For The Bowl Turner

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liljohn1368

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Jul 19, 2015
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Brooksville, MS
I have a question. When hollowing out the inside of the bowl is better to turn at a slower of faster speed?

I think I may have the nerve up to try one. :biggrin::biggrin:

Thanks,
 
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I always turn as fast as safely possible. Small bowls, 2-4",once true can be spun north of 3000 rpm. Large platters 34", the quickest I went was 250 rpm.

Turning fast can result in smoother cuts, but the bowl can go "bang" quickly too.

Bowl turning is my first love and I have a lot of experience and undertaken expert tutelage to get competent and confident in spinning quickly.

For a first timer, find a club or an experienced turner to guide your first steps and wear full face protection at all times, I have the scar between my eyes to remind me.
 
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My best advice is to turn at whatever speed you feel comfortable with.
Especially when starting out. Once you get a "feel" for your lathe & your abilities, then you can increase the speed if you think you need to.
Only you know what you are capable of.
 
As has been mentioned, turn at a speed you are comfortable with handling, but make absolutely CERTAIN that the bowl blank is properly secured. Put the tailstock live center right up to the bottom of your bowl to give you additional support while rounding out your blank... turning between centers is always more secure than turning an unsupported blank.

You generally won't be using a dovetailed tenon chuck (typically a 4-jawed chuck) before rough turning the outside of the bowl blank to ensure that it is turning on center and not out of balance ... Use the live center on the tailstock for as long as possible ... generally till it's actually in your way.

Once that is done, then you sand and basically finish the outside and do most of the finishing work on the base of the bowl and turn your dovetail tenon. To assist in gripping the bowl by the tenon, it needs to be at least 3/8ths of an inch deep, I think, and the walls around it (to the outside of the bowl) should be at least an inch wide for proper strength to support the bowl while you are gripping it from inside the tenon hole. It may seem like a lot, but if you have the extra wide face plate for your chuck with the rubber gripping pins, you can do additional work to remove an oversized tenon at the end. Of course, if your bowl is pretty small, the strength requirement of the tenon will also be lower.

Then, you take the screw chuck or faceplate off and turn your bowl around and attach it with the 4-jaw chuck, making sure that it is securely fastened. DO NOT STICK PAPER TOWEL OR OTHER MATERIAL IN THE DOVETAIL TO PROTECT YOUR BOWL FINISH. This would seriously reduce the grip your chuck has on your work piece, greatly increasing the risk that it will fail to turn in a stable fashion and probably cause you injury when it flies loose. I would use a forstner drill bit in a tailstock chuck to remove the center of the blank down to around your target depth and to hog out the majority of the wood to be removed, if possible, and then finish turning, sanding, and finishing the interior and the lip of the bowl.

After all that is done, you have the option of turning the bowl around one last time to grip it by the rim with wide flat jaws on a 4-jaw chuck so that you can fine tune and finish the very bottom of the bowl, or you could just finish it by hand as many others do, if your tenon is small enough to not be of concern.


In all cases, use of calipers to ensure you are not making your bowl's walls too thin is a very good idea, use of faceplate to protect your face is pretty much a requirement, and use of at least eye protection should be mandatory. Respiratory protection is also a very good idea to practice, especially while sanding.


There are some very good videos out on google about turning bowls. I'll recommend watching Captain Eddie makin some shavings! :)
 
As already mentioned, a local turning group usually has mentors eager to work with new and intermediate turners. Four jaw chucks are excellent for working on the inside of a bowl but expensive for a "look see." The local woodturning group may have open hours on their lathes where you can "look see" without having to buy a lot of equipment, or classes at a local woodworking store perhaps.

The jaws of four jaw chucks can grip outside a tenon, or inside a mortise.

Glue blocks offer an alternative to four jaw chucks.

For first practice wood squares of 2x6 can be considered - very inexpensive, spruce-pine-fir cuts easily, and there's no worry about messing up a nice piece of wood.
 
Thanks everybody for the advice. I don't know of a turning group nowhere near me. I turn turkey pot calls all the time. But I'm thinking of trying something bigger. Again thanks...
 
One thing not mentioned by others is your tools. Spindle tools are not for turning bowls. For example, never use your spindle roughing gouge to rough turn a bowl. It's very dangerous. You will need either HSS bowls gouge or carbide tools.

The rule for lathe speed is the larger the blank the slower you start. The best thing to do is start at the slowest speed your lathe has and and go up from there. If the piece is out of balance you will need to go slower as well. When I first started turning bowls I was very intimidated by the speed. It was much different than doing pens. For me, the problem I encountered was going to slow. That made it very choppy as I turned wood, air, wood, air as I knocked off the corners. As I got more comfortable I started turning at a faster speed and got better cuts. Most importantly, start with a smaller blank and a speed you are comfortable with.
 
Skie's posting above was excellent on turning options. One thing I'd add to this is that every chuck will have a max speed for unsupported turning. If you have the tailstock up, you can turn as fast as you're comfortable with. Once you move the tailstock away, find out the max recommended RPM is for the size bowl you're turning. This will be in your chuck manual. As a general rule of thumb, about 600 RPM is what most chuck manufacturers recommend if you're turning without tailstock support.

Steve
 
When you consider turning at a faster speed, make sure your insurance is paid current! But it should be determined by your skill level, sharpness of your tools, and the level of art you are looking for in your bowl. Think Safety first!:biggrin:
 
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