Impressed with Vaughn's process, thought might start a thread of how others do their.

Chuck Ellis

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Location
Tellico Plains, Tennessee
Vaughn posted the process of turning his big ash bowl and I found it very interesting to watch the process... I like to see how others work their magic on their lathe. I learn a great deal by just watching other turners. My stuff is not near so sophisticated as what Vaughn showed, but thought I would start or follow his thread with one of my bowls progressions and ask that others show some of their turning pictures...
I don't have a metal detector so didn't scan the wood... probably the man upstairs is watching out for me... I've never run into any metal in my woods and most of them are gimme's from other people and off farms around the area... no telling what could wind up on some of the trees.

A couple of years back I picked up a log... it was about 14 feet long that the TN DOT has pushed off the side of the road and into a huge brush pile in preparation of replacing a bridge over a small creek on one of the back roads that I take on my way to the bigger towns around where I live... initially when I saw the log, I thought it was a maple and because the end had browned a little thought it to be a maple with some ambrosia in it.... we stopped and I looked it over, then went to town and bought a new chainsaw to cut the log... not realizing how much of the log was actually in the brush pile... my step son when back with me to help with the loading...he wouldn't touch the chainsaw, just took pictures while I cut …. which may become another thread... by the time I had the log cut into manageable pieces, we had such a load on my little Ranger, it's a wonder I didn't break a spring or something... the front end was up enough that steering was touchy getting back home... if Ed hadn't been with me, might not have been able to get the front end down enough to steer. At any rate this is my process of doing a bowl..
step 1.jpg
I split the log and nibbled the edges into a more or less roundish form... I usually start bowls this way, rarely cut actually blanks. The log is mounted on a 3” steel face plate with 1 ½ inch hex head sheet metal screws, much like Vaughn did. I have 5 face plates that I use, all are steel, 2 are 3”, 1 is 4” and stainless steel, 1 is 6” that came with my first lathe and rarely use and the last is a 2” plate that is near useless....

step 3.jpg
You can see the face plate and where I scribe a circle on the face of the log... you can also see some of the flame I had through this piece of wood.

step 4.jpg
Starting to round the blank into shape...
step 7.jpg
I've cut most of the bark away and started my tenon to reverse the bowl.
Turned and mounted on the chuck.

step 14.jpg
Starting the hollowing process.

step 16.jpg
Almost finished with the hollowing process... I've lost some of the flame that was in the bowl, but still had a number of streaks.

step 18.jpg
This wood was so wet that I actually had a line of water from the lathe about 6 inches wide
and about 6 feet across the shop. My left sleeve was also wet from the water being slung out of
the bowl. I used a lot of mineral spirits on the inside of this bowl to try and dry it through some
before I took it any further.... I let it spin on the lathe at about 1500 rpms for better part of an
hour before I went any further....

step 22.jpg
About ready to sand out and get it ready to finish... you can still see a little of the mineral spirits still flashing off in the bottom.

step 23.jpg
This is the finished bowl from the side... I still see a little end grain that I didn't get quite as smooth as I would have liked and you can see a little of the inner bark on the left... I'll leave that on bowls sometimes for effects... customers seem to like it.
step 24.jpg
Final picture, finished with wipe on polyurethane. The bowl came out at 9 ½ inches diameter and about 5 inches deep. I took it all the way from wet blank to finished bowl in one process, taking time along the way to photograph and used the mineral oil to try and dry the wood some... may have also used the microwave, don't remember at this stage, but I had very little warp on the final piece...

There was actually 24 pictures, but some were a little repetitious, so only showed these few...

Now how about some of you other turners posting your process... we (or at least I) can learn from the various techniques we use.

Thanks for looking.
 
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Great idea to compare how we all do the process, Chuck. :thumb: There's still a lot all of us can learn. I liked the story with this one, and the end result was worth the effort. Nicely done, Chuck. :clap:
 
Chuck I do it much the same as you, but I don't bother nipping off the log before turning. (Unless its a big blank that requires it to fit over the ways)
 
Great idea to compare how we all do the process, Chuck. :thumb: There's still a lot all of us can learn. I liked the story with this one, and the end result was worth the effort. Nicely done, Chuck. :clap:

I've learned everything I know, what little there is, about turning by watching others.... it's not rocket science, but there innumerable little nuisances that we can pick up from others...

Chuck I do it much the same as you, but I don't bother nipping off the log before turning. (Unless its a big blank that requires it to fit over the ways)

I generally have to nip the corners... my lathe is only a 14" and I like the bigger bowls, so I get sorta round and try to balance them a little...My lowest speed is 450 rpms... I had a piece of Bradford pear on the lathe awhile back and it was out of balance enough that the lathe actually moved 6" before I could shut it down.... I'm not bolted down, but the lathe is solid cast iron... a Jet 1442, has a box between the legs with about 100 lbs of sand and a cabinet built on top of that... it should weigh close to 500 lbs now and it still moved.
 
Thanks for sharing, really enjoying these.

One area I'm still meh at is finishing the bottoms of the bowls (actually both the inside where the cut is.. more interesting, might be a chisel grind issue? and the outside where chucking it up is interesting but more so getting the dimensions correct) so would be interested in seeing any details on that if you guys decide to post any more :D
 
I am a big fan of progressive threads showing turning projects from log to bowl (or whatever). Is this the right sub-forum? Or is the Project Showcase the best place?

I just finished making a set of 6 collection plates for a church. I documented the process with 33 pictures which can be scaled back without much effort. I created an album in Facebook at the request of some friends who are registered as Friends in FB. However, I don't want to extend Friend-status to everyone on this forum. If there is interest, I can work out the storyboard and re-create it here as a separate thread.
 
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I was wondering if one of you would consider shooting video while going though your process. I understand that is asking a lot ....... so if not possible I understand.
 
Chip, we'd gladly welcome more of this type of pictorial. :thumb: Feel free to create a new thread, either here in the Q&A area or in the Project Showcase area. Either will be fine. ;)

By the way, I'm not positive, but if you set the permissions on the Facebook pictures to "Public", you might be able to link to them from here and have non-friends view them. (Not sure about that, though.)

Tom, next time I get back to my shop there are a few things I'd like to try to get on video. Not necessarily the entire process, but a few techniques that are hard to describe with still pictures and words. No promises yet, but I'll see if I can pull something off.
 
Tom, next time I get back to my shop there are a few things I'd like to try to get on video. Not necessarily the entire process, but a few techniques that are hard to describe with still pictures and words. No promises yet, but I'll see if I can pull something off.

Vaughn, that is what I really meant. I didnt expect someone to film the whole process from start to finish but seeing selective segments would really be helpful.
 
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