Expectations

[sbarton22]

Ok, if you have been playing along, you know I just got a very fine little lathe for myself. I have a nice set of Pinnacle gouges. I found some cheap blanks that I can cut down for more practice blanks and I'm ready to rock.

So, last night I was able to fire it up for the first time. Keep in mind that this is the second time I have touched a lathe. I made a nice round cylinder. I was able to fumble around to make beads and curves. All in, I feel like I had a ton of fun and was able to start to get a feel for the tools...not master them, obviously, but get a feel of how they shape the wood and sort of how to hold the gouges.

My question to everyone is what should my level of expectations be? I felt like every tool I cut with just butchered the wood and tearout was the rule, not the exception. I finally got some "smooth" cuts but I was really doing little more than creating sawdust and not really removing wood.

Should I expect this type of cut until I master the tool? I was using poplar, so was part of the problem the wood?

I'm not complaining or getting discouraged. I'm just trying to understand the learning curve.

thanks in advance.

[aengland]

Well, how to answer since there are so many variables....

First, sharpness really matters. Dull tools will cut, but poorly. Poor cuts might also be technique, coupled with tool type, presentation to the work piece, and pressure--easy does it.

Second, as in all trades--you need the right tool for the right job! Perhaps a scraper will, well, scrap everything; but, you'll tire of it quickly. Bowl gouges, the most expensive tools, are probably the most useful for nearly all aspects of turning. But even, I wouldn't use one for a parting tool.

Third, wood density, grain, and wetness matters. Wet wood turning is fun!!!!; dry, is work plus precision. Wet woods warp during coffee breaks, yield long ribbons of shavings, and splatters everywhere; dry, none of the aforementioned.

Fourth, turning speed matters. Tear out could indicate (when you know your tools are sharp) that you're turning speed is too slow. Ah, but only increase speeds for pieces already balanced and turned round!

Hope this helps. Be sure to wear a mask: wood splinters, breaks, and chips fly real fast!!!! Chunks can dent, scratch, cut, and break--so, better to have some visor protection than a more serious injury. Lastly, search the web for some video demonstrations; and, by all means, join a local wood turning club. These folks live to help others down the slope.

Archie

[sbarton22]

OH! You bought up a a good point that I knew I was just guessing at.....speed.

So you say to start slow rounding a piece. How slow is slow? 300 rpm? 500 RPM? 800?

Are shaping cuts done at a medium speed? Are finishing cuts made at high speed?

I have a variable speed lathe, I just don't know much about the speeds.

And thanks for the other info.

I'm so geeked to get back in the shop and practice!

[DaBear]

OH! You bought up a a good point that I knew I was just guessing at.....speed.

So you say to start slow rounding a piece. How slow is slow? 300 rpm? 500 RPM? 800?

Are shaping cuts done at a medium speed? Are finishing cuts made at high speed?

I have a variable speed lathe, I just don't know much about the speeds.

And thanks for the other info.

I'm so geeked to get back in the shop and practice!

Rule of thumb for speed that I've seen is <diameter in inches> times <RPM> = 5000-8000. Lower end when rough, higher end when rounded and more balanced.. When roughing out bowl blanks and other such items that you have attached via faceplate, try to always use your tailstock until it's balanced.

+1 on a good faceshield..

Welcome to the dark side

Hope that helps

[Onboard]

I probably should not be replying here. I’m not a turner, but when Archie said something about wet (green) wood, it reminded me that if your poplar is kiln dried it may be responsible for some of your problems. See if you can get a piece of air dried poplar to turn if that’s the case. Also, I’ve read that poplar is a good wood for turning but it typically does not have any interesting figure to the wood. However, you said you were practicing so figure shouldn’t be an issue. Just a thought or two.

[Roger T]

Morning all,

SB. You need to fill in a few things for us here.

Do you have a way of sharpening your tools? Or, are you just using them straight out of the package? If you are just using the tools straight out of the box, you will have no amount of frustration. Turning tools dont need to be surgically sharp with maybe the exception being a skew, and you want that about as sharp as you can get it. But for gouges, coming straight off a grinding wheel is sufficient. I recommend that if you dont have a way of sharpening, you stop turning until you get a way to sharpen. Most turners use a slow speed grinder of 1750rpm. And some form of jig to hold the gouges. I highly recommend the Wolverine Jig. Its easy and very repeatable every time you go to the grinder. If you are handy, you can google for a wolverine knock off and make one rather than buying.

OK, now, assuming you have sharp tools spindle turning is really pretty easy in the grand scheme of things. When spindle turning, think of petting a dog. When you pet him from nose to tail, it goes nicely and his coat lays down nicely. But pet from tail to nose, and you lift all the hairs up. This same concept holds true for turning. You always want to turn downhill. IE:From the larger diameter to the smaller diameter. If turned from small to large, you will lift the supporting grains and almost always leave a rough surface.

