Basic bowl turning

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rjwolfe3

rjwolfe3

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The wife and I would like to get into basic bowl turning. What would we need to start out? (yes Ed, we have a lathe:biggrin:) We have a midi lathe so we know we can't turn large bowls but we were thinking of 3-6 inch projects. Is it better to buy a bowl turners kit like PSI sells or buy stuff individually? And can used stuff be found or is it better to go new? Thanks for the help.
 
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I'll second Ron's advice. I've watched Bill's video more times than I can remember. After a few times, I took a two day "class" with Bill. Well worth every penny.
 
I agree with Ron. Buy a good quality bowl gouge...it is money well spent.

Another brand worth checking is Crown ProPM. 3/8" may work well for the size turnings you have in mind. My favorite is 1/2" and 5/8" though. I bought regular grind tools and converted them to Ellsworth grind myself to save money.

You might need a heavy/thick scraper too. Remember, tool "flex" is the enemy.

As usual, proper sharpening is critical especially with the bowl gouge. It can easily make the experience pleasurable (or horrible). Look at grinding jigs to create an Ellsworth grind (FYI the grind is also called a number of names). I made mine and cost me less than $3.00.

www2.woodcraft.com/PDF/77B61.pdf
http://www.ellsworthstudios.com/david/jigs.html

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=7413

Oneway have online sharpening videos you can download too.
http://www.oneway.ca/multi-media/index.htm
http://www.oneway.ca/instructions.htm

Here is Robert Sorby link where you can read/watch a few techniques (for free). The technique is there and can be adapted to use other tools...just learn how the tool cuts.

http://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/
Check the "Instructions", "Movie Clips" and the "Tips and Techniques"

Good luck and have fun!!!
 
Most bowl turners will start with blank between centers. As you progress with the shape you can shift the blank around to center figure, avoid a defect, etc.... If you start out with a screw center, face plate, or chuck, you don't have any options. After you get the shape, turn a tenon on the bottom of the bowl and then grab it in a chuck to do the inside. I prefer the chucks made my Oneway.
 
Some of the best chucks are made by:

Oneway
Vicmarc
Teknatool
Axminster

There are cheaper ones but these are the cream of the crop (that I know of)
 
Rob ... what everybody has said already with two additional suggestions:

1. Before you hurt yourself ...... spend a few hours with a bowl turner.

B. Before you hurt yourself ..... spend a few hours with a bowl turner.

Get it? I strongly suggest that you either pay for a day of lessons ... or find a local woodturning club ... or find somebody who knows what they're doing and spend time watching them turn. There are way too many things that can go wrong when turning. Not that I've ever done anything stupid with my lathe. Cough, cough. Just a friendly, healthy suggestion.
 
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I'll repeat the advice -- watch Grumbine's videos and get thompson tools if you can. You will also wind up wanting a sharpening jig. The two major tools you will need are a radiused scraper and probably both 1/2" and 5/8" Ellsworth grind bowl gouges. And a lot of wood you won't mind throwing away. DO NOT use a roughing gouge for bowls -- the gouge is weak at the neck and a bowl catch can easily bend or break it.

Lessons are a good idea as well. Concentrate on learning how the cutting edge works for you and you'll be churning out good stuff in no time.

Marc
 
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Thanks for all the advice. I don't know any local turners and the closest club is over an hour away as well as the big woodworking stores. So I will have to learn from videos for now. I appreciate the advice to get the best, however with no disposable income and no credit cards, I'm going to try to find used for now. (And yes, I know that you get what you pay for but working 6 days a week isn't helping pay the bills so I have to make do.) These are going to be small bowls since I only have a midi lathe. I was looking at a 6" 3 jaw scroll chuck on ebay. The bowl gouge is probably going to come from PSI unless I can find a good one on ebay as well. I know this stuff isn't top of the line but then neither is my lathe and I seem to turn out decent pens with it. Thanks again for all of the advice. It will probably be a few months before I can get the necessary tools together, so I will watch a bunch of videos and read some first.
 
I didn't think $30 (including shipping) was a bad deal. I mean the cheapest 4 jaw scroll chuck that I've seen is well over $200. It would literally take me another year to save that kinda cash, lol. But I guess I can wait. Someday I will be able to afford a real lathe as well as replace all the other cheap tools I have in my shop, lol.
 
I'm by no means best qualified to answer your questions, but I've received so much help from others I cant resist regurgitating the info that helped me get involved in this beautiful craft.

