaws are completely closed they're closed a little more than they should be. If you close your jaws to where there's 3/16" to 1/4" between them and measure the diameter, that's just about the size of the tenon you need. That will give you a grip on the entire tenon, especially when you close down on it and compress the wood a little bit.

On the inside of a bowl I just recently (to finish off that BKP bowl) a J curve rest from Robust to fit my midi lathe. It made a hell of a difference, having the tool tip only fractions of an inch from the rest as opposed to the multiple inches it was from the straight rest. Even at 1300 RPM there's a lot of force pushing at the end of your tool and if it's really hanging over the tool rest it's really difficult to control.

As far as finishing the bottom I've mounted some MDF on a faceplate and turned a groove that the rim will fit in, bring up the tailstock and turn the tenon down as much as possible, then finish off the bottom by hand. The BKP bowl I finished off using a ROS :)

Now, I'm not the most experienced turner in these parts, but that's been my experience.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## JR Custom Calls (May 5, 2014)

@woodtickgreg thanks man... I didn't realize you could sharpen them. I'll look around for one of those. I have turned about 60 calls and numerous other things with these since I got them, most of the wood being hedge and various stabilized pieces... so I've been very impressed with their ability to hold an edge up to this point. I definitely can tell a difference in the sharpness though. 


@kweinert I just saw a curved rest on PSI's website. I think I had seen one before, but never put 2 and 2 together. That looks like it would be very beneficial. Even with a fairly long handle on my tools, it was testing my ability to control. I think I'll pick up a curved rest next time I order from them. And I'm definitely going to work on making the tenon right on the next one. Guess it wasn't a terrible second attempt though... and I'm still in the position to fix parts of it. Glad I didn't try and take the tenon off yet.


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## kweinert (May 5, 2014)

JR Custom Calls said:


> Guess it wasn't a terrible second attempt though...



No criticism intended - I know I've launched a few things in my time. Just trying to pass on some knowledge. It's so rare that I get to do that :) I'm not sure where I read that bit about the diameter of the tenon, might even have been a discussion at the local turner's club. I know that visualizing it that way helped my control the size of the tenons I make. That, and once I measured it I wrote on the side of the chuck what size I needed so I didn't have to keep checking :)


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## JR Custom Calls (May 5, 2014)

Oh, criticize all you want! Like I said, I'm wanting to learn from my mistakes... and you don't learn very well by people buttering things up or telling you something looks good when it doesn't. 

I very much appreciate your advice (as well as the advice everyone else here has offered). Ultimately, I need to take my time a little more on the next one... along with sharpening my carbide cutters, getting a curved rest, and measuring my tenon better.


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## Mike Mills (May 5, 2014)

I wasn't trying to say the tenon was too long, unless it bottomed out. My daughter turned about an 11" bowl on her last visit and had a nice catch, we had cut the tenon about 7/16 to 1/2 long. About 3/8" length was levered from one side; if the tenon had only been 1/4 or 3/8 the bowl probably would have orbited. Lots of people cut a very short tenon (1/8" - 1/4") and I can understand that on expensive wood; for my free wood no one knows it could have been 1/4" deeper if I had used a shorter tenon.

Stuart Batty does an excellent job of explaining things in great detail. He has three short videos on Recess Tenon &...... Jaws & Chucks... Tenons part2.
He also has several on tool overhang but that should not apply if you are only two inches over the rest.
http://vimeo.com/woodturning/videos/page:1/sort:alphabetical/format:thumbnail

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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## RayBell (May 5, 2014)

David is right about the 45* angle finishing sheer cut, and Greg is right about the speed. I have a carbide tool that the flat is at a 45* angle to the cutter. Almost always crank the speed up and take light cuts with this tool for finishing. That doesn't solve the problem all the time and still have to sand with 60-80 grit at times.


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## woodtickgreg (May 5, 2014)

The tools I make are not made to be used at an angle, they are designed to be used flat and stable on the rest. Carbide tools like the hunters are great at an angle, but they cannot be sharpened. If you try to cant one of my tools you are opening your self up for a catch, being a square shaft and all. Round shaft tools can be canted, but then you get into that whole finding the angle thing. Kinda defeats some of the purpose of a carbide. I hog the material off with heavy carbide cuts till it is near final shape, the crank the speed up and take very light cuts that make more dust than chips, then sand away through the grits.


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## JR Custom Calls (May 5, 2014)

I usually turn somewhere between 1500 and 2000 rpms... I was at 810 with this because I was scared of taking a bowl to the gut. For the outside at least, I should be ok... I turned it between centers so once it's round, I should be comfortable with cranking it up. 

This lathe goes up to 3900 rpm... Might give that a try on a smaller piece just to build up some nerve

Reactions: Funny 1


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## RayBell (May 5, 2014)

Yep Greg, I never cant your tool, flat is always on tool rest, and it works great by the way, but for finishing cuts I do have a carbide tool that the flat is 45* to the cutter.

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## David Hill (May 6, 2014)

Jonathan,
I use lots of carbide too, but have decided to use the "regular" chisels too for dealing with tear out--morphing into a hybrid kind of turner.
To get the tenon off the bottoms of my bowls I have a set of jumbo jaws that are add ons to my PSI chucks. I can work with up to 15 in or so--but take LIGHT cuts, bowls will flex with pressure and sometimes will launch off the jumbo jaws.


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## Tim Carter (May 7, 2014)

Another way to take off the tenon on the bottom of a bowl if you don't have Cole jaws or the piece is too large to fit into them is to use a round piece of 3/4" plywood mounted on the lathe using a faceplate. You can glue a piece(s) of sandpaper to the plywood to give it more gripping power but I haven't found it necessary yet. The bowl is then placed on the lathe with the mouth of the bowl facing the headstock. The tailstock is used with a bullnose live center to hold the bowl in place. You need to have started the bowl between centers and have a registration mark/hole on the tenon to be able to center the bowl on the plywood. You can then turn the bottom to the profile you want, leaving a small inverted triangle between the bowl and the live center that can be trimmed off with a chisel.


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