Wood choices are immaterial. Soft woods are a bit more challenging at times, but with sharp tools and proper techniques, you should be able to get the same quality of surface as you can with hard woods. While turning Green wet wood is immense fun, and highly recommended to do every chance you get, often times all you have is dry wood. Air dried or kiln dried really dont make a difference. Wood is wood.

If you are turning spindle stock, between centers, speed usually isn't as much an issue as it is when roughing out a bowl blank. When I turn spindles, even if they are square stock between centers, I turn my speed up, I want that piece to be moving. Faster speed usually amounts to cleaner cuts, and much less abuse on you and the tools and machine. Use a skew, or a Spindle roughing gouge, Usually shaped like a Big "U" to get the piece round. Then bring out the spindle gouge.

Conversely, when doing bowls, you want to start slow. Usually less than 300rpm. Its highly recommended to take a bowl blank to the bandsaw and either cut it round or at least knock the corners off of it. I doubt at this stage that you have a chuck, and will likely be using a face plate for bowls and such. Always use the tailstock as much as possible. NEVER use drywall screws to attach the faceplate to the piece, but rather use sheet metal screws. When roughing a bowl, start at the tailstock and work your way up to the rim of the bowl. As you start to get the blank roughed, you want to pull the bottom up to the rim. Your interrupted cuts will be less doing it this way, rather than starting on the side of the blank, where you have 4, widely space interrupted cuts. Remember this, on bowls, for the outside, go from bottom to top on the outside, and from rim to bottom of bowl on the inside.

You said in your above post that you were just getting sawdust and not shavings. Either your tools are dull or you are presenting the tool incorrectly. Likely a combination of both. Sharpen frequently, sharpen often. It takes less than 30 seconds to sharpen, and you will have much more fun. All our turning tools have bevels on them. There is a term called riding the bevel. The gouge wants to cut in the direction the bevel is pointing. The bevel provides support for the tool at the piece.

Here is a little practice thing you can do. Using the Big Spindle roughing gouge, OH and BTW Never use this tool on a bowl blank, or a blank that has the grain running perpendicular to the bed of the lathe. Its just way to dangerous and a good way to get hurt.

Put a spindle blank in the lathe between centers. Set the tool rest about 1/2" below center, and locate it about a 1/4" or so from the blank. Bring the lathe up to mid range speed. With 0* being parallel to the floor, place the SRG on the rest,and drop the end of the handle down to around 45* or a bit more. Now advance the tool to the piece slowly and you will hear the wood ticking the bevel. Slowly raise the handle until you start getting a shaving. Now you can traverse either left or right, keeping in mind that you want the end of the handle trailing behind the cutting end of the tool. Dont start at the end of the piece and work to the middle, but rather, start in the middle or, somewhere away from the end of the piece, and turn towards the end of the piece. This will help you avoid taking a large chunk off of a corner.

Go here and watch as many videos as you can, find a local turning club and see if you can get a mentor for a few sessions. Always wear a face shield, safety glasses are just not acceptable. Make lots of chips, and be safe.

http://www.woodturningvideos.com/

Hope this helps you out just a little bit.

Roger

[sbarton22]

Roger....

Wow...lots of good stuff there.

I do have a grinder and know how to use it. I would like to get a better wheel, but other than that, I am good to go.

The cat at Woodcraft showed me the Wolverine jig. Pretty cool for the fingernail gouges. I'm going to think about getting that system.

You are absolutely right in guessing I was presenting the tool all wrong. I found a very good website that gave very good instruction. HERE. I made the appropriate adjustments, and it was like I had been turning for weeks instead of hours . I compared the effort from yesterday to the previous day, and it looked like I tried to turn the first day with a butter knife. What I was able to accomplish last night was very rewarding. My cuts were much, much, much smoother.

I do have to say that I might still be bending the fibers over (perhaps I'm not sharp enough ) because if I rub my hand on the piece and rotate it backwards, I get that "petting the dog the wrong way" feeling. I'll try to sharpen the gouges and see what I come up with on that front.

One thing you mention that I don't quite get. You say not to use a roughing gouge on a bowl? Once I knock off the cornerson the bandsaw, what do I use to get it into the basic shape? Go right to the bowl gouge?