The Nova G3 is also a good choice for this size work from what I hear, and can be had for somewhere around $150. I should mention that you dont need any kind of commercial chuck to start turning bowls. My tool fund is tiny, like yours, so I thought it was worth mentioning. You will probably want one if you continue in it, but to start out you can certainly use the 3" or whatever small faceplate that probably came with your lathe. You just glue a block of scrap wood, say 1.5" thick, and same diameter as your faceplate, to the bowl blank, then screw your faceplate to the waste block. Screw the faceplate onto the spindle threads and you're set. You can turn the outside and hollow without flipping the piece over even once. However, to finish the bottom, many like to home-make a jam chuck or compression (donut) chuck to flip it around and get a nice smooth bottom. Many commercial chuck-users still use these homemade jam or donut chucks to remove the foot of the bowl where the chuck held it. Now if you made a "donut with jam" chuck, then you'd be in trouble. ;)

DISCLAIMER: I've only made one bowl so far, but I do a lot of reading, and question asking. :)

Also, before you go buying a grinding jig to get a good side grind, look into the homemade ones, as suggested. If you've got a steady hand, it's also possible to do it freehand. I can do a decent job of it without wasting too much steel and I've only had my gouge a few weeks.

We light-walleted people gotta make due, ya know? One guy will tell ya $200 chuck, $100 gouge, $100 scraper, $80 jumbo jaws, $120 wolverine+varigrind jig, etc. ad nauseum. It's all good stuff, can help make things easier, and I think you'll want a lot or most of it, but I say in a pinch you can be on your way to making bowls for $25 bucks , or whatever the price of a Ben's best gouge is, and some ingenuity. Wether you spend $600 or $25, be safe.

Best of luck.

PM me if you need a link to anything I mentioned like homemade jigs or methods, etc. and I'll try to dig it up.

Brandon
 
rjwolfe3 said:
The wife and I would like to get into basic bowl turning. What would we need to start out? (yes Ed, we have a lathe:biggrin:) We have a midi lathe so we know we can't turn large bowls but we were thinking of 3-6 inch projects. Is it better to buy a bowl turners kit like PSI sells or buy stuff individually? And can used stuff be found or is it better to go new? Thanks for the help.
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Hey Rob,
I'm going to get slammed for this, but if you are planning to do smaller bowls and relatively shallow, you can get by with some basic tools... it's better if you have the right tool, i.e. a decent bowl gauge.. I bought mine from PSI, set of 3 of under $50 and they work well for me, but in the beginning, I worked with a roughing gouge to get a basic shape, and a round nose scraper to clean up the shape. I also used the scraper on hollowing the bowl... this only works if you are doing shallow forms.
You can also get a pretty decent, although a little cumbersome with the tommy bars, chuck from PSI for under $100. It's a 4 jaw chuck and mine came with 2 extra sets of jaws.. and I bought their Jumbo jaws that fit the chuck for turning the bowls over and working the bottom.

Having all the right tools is a nice bonus, when you can, but like you I'm on a limited fixed income and sometimes have to learn to "make do" with lesser quality tools... keep in mind, it's the man working the tool, not the tool that has the skill.

The videos will help with getting the basic ideas, as will a number of books and articles in various publications, but nothing will beat just plain practice... do a search to see what the basic procedures are and then give it a go... you'll be surprised at how much you will teach yourself, and if you are careful and follow good safe shop practices, you're not likely to hurt yourself... just pay attention to where you hands and fingers are at all times.

Now the rest of you take it easy on me... I'm old and can't move too fast.
 
I'll second most of what Brandon said. I've only turned about 10 bowls but I did take a multi day class to learn how to do it. Using a bowl gouge is much different then spindle/pen turning. To get started, if you already have a lathe and a faceplate, the only thing you need to buy is a bowl gouge. Do not use your spindle tools as it is dangerous! You can turn your entire bowl with the bowl gouge. Grizzly has the best prices on the Sorby Bowl Gouges. I have a 3/8 as that is what my instructor recommended for turning the size bowls I do on my Jet 1014.

I am not an expert at this but our instructor has 25 years experience. Here's how we did it in class:
1. Cut the blank round on a bandsaw. (it's easier than doing all that on the lathe)
2. Screw the face plate to the blank getting as close to center as you can. Use sheet metal srews not wood screws as they are not strong enough.
3. Mount it on the Lathe
4. You now turn the bottom and outside of the bowl to the shape you want. You want to do it this way because you will be working towards the headstock rather than putting preasure away from the headstock.
5. Make the bottom very flat/smooth. Use a steel ruler to check it. Sand the bottom with lathe running if you need to.
6. With lathe running touch a pencil to bottom of the bowl in several places making rings on the bottom. These will be your guide for centering your waste block.
7. Remove everything from lathe and remove (unscrew) bowl from faceplate.
8. Mount a small piece of scrap wood to the face plate. I use pieces of 2x4.
9. Mount on lathe and Round it to the size of your faceplate. Get the flat end very flat and smooth.
10. Remove from lathe but do not remove scrap wood (Waste block) from face plate.
11. Put some thick CA on the flat part of waste block and glue it to the bottom of the bowl. Remember the circles you made with the pencil? They are there to help you center the waste block.
12. Give the CA a few minutes to cure/dry.
13. Mount on lathe again. Turn the outside again as it will be slightly out of round do to the remounting.
14. Turn the inside of the bowl.
14. Sand as desired. Usually 400 - 600 grit will do. Some people don't even go that high.
15. Use a Parting tool to seperate the bowl from the waste block. If you don't have a parting tool you can take it off the lathe and use a saw to cut it off then sand the bottom.
16 Put on the finish of choice.

