End grain

I would like to start turning some lidded boxes and would like some thoughts on how to turn end grain?

Mike Stafford, please pick up the white courtesy phone...

Gary, I don't know much about end grain turning, but there are several guys here who do. I'm sure they'll chime in.

I did a pile of these boxes a few years ago and used a square nose and a round nose scraper on them. I had a couple of the whiz bang carbide tools but never could figure out how to make them work. I turned a tennon on the bottom of the box and gripped it in the SuperNova.

Teknatool has a tutorial here.

American Woodworker has one here.

They are fun to turn.

I have met Mike and printed out his tutorial. I was just looking for all the info I could before trying this

Gary, Jack has linked to my tutorial on turning end grain boxes at Teknatool.

I would also recommend taking a look at Richard Raffan's video on Turning Boxes as well as the more recent version by Jimmy Clewes. Clewes' video shows tool position very clearly. I highly recommend both of his videos where he is turning boxes.

I use a variety of tools to hollow end grain. My favorite and the fastest is a Henry Taylor 1/2" detail gouge with a short grind. You can remove a lot of wood in a hurry and the shallow flute provides a lot of steel under the cutting edge so you can reach over the tool rest a long way before you get chatter.

As Dale said you can do the job with scrapers and I still use scrapers in some situations as a finishing tool. I think you will be happier with the finish if you use a gouge to cut with rather than a blunt tool to scrape with. I also have begun to use Hunter tools a lot. These are carbide tools with razor sharp cutters. I rough hollow with the gouge and then do all my finish cuts with the Hunter. I particularly like the Hunter on dense hardwoods like cocobolo, verawood, pau ferro, etc. There is a learning curve associated with a tool like this so practice on other woods before you go to expensive exotics.

My best advice is to start with relatively simple forms and master the techniques before you try complicated shapes. As I said practice on less expensive woods before you delve into expensive exotics.

I tell you, that new tool I got, the Ci1, does really well on end grain!

Take a look at the first post >> HERE << on this thread

Richard, I have watched Raffan's video on boxes. My problem with his demo is that he uses wood so green it is dripping water. Shavings fly like crazy. Not realistic for what most of us have to work with.

I agree with Raffan's video on box turning. It doesn't matter if you use green or dry wood. Frank I use green wood all the time. I rough turn it, put it in DNA, let it dry a couple of weeks or so and the finish turning. I have made probably 30 boxes using green wood with no problems.