My first turned bowl

Lee Laird

Member
Messages
405
Location
Austin TX
Gang,

Whoever said this turning was a slippery slope wasn't kidding! :D My tablesaw is starting to get a complex with all the time I spend with my lathe. :rofl:

I had a piece of cherry just sitting around that was a cut-off from a project. I decided I may as well play around with it on the lathe. It's size made it a candidate for a small bowl. Now this is the first bowl that I've made by myself. The shape isn't to die for. Walls ended up too thick as I was getting way too close to the bottom and didn't want to make a funnel. Anyways, I guess that's how we learn.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
 

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I like it Lee. I have spent the last two hours making a bowl edge thinner and thinner. While my intentions weren't to make it as thin as I did, I kept getting gouges so I had to cut them back.

Let's see more of this from you, I'll even bet Larry will start turning. :rofl:
 
Congrats on a fine first bowl, Lee. :thumb: Yes the slope is slippery, but it's fun.

Save that bowl and have a look at it in a year...you'll probably be surprised how much your skills develop.
 
Frank,

Thanks. I thought about going back in to slim down the walls but not having the best of skills, yet, I decided to just let this one stay a bowl.

Vaughn,

Thanks and yep, I'll mark the bowl and come back to it for comparisons along the way. Hope they continue to improve.

Guys,
I had a nasty catch last night on a piece of oak. I'd put a small tenon (probably too small) on a 4" cylinder and was holding it in my chuck. I thought I'd flatten the opposite end and went for, as it turns out, either the wrong tool or technique. I grabbed a flat ended scraper and just as I touched the wood the piece catapulted into the built-in lamp, shattering the florescent bulb into a multitude of pieces across the shop. I'd just used the scraper on the other end of the piece (that was already flat) to touch up the tenon. Who knew. I puttered around cleaning up the glass all over the shop while my heart came back down from my throat. Well, most of the turning is fun.
 
Lee great looking first bowl. You need to sign and date it. Make sure you keep it to compare with 1, 2 or 3 yrs down the road. I can't believe my first one to one now.
 
Thanks Bernie. I hope my improvement over the years will mimic your's. I signed and dated the bottom of the bowl this evening. I finally got one of the wood-burning tools and I like the results so much better than the sharpies I'd been using.
 
Lee, I think I've had my worst catches with scrapers. They sure do get your attention, huh? Now I just use them for baby-soft finishing cuts, and the pucker factor has gone way down.

On the other hand, you're learning the limits and proper application of your various tools much like the rest of us have...by trial and the occasional error. ;)
 
Vaughn,

You are so right. When you're green you can go into a situation without baggage, but sometimes that bites you where it hurts! I always wear my face shield, but wouldn't you know that for that brief instant in time, during my worst catch so far, I wasn't wearing it. It didn't take me long to recoil from the noise and the pretty lights. Obviously, today I was back to wearing it religiously like before. Got my attention. Funny, I'd been watching Richard Raffan on DVD make some boxes and I was using what I thought was a sound technique. Some of the masters can really make the craziest things look easy.

Thanks for the commiseration.
 
Hey Lee, that certainly is a first bowl, congrats! :clap:

On the catch, they happen to all of us, just learn from it, don't stand in the line of fire, and wear good eye and face protection, all the time, and lastly, HAVE FUN! :thumb:
 
Stu,

Thanks. Yeah, I'm doing just that. Interesting how the piece took off in exactly the opposite direction than I would have guessed. I think that is another part of the learning the turning trade, knowing where the piece will go if it goes airborne.
 
...I think that is another part of the learning the turning trade, knowing where the piece will go if it goes airborne.
Ya got that right. :p This was done by a cutoff piece I knew was gonna fly, but didn't really think it was going to leave the shop via the window.

Donut%20Chuck%202%20500.jpg


(In hindsight, I was an idiot for not using the tailstock to hold the cutoff piece in place.)

This picture is a different occasion, but like you (and a number of other guys), I have one of those "the one time I wasn't wearing the face shield..." stories. Funny how one bonking can make a person a believer in face protection, huh?
 
Chuck and John,

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I continue to practice daily and wait, I got to close to edge, Hellllppppp! <grin>

Vaughn,

With all the noise my projectile made, I'm surprised it didn't punch through the sheetrock or the garage door. I was working on the same flying-object piece last night and boy did I keep the cuts light. And, no, I didn't use the scraper, at all.
 
Congrats on turning your first bowl, Lee.

I've launched numerous pieces off my lathe and I'm sure will see many more get airborne. I rarely get catches any more but there's other things that will give wings to wood chunks. That's part of what makes this turning stuff exciting. :D

Face protection is just good sense when shaping that spinny stuff. Be safe and continue to have fun. It only gets better.
 
Another faceshield testimonial....

A couple nights ago I was roughing out a bowl shape in a quasi-rectangular piece of wood, cutting more and more air as I got out to the edge. I got the underside shaped OK, but noticed that the rim edge was a little erratic. Don't know what I was thinking, but I presented the tool at 90* to the edge.

BONK! A sizeable chunk bounced off my faceshield "out of nowhere". :rolleyes:

So far ... faceshield: 2 face: 0. :thumb:
 
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