One cut too many OUCH!

Tom Baugues

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Lafayette, Indiana
I started on this 10 inch sized bowl tonight out of Black Walnut. Boy, this stuff is real hard wood! Anyway, I found that if I kept my tools very sharp I was making progress. I was just about to quit for the evening when I decided to square up a tenon with my skew. WHAM..... it happened so fast! I had my first "major" catch. Finding the correct angle to use a skew has been a learning process for me and obviously I have not gotten it figured out yet. Anyway when the tool caught it somehow smashed my hand into the tool rest and cut me up pretty good. At first I thought I had broken my smallest finger but soon realized that I was still able to move it. I shut off the lathe and went into the house to clean up my hand. Not too much blood but the "meat" on my finger was not pretty. Don't need stitches or anything but it did give me a pretty good scare. So the next couple of nights I will need to research more on the proper angle for the skew. Here's a couple of photos of what I'm working on. I took it off the lathe and went ahead and soaked it in DNA. I have alot of work to do on it as I had only just gotten it to a basic shape. You can see where the skew got caught in the last photo. It tore up the wood as well but I can smooth that out without any problem when I return it to the lathe.

Tom
 

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The skew is one of the tools I always keep far away from any faceplate work. The other is the roughing gouge, for very much the same sort of reasons. For faceplate work, I use nothing but bowl gouges, scrapers, and hollowing tools.

It's good to get that first "wake-up" catch - rattles ya up pretty good, doughnut? :) Hereafter, you'll be a little more watchful of what could happen.

I had a friend 'bout rip two of his fingers off that way - got a catch on the bottom of a bowl, & it flipped his fingers right in between the bowl & the toolrest. Lucky for him, it stalled the lathe.
 
Dang, that hurt just reading about it. Glad it wasn't worse, but sorry it was as bad as it was.

I am sure that someone with more experience can pass on the proper angle for it. I would like to know too.

For me, the proper angle seems to be about 45º. That's usually the angle it sticks at when I throw it across the shop and spear it into the wall. :p
 
That must have been scary, I'm glad that you still have your fingers although a bit damaged, it could have been far serious.
 
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Glad it was no worse than it was. Probably most of us have done the same thing or worse, having a parting tool blade pulled from the handle and thrown across the shop (not enough clearance allowed), roughing a bowl with a spindle roughing gouge. I agree with Tim about a skew on a bowl…a big no no that may cause a big boo boo.
If you have a local woodturning club with a library I suggest Alan Lacers DVD The Skew Chisel – The Sweet Side, The Dark Side. He shows why this happens in great detail and with all of the other basic cuts if the skew. Even if you have buy it you can resell it here (or other forums).
I am still struggling with various tools and most people talk about the angle of a tool, not just with the skew. What about the tool rest height and where the tool meets the wood (10:30? 11:30?)
Hope to see the completed bowl.
Mike
 
Tom,
I shuddered when I first started reading your post... knock on green wood (two raps to the side of the head) I haven't done anything yet to catch and cut any fingers.. I've bruised one or two....

On the tenon, I know the skew is the wrong tool, but after I get the general shape I want with my bowl gouge, I'll sometimes take the point of the skew and clean the sides of the tenon... light cuts and just to square them up.... better tool is a parting too addressed square to the tenon, but I use a skew a lot of the times..

The catch that scares me most with my skew and it's happened a couple of times, I'll address the tool to the wood and not pay as close attention as I should... the skew with catch and then shoot backwards out of my hand... a sharp blade shooting through the palm of my hand.... I know the sides aren't sharp, but the blade portion is.... fortunately, I always wear a leather glove on my left hand... those wood chips flying off the turning against my hand are hot and they hurt after a while. The glove is an old deerskin work glove that I've cut the fingers and thumb out of.
 
Well this bowl turning stuff is new to me and I am self teaching myself. I've often wished I could attend a class or two but have not done so. I heard the other day about a local woodworking group in my area. I think I will go see what they are all about and maybe I can find someone closer to me that turns. I think I could learn so much more if I was able to ask questions as I watched someone else work.

Fingers are pretty sore today but they are still there and I have thought about that many times today while at my job. What if ????
Thanks for the support guys. Its good to be able to share with others who know.

Tom
 
Tom,

My crotch puckered when I read that. From your picture, it appears that you were cutting at the axis. I’m no expert, and PLEASE, somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve been experimenting with the skew and found that, if you make your cuts on the top third of the material, above the axis, it does a pretty good job. I was turning a relatively soft piece of wood with a spindle gouge that was giving me tremendous tear out. I switched to the skew, freshly sharpened, and working SLOWLY, made fine thin strings. I set the tool rest up higher so that I was cutting on the top third of the wood, kept the side of the skew flat on the tool rest, tip on the side AWAY from the direction I was cutting, and presented the cutting surface so that the cutting was being done where, if you drew two lines marking the skew in thirds, the bottom and second third meet. That angle was probably close to 45º (horizontally, not vertically). It turned out so smooth that I was surprised to see scratch marks when I started sanding with 220 grit.

Like I said, this worked great for me and I’ll continue to do it this way until I learn differently, hopefully not the hard way. So this is a disclaimer as to the proper way to do it. Hopefully some of the long timers will chime in.
 
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Yes Chuck...from what I have now read, you seem to be doing it right. I know now that my biggest mistake was not holding the skew higher on the piece. I was indeed trying to cut too far down and as I run it all though my head now I do not know how this did not happen to me before now. I have learned my lesson and will be making any further cuts high on the work surface and at at least a 45 degree angle.

On a side note...I did go back out in the shop tonight. I didn't want to let this get the best of me. I had a couple pens turned that needed assembled and was still able to do that. Fingers are still very swollen and sore but I hope to get back on the lathe next week.

Tom
 
Tom,

Glad to hear that you are back in the shop. When the fingers work, you might try practicing the skew on softer wood. Hard wood is not as forgiving. I bought a good sized block of Tupelo, thinking it was Tulip (the eyes aren’t what they used to be). I cut an 8” X 8” X 4” block for a bowl and two 4” X 4” x 8” ‘s for vases. In trying to turn the bowl, I was gouging out massive chunks particularly on the cross grain, while trying to get it round, When I discovered my error, that Tupelo was a wood carvers wood, I threw the bowl blank out. Later, I needed a 61 mm X 141 mm cylinder so I started turning it from one of the other blocks I had left, figuring I could use copious amounts of wood filler to fill the craters and sand it down on the lathe. When it was still a half inch from 61 mm, I started using the skew as I described, just taking off small shavings as I went along. It took a while to get it down that last half inch but I think I really learned how to do it, although going left to right was a little more difficult for me.

If you have a local Woodcraft or Rockler close, you might get a blank of Tupelo and give it a try. Good luck.
 
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