Woodturning Day 3

My body aces, it's not use to stand in front of a lathe for hours. Shoulders with I have problem anyway reminds me that there there. To day it was bowl day. In green and dry wood. Mainly green with is rely nice to turn, like frozen butter some say. As usal Åke when through to steps and then it was time to try it. I have done 3 bowl before so I had some ides on what to expect.

The bowl blanks were already cut to a circle and a hole had been drilled to fit the chuck. So the blank in the chuck and the tail stock up against the blank to give it some more stability. I had hope to use my on tools here but examine the I realized I had grind them to a different shape than the tools at the course and worst, they were not sharp. I must have spent the time wrong because I could almost see my image in the bevel but it would not cut wood if not pushed hard. So the course tool is was.

When the edges was gone I removed the tail stock, made a tenon to fit the chuck and then finished the out side shape. When rely nice. I think I'm getting the hang of this. I had gotten of blank with a bit of the center of the tree left and that is nothing you wan't there when it begins to dry. It's a high probability of cracking leaving that there. Last time I tried to remove one, it split the whole bowl. This time how ever, I remembered to do it before finishing the inside, this gives the side support and which makes it lees likely to split. That done I just used I regular bowl gauge to remove the main part of the inside.

When coming to the bottom the geometry of the bowl combined with the tool makes it difficult to cut the bottom clean. For this a gauge hook is used. It is used from the out side and in towards the center. Nice tool, will buy my one at the end of the course. The turnig went ok and the inside turned out ok for a beginner.

When finished with the inside the bowl is removed from the chuck and a face plate with a foam rubber is put in the chuck. The tali stock is then used with a hollow pot and presses the bowl against the foam. It's then just a matter of removing the tenon on the under side and make the bottom the way you like.

I made one more bowl from green wood. The same steps but different shape. When starting the inside I made the side thinner then I expected. When shining light through the bowl the light was not red as I expected but white. I continued to make the side thin just for practice and did't expect the bowl to live through it, but it did.

So for the finale I did a bowl out of dry wood. Same methods but trying to keep the bowl a bit thicker than  when using green wood. For some reason the last pass of the inside made it all bumpy and I couldn't fix it. The bowl started to wobble a  little so I guess I removed to much material from the side and tensions were released in in the wood making it deformed.

Her is the gauge hook with a home made jigg to sharpen it on the Tormek. Guess I need to make one of them in the future.

When I got home I put the two green bowls in the micro and dried them. The first had already started to crack when I left the course. The black at the bottom of the first one...I manage to burn it in the micro.

According to Åke it took about 20 min to learn us the technics and the rest is just practise this of those during this course. I think it took more than 20 min but the tools are few and the technics are basically the same. Mastering them is of course a noter matter. Thats all for day 3. Tomorrow we will continue with what ever we feel like and I think I will do some more "Tipover-Tops". If you have't visits Åkes site take a look. I make a link that will translate it to English using google translate.