Also, you are correct that I do not have chuck. How do I use a faceplate on smaller stock? For instance, the book I have has some exercises has you making a little goblet from a 2x2 blank. Obviously, I can't use the spur and the tail stock. The face plate is too large to properly anchor the blank and be able to remove the tailstock. My mentor said he used a couple of dots of glue (can't remember if it is CA or yellow) to attach his bowl bases to a sacrifical piece of ply that gets screwed to a faceplate. I'm thinking with 2x2 stock, you have an end grain to face grain situation and I don't really trust it.maybe a couple of screws near the center of the sacrifical piece be enough?

I've seen something that looks like a threaded end that I assume you just screw your piece into. Is that a#2 mortise taper deal? Or does that fit in a chuck (a saw that one came with a Nova 3 chuck)?

Oh, I have my woodworking guild meeting tonight...so I hope to get some good info there.

Seriously, thanks for all the help!!

scott

[DaBear]

I would vote for going straight to the bowl gouge. You'd be amazed what you can do with one..

Ciao..

David

[Roger T]

Roger....

Wow...lots of good stuff there.

I do have a grinder and know how to use it. I would like to get a better wheel, but other than that, I am good to go.

The cat at Woodcraft showed me the Wolverine jig. Pretty cool for the fingernail gouges. I'm going to think about getting that system.

You are absolutely right in guessing I was presenting the tool all wrong. I found a very good website that gave very good instruction. HERE. I made the appropriate adjustments, and it was like I had been turning for weeks instead of hours . I compared the effort from yesterday to the previous day, and it looked like I tried to turn the first day with a butter knife. What I was able to accomplish last night was very rewarding. My cuts were much, much, much smoother.

I do have to say that I might still be bending the fibers over (perhaps I'm not sharp enough ) because if I rub my hand on the piece and rotate it backwards, I get that "petting the dog the wrong way" feeling. I'll try to sharpen the gouges and see what I come up with on that front.

One thing you mention that I don't quite get. You say not to use a roughing gouge on a bowl? Once I knock off the cornerson the bandsaw, what do I use to get it into the basic shape? Go right to the bowl gouge?

Yep,go straignt to the bowl gouge. The big wings on a SRG will do nothing but get you in trouble. One little mis-movement with it presents the corner of that wing to the wood. That will be a disaster. When I first started out, I actually did that and managed to snap my rest into 2 pieces. The bowl gouge is where its at.

Also, you are correct that I do not have chuck. How do I use a faceplate on smaller stock? For instance, the book I have has some exercises has you making a little goblet from a 2x2 blank. Obviously, I can't use the spur and the tail stock. The face plate is too large to properly anchor the blank and be able to remove the tailstock. My mentor said he used a couple of dots of glue (can't remember if it is CA or yellow) to attach his bowl bases to a sacrifical piece of ply that gets screwed to a faceplate. I'm thinking with 2x2 stock, you have an end grain to face grain situation and I don't really trust it.maybe a couple of screws near the center of the sacrifical piece be enough?

WEll, I think you are in a pickle with this one. Trying to hollow a piece so small without a chuck will be a lesson in futility. I can never recommend using plywood for a glue block. Maybe with small pieces you could get away with it, but as the pieces get larger there is just to much danger of the plys delaminating and coming apart right at the wrong moment, serious injury could result. I always use solid wood, usually either poplar or maple making sure to face it off as flat as I can get it before gluing my piece to it. A face grain to end grain glued joint is never very strong, and I highly advise not to do it with turning stock. I believe craft supplies offers a screw chuck. How well it would work in the long grain I do not know. But I can tell you this, the further you get from the supporting base of the stock to the end hanging out in the air, WILL create vibrations and chatter. You can get small faceplates to fit your lathe, some as small as 2" or so, but then again, hanging a piece out in space like that is asking for vibrations and chatter. I'm not saying it cant be done, but will take a new skill set, because you will be handling the gouge with one hand, and supporting the piece with the other. Its pretty early in your turning endeavours to tackle that. You could laminate several layers of your stock together and then secure it to your faceplate. Then turn it down to your piece, but that wastes quite a bit of wood. You could also make a Jam chuck, where you would mount a pc to your faceplate, then turn a hole into it or drill a hole into it. Then taking your turning stock, turn a tenon on it to fit very snugly into the recess you drilled. Make sure you have a nice square corner when you turn the tenon, this shoulder will provide the support for the piece, and make your tenon at least 1/2" or so long, the longer the tenon the better. At this point you could use CA glue and glue the turning block into the hole of the faceplate block. Just be aware of the overhang thing/vibration thing. Always use the tailstock as much as possible, up to the point that you can do nothing else with it in the way.

I've seen something that looks like a threaded end that I assume you just screw your piece into. Is that a#2 mortise taper deal? Or does that fit in a chuck (a saw that one came with a Nova 3 chuck)?

