Which side is the sharp one again?

I made an atrocious mess of my workshop over the weekend and enjoyed every minute.

You see, I pulled the lathe from its dedicated corner and broke out some bowl blanks for a morning’s turning.

Now if someone were to ask if I was a turner I would flatly deny being anything of that sort and that I earn an honest living from flat work and add that my attempts at beads and coves usually get blamed for last minute design changes or that I’m often forced to watch that detail gouge run back over my workpiece just as I add that final touch to an unfinished corner!

Well it seems as if the final diameter is going be coming in at less than planned after all.

Considering the above you may be tempted to believe that I dislike turning and you couldn’t be further from the truth, on the contrary I love spending time at my lathe and from the time I mounted my first blank on a lathe I was hooked, blunt gouge and catches notwithstanding. It’s a pity that the hub I turned for my homemade bench vice didn’t last a month but as far as turning went I was a convert.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t spend enough time at the lathe and it’s been so long since I’ve done any turning that I had almost forgotten which end of my bowl gouge was the sharp one.

Over the past few weeks I developed an itch to turn a couple of bowls and this feeling of need was helped along by two other factors. The first, was the fact that I had some blanks drying and cracking on the workshop floor behind the table saw and the second was that I had promised someone that I would turn a couple of bowls for them from wood they were kind enough to source for me after a neighbour cut down a tree in their yard.

So, with an itch to scratch and a weekend on the way, I made sure not to make any alternate arrangements for the Saturday morning with anyone other than my lathe, the bowl gouge and a few blanks.

Saturday arrived and with the lathe rolled into position and dust extraction set up I turned my attention to that bowl gouge and I was relieved when I immediately recognised the sharp side for what it was. Like riding a bike, they say……

After a short visit to the grinder to put a fresh edge on said sharp side I turned my attention to the blanks I would be turning and with the first one between the spur drive and live centre I slowly cranked up the speed on the lathe, at just south of 1000RPM the fun began and it was truly like getting back on that bike. I was especially surprised at how comfortable I felt at the lathe, considering that of all the turning disciplines, bowl turning had been the one which I had neglected the most.

I need to take a step back for a moment here and mention that there was a third contributor towards the itch to turn a few bowls, this was my recent discovery of Richard Raffan’s YouTube channel and after spending and inordinate amount of time there I really wanted to try some of his techniques.

I found Richard’s workflow when turning bowls truly appealing and the fact that he gets the occasional catch on camera makes his channel very approachable!

Then how did it go, apart from shavings in my shoes and down my t-shirt? Really well, with the morning’s effort resulting in two of my best bowls ever and only one exploded blank. The whole ones will be heading out to my cousin’s farm to say thanks for a weekend we spent with them and for the firewood they allowed me to carry off to try turning bowls from.

Back on the bike so to speak, the next week or so I’ll start on the bowls as “payment” for the blanks that were gifted to me as mentioned earlier.

Mmmmm, I see a pattern of bowl blank hoarding and payment in kind starting to develop here.

Of course it wouldn’t be proper to leave this post without some tips for turning bowls, at least some I were reminded of this past weekend:

1. Round square blanks on a bandsaw prior to mounting them on the lathe, if not completely round at least take off the corners. You will turn bowls faster and have less shavings to clean up afterwards.

2. Don’t get beaten up by the blank, I followed the advice from Turn A Wood Bowl and it really helped, especially considering that I didn’t follow my advice in point 1.

3. Get your gouge as sharp as you can. Previously I used the normal grey wheels on my grinder and apart from eating up my turning tools I found that they didn’t leave sharp edges. Last year I upgraded to a CBN wheel and it was the first time I sharpened the bowl gouge on it and I can only say WOW! The old hands say that woodworking is easier when tools are sharp and in this case it certainly is.

4. Added to point 3, it helps to sharpen before making finishing cuts, you will get a better finish with less sanding required.

5. I have only one bowl gouge and I think it's sharpened to around 50 degrees with swept back wings. This grind sometimes struggles to make the “turn” at the bottom of the bowl when the heel lifts the cutting edge away from the wood. I eased the heel by grinding some of it away without affecting the primary bevel and for the first time ever I didn’t struggle to get an even transition between the side and the bottom of the bowl.

As I’m having a cup of coffee while staring at over a half ton of unprocessed blanks over in a corner of the garden I’m getting that itch again. At least this time I can remember which end of the gouge is the sharp one.

All I need to do now is to get that chainsaw that hasn’t run in almost a year and half started up again, that is a concern for the coming weekend though, now I’m having coffee.