I know all that sound like a lot but it really isn't once you do it.

BTW, when turning bowls, use the slowest speed on your lathe. High speeds are very dangerous. Also, I see you said it was about an hour drive to take a class. I really recommend taking the drive and the class. Turning bowls and turning pens are two very different things.
 
Chucks are nice, but are not necessary to turn a bowl. I'll bet your lathe came with a face plate. Screw (do NOT use drywall screws) the blank to it and turn the outside of the bowl. Then flip, glue to waste block (which will be screwed to face plate), and turn the inside.

That said, chucks make life easier.
 
CA scares me in bowl turning - it has almost no shear strength and catches in bowl turning are all torge and sheer pressure. If you use CA clamp the pieces together and let the glue cure for about an hour. Which is good advice for any glue now that I think of it.

Marc

JimB said:
11. Put some thick CA on the flat part of waste block and glue it to the bottom of the bowl. Remember the circles you made with the pencil? They are there to help you center the waste block.
12. Give the CA a few minutes to cure/dry.
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marcruby said:
CA scares me in bowl turning - it has almost no shear strength and catches in bowl turning are all torge and sheer pressure. If you use CA clamp the pieces together and let the glue cure for about an hour. Which is good advice for any glue now that I think of it.

Marc
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We were turning small bowls and for the most part preassure is towards the faceplate and waste block as you are primarily turning the inside of the bowl pushing towards the headstock. When you are doing the sides on the outside is when you would have the most sheer pressure and at this time you have the blank screwed to the faceplate.

Probably the greater risk is as the walls get thinner, if a catch or other problem occurs, your bowl can break and pieces will go flying fast and far. I always wear a full face shield when turning bowls. Always.

The instructor also showed us how to turn small objects such as coasters using double sided turners tape (not regular double sided tape) to hold the blank to the face plate. I turned an 11" plate this way in class which is a rather large piece for this type of mounting. Now this is when sheer pressure can really be an issue! You need to be carefull!

One last thing. Whenever turning bowls, if you can, use the tailstock to help support the wood. You don't need a lot of pressure on it. Just light pressure against the blank to help support it and stop it from going anywhere. This becomes even more important with larger pieces.
 
That's a good point, Jim. The tailstock should be kept to the wood until it HAS to be removed. I didn't get into that much detail, as the original question was about what he needs to get started. But it's as good a time as any to mention it.

It's also sound advice to start out at the slowest possible speed.

For green wood, you should note you probably wont be turning the thing all at once unless you're okay with warping. If you get it realy thin, you can dry mostly with sanding, but otherwise you'd be well served to turn to rough shape but much thicker, like 1/10th the diameter, and let it dry for a month or two, more maybe, then return to round and finished thickness.

OP, If you have a buddy who DVRs David Marks' shows, there's one where he does a simple bowl turning and IIRC he doesnt use a chuck.
 
DocStram said:
Rob ... what everybody has said already with two additional suggestions:

1. Before you hurt yourself ...... spend a few hours with a bowl turner.

B. Before you hurt yourself ..... spend a few hours with a bowl turner.

Get it? I strongly suggest that you either pay for a day of lessons ... or find a local woodturning club ... or find somebody who knows what they're doing and spend time watching them turn. There are way too many things that can go wrong when turning. Not that I've ever done anything stupid with my lathe. Cough, cough. Just a friendly, healthy suggestion.
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i agree with Doc. my first bowl was at a class at woodcraft. well worth the $75 it cost. it is a 50 minute drive from me. close to your estimate. next saturday august 16, 2008 will be a "tree to bowl" hands on turning at a local woodturners club also an hour from mansfield. cost is $5 pretty hard to beat. some members drive up to 2 1/2 hrs. checkout BWWT.ORG
 
I got my first chuck from psi and it still works if you just want to do small projects it was the mini grip chuck system includes 3 sets of jaws price is $89 item#cmg3c. it a good chuck for the price like I said I'm still using mine and it's a couple years old.
 
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