I kind of touched on that above. Its called a screw chuck, and will screw directly onto your spindle. This is normally used when doing bowls with the grain running perpendicular to the lathe. I've never used one with spindle orientations tho. Just make sure to use a properly sized drill bit and to make the end square so it seats fully onto the face of the screw chuck. A screw chuck is way handy to have when doing production bowls, just drill a hole, screw the blank on, bring up the tailstock and turn. No need to mess with a tenon just to shape the outside of the bowl.

Keep asking questions, I dont mind helping out when I can.

BTW Where are you located?

Oh, I have my woodworking guild meeting tonight...so I hope to get some good info there.

Seriously, thanks for all the help!!

scott

[sbarton22]

Ok, there is a lot of info there.I'll have to get in the shop and try some of this out. You did spark a good idea....why just work on the 2x2 blank? Why not glue up some pieces and just make a bigger (wider) goblet.

Just 2 days ago, I didn't really get the concept of turning downhill or turning end grain. It's starting to become more clear.

This thread is becoming a pretty solid primer!

[sbarton22]

BTW, I'm in Kansas City.

[jHop]

Keep in mind my level of experience is waaaaaaaaaay below Roger's.

Morning all,

SB. You need to fill in a few things for us here.

Do you have a way of sharpening your tools? Or, are you just using them straight out of the package? If you are just using the tools straight out of the box, you will have no amount of frustration. Turning tools dont need to be surgically sharp with maybe the exception being a skew, and you want that about as sharp as you can get it. But for gouges, coming straight off a grinding wheel is sufficient. I recommend that if you dont have a way of sharpening, you stop turning until you get a way to sharpen. Most turners use a slow speed grinder of 1750rpm. And some form of jig to hold the gouges. I highly recommend the Wolverine Jig. Its easy and very repeatable every time you go to the grinder. If you are handy, you can google for a wolverine knock off and make one rather than buying.

+1 on making one. It's really very simple to come up with the base, getting the fingernail attachment is slightly harder. I've used a long strip of OSB for the base, and simply screwed a pair of plywood cleats to the end in a "V" shape. Simply clamp this under your grinder, and align the center of the V with the center of the grinding wheel. It's not going to be as durable as a metal form, nor as "professional" as the original product, but it's cheaper, and you can always use scraps to rebuild the next one. (By the way, don't run the plywood with the plies vertical. They separate.)

there are two different schools of thought on the jig, by the way. Wolverine is the most commonly used one in the US; Robert Sorby's is the most common in the UK (from what little I've seen). This is probably due to manufacturing locations more than anything, but the Wolverine is cheaper than Sorby's. The two are not compatible, however.

You said in your above post that you were just getting sawdust and not shavings. Either your tools are dull or you are presenting the tool incorrectly. Likely a combination of both. Sharpen frequently, sharpen often. It takes less than 30 seconds to sharpen, and you will have much more fun. All our turning tools have bevels on them. There is a term called riding the bevel. The gouge wants to cut in the direction the bevel is pointing. The bevel provides support for the tool at the piece.

Using the tools right out of the package, I can practically guarantee that the edge needs to be sharpened. You will never use the same approach angle that the factory sharpened the tools to. Before I moved (shop is in pieces right now), I had the lathe on the one side of the bench, and the grinder at the end of that same bench, just off the tail stock. I'd use the same outlet due to the way the shop was wired, so sharpening wasn't 30 seconds, but it was under 2 minutes. If you have a power strip, I'd plug both the lathe and the grinder into that one. Ideally, get one of the automatic switches (Kreg has one, Woodcraft sells something similar, they are all over the place) that turns on the dust collection at the same time as the lathe. You could (I don't recommend it) plug the power strip into this outlet, and when either the lathe or grinder kick in, the dust collection kicks in, but I'd hesitate to suck hot metal into wood dust and shavings.

One other thing I did with my jig that I mentioned earlier is that I placed a strip of 800 grit automotive wet/dry sandpaper on the base/OSB. I'd use this for touching up the edge on the skew. Needless to say, the skew is the most time consuming to sharpen, but once it's sharp, you just have to redress the bevel, not regrind it.

Roger also mentions to not use grain perpendicular to the bed of the lathe (at least when just starting out). I can attest to this through my test of OSB. As the grain orientation on that is wilder than a drunk duck on an ice pond, chip out and shredding is the norm.

A visor is, in my opinion, a must. You only get one set of eyes, until medical technology catches up to science fiction. Protect them. I use both a pair of safety glasses and a visor. I'd opt for the full head respirator/ safety visor, but I'm on a restricted budget. (Plus the shop is not set up right now... no power so no chips to worry about for the short term.)

Have fun on this, and post your results! (I need good examples to follow!)