1st and 3rd bowls

[biednick]

These are some of my first bowls, the first(larger) one is holly and the second is yellow heart. My first 2 bowls were turned with a collet chuck and homemade wood faceplate. /it worked, but I now have a faceplate. On the holly bowl, I had a lot of tear out. Any tips on preventing this?
As always, questions and comments welcome.
Nick

 

[keithkarl2007]

Scarily sharp bowl gouges. I don't know if Holly would get punky or not like spalted beech would but soaking in a coat or two or sanding sealer in the end grain will help reduce tearout. Shear scraping will also take really finer cuts. I took a bowl turning course here in Ireland with Glenn Lucas. Check out his videos on youtube, he turns something like 2,000 bowls a year, mainly large salad bowls.

 

[Drstrangefart]

It would seem like adding a stabilizer like CA or clearcoat every so often would reduce tearout signifigantly, unless there's something I'm overlookng.

 

[lorbay]

On the final cuts sharpen your tool on every pass.

Lin.

 

[Fred]

I might recommend using sanding sealer and letting it harden for a bit prior to continuing with your cutting. Extremely sharp tools are definitely a must. Test it on a sample piece of the same wqood just to be sure you like the color after application.

DO you use a skew? If not, and you do use a fair amount of wood that gives you this kind of problem, then I would recommend a good quality skew that you keep 'scary sharp" somewhat like a straight edge razor might have.

 

[biednick]

Thanks for the tips, thats kind of what i was thinking.

 

[dgelnett]

Make sure you are cutting with the tool and not scraping. If you are scraping and the wood is a little soft you will get tear out like what you are showing.

 

[biednick]

Make sure you are cutting with the tool and not scraping. If you are scraping and the wood is a little soft you will get tear out like what you are showing.

So using a scraper on sort wood is bad i take it? I turned the holly bowl with a carbite scraper, maybe thats it.

 

[dgelnett]

I would say yes. There are some woods you can get away with scraping and in fact looks better but other woods that are soft will tear the grain out leaving divits which are hard to sand past. A sharp tool used to support the fibers while cutting will give you great results but it will take some practices.

 

[biednick]

I would say yes. There are some woods you can get away with scraping and in fact looks better but other woods that are soft will tear the grain out leaving divits which are hard to sand past. A sharp tool used to support the fibers while cutting will give you great results but it will take some practices.

Okat, thank you. That's the only bowl I've had issues with and the rest were harder woods.

 

[76winger]

I'm still learning "not" to get those trearouts as well. The best I've been able to do is using, as already mentioned a"scary sharp" cutting edge. Also having the cutting edge of your tool positioned so it's slicing the wood fibers from the shell rather than scraping them. I haven't tried a skew for this action yet, but the long sharp sides of the vari-grind edge on my favorite gouge (similar to the David Elsworth signature gouge, but a generic one I re-ground) to slice the surface away. I learned this from watching a more accomplished bowl turner and am still trying to master it myself.

Good luck on your next bowl with all the suggestions you've collected!