My first completed bowl in YEARS...

[jbswearingen]

...and it "turned" out well!

I got into the lathe addiction years ago when I took a beginner's class at a military wood shop. I dabbled in it here and there just enough to get hooked, but not enough to get "good".

Then divorce struck. All my tools ended up in storage. Two years ago I bought a home with a garage that is solely my cave...the missus agreed to it before we bought. So now I have an operable wood shop again.

I've had this blank for at least seven years and never really knew what I wanted to do with it. I just recently learned how well a screw chuck works, so I decided to try it, and, well, it worked well.

This bowl had LOTS of tear out on the gouge, so once I got close to my shape, I finished the outside with a round nose scraper. From that it didn't take much sanding to clean it up. There was a pretty deep crack at the top of the blank, and it goes for a bit into the lip, but I wanted to maintain the lines of the bowl so it stayed.

There are still tooling marks on the inner wall and the bottom isn't perfectly level, but I'm happy with it.

The surface has been flooded with wipe on poly. I'll apply a few more coats.

Crack is visible in the blank:

 

[kludge77]

I like your technique on the foot. So by turning a recess and finishing the bottom, did you have to reverse it again after hollowing? Looks like you saved yourself a step!

 

[bitshird]

It's still a nice looking bowl, some times cracks can be an invitation to decorate the piece with some crushed Turquoise or Malachite.

 

[jbswearingen]

kludge--

It gets reversed once. I originally drill the hole for the screw chuck, then mount it on the lathe. The outside shape is finish turned. The recess is cut in the bottom to accept the chuck's jaws. On this one, it's a "reverse" tenon--the jaws open into the outer edge of the recess. The "mini" tenon inside is just for decoration.

Once the outside is done, it's flipped and then the inside is cut.

bit--

I've yet to try filling anything in like that, but didn't see a need for it this time. Next time, though, I'm thinking about possibly drilling/gouging out the crack with a Dremel and filling it with coffee grinds and CA.

 

[JimB]

Very nice. I like how you shaped the rim.

 

[Two Hair]

Nice looking bowl. Just started turning a few of these myself.