I agree with Charlie W, GET A MENTOR. It will take months and months to go through this on your own, or weeks with a mentor. You'll waste money on trying more tools, and blowing up wood. Blowing up bowls can be hazardous to your health. Taking a hit to the head can result in death. It's happened before. Use wet firewood instead of kiln dried blanks to learn on. Use red maple if you can, it's soft and cuts well. Silver maple cuts worse, but it's everywhere around here. Learn to power sand. Get some good mandrels and discs from Vince's Woodnwonders. Sticking a piece of sandpaper inside a bowl with your fingers is dangerous and ridiculously slow. I turn about 50 bowls to each pen these days. I have a production run of 9, 18" diameter x 6" deep salad bowls right now in silver maple. When I started turning bowls in 1986, I gave up. Then I attended an AAW Regional Symposium in St. Louis. I learned about using wet wood, how to turn it so it didn't crack during drying, how to grind the tools, what tools to use, and how to power sand. Learned all that information in one weekend. I still taught myself after that, but it took a while. So go to the Association of American Woodturners and find a local chapter.
Blowing up bowls has almost nothing to do with speed. It's how you present the tool, and how you have the flute orientated are the keys. It takes a dance as you move the gouge through the cut. It's a subtle motion of pivot and rotate as you come through the cut. A mentor can actually have a hand on the gouge and keep it in position for you until you learn.
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