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The title says it all

I am ok with spindle turning but want to start turning bowls
I live on a farm and get my own wood.
Do I mount to the age rings or on the side?

Thanks,

D

dinich wrote:The title says it all

I am ok with spindle turning but want to start turning bowls
I live on a farm and get my own wood.
Do I mount to the age rings or on the side?

Thanks,

D

Tall and narrow, may be mounted to age rings. Things like goblets, etc. Almost anything else, on the side.
Watch for pith.
Trim corners to 45º at least. Better to cut a circle on a bandsaw or scroll saw.
Enjoy.

dinich wrote:The title says it all

I am ok with spindle turning but want to start turning bowls
I live on a farm and get my own wood.
Do I mount to the age rings or on the side?

Thanks,

D

You can split the log down the center (through the pith), you can then mount it either bark in or out. I have been playing around with turning bowls with the bark on, it is difficult but fun. when it works

it all depends what you want to make and how you want it to look.

You might enjoy this site http://aroundthewoods.com/firewood.shtml

Make sure you check out his other pages.

Tom Boley did a demo at the local wood turners club last year. the hand out he did for "bark"ing bowls is available from the club website. because of the way the site is structured, I cannot post a direct link to the handout. to see it, go to
http://www.tidewaterturners.net/
and click on "Reading Room" on the left. on the handout pull-down, select
"Bark"ing Bowls (Tom Boley)

he did 3 different bowl types including 2 different approaches to square bowls.

I hope he comes back again. at the time, I was just getting into turning and most of what he showed just sort of made a whooshing noise as it went by my head. I kept the paper handout and I think that it is slowly soaking in.

Ivan

paul269 wrote:it all depends what you want to make and how you want it to look.

You might enjoy this site http://aroundthewoods.com/firewood.shtml

Make sure you check out his other pages.

Paul,

that is a nice site. thanks for posting it.

one thing that he does not mention caught one of our guest turners off guard. he grabbed a nice full log segment (a length of the whole trunk) off his firewood stack and rounded it on his bandsaw. he then carefully mounted the geometric center on the drive and live centers. when he turned on the lathe, it bucked so much that it almost turned over on him before he could turn it off. his post mortem: the log had been partially submerged into the wood stack so that the lower half was much greener than the upper half. as a result, the center of mass was very different from the geometric center. moral: check your balance on the lathe when you are checking your clearance and always start slow.

Ivan

And like you guys here taught me scrape into the grain, and cut when you are perpendicular. When turning logs into bowls I always bolt it to a faceplate and run a live center. Once I have it mounted I flip the power for 1/2 second and flip it off to make sure my lathe isnt going to bounce down the driveway. The other thing I picked up at Woodcraft was a chuck and #2 morse taper spindle. After I get the outside round, I pop out my live center, pop in the Chuck with a 1 1/2"Forstner bit and drill the center of the bowl most of the way down, then I put my live center back in and play.
Mark

On the subject of cutting wood safely for turning bowls, I met a guy about a dozen years ago who was just getting into woodworking. We talked a while about woodworking and I remember him telling me that he had just gotten a Powermatic cabinet saw with 5 HP motor. You remember something like that because not too many hobbiest woodworkers buy such a nice saw. The next time I saw him he had a big bandage under his chin, a bunch of stiches, and his lower face was black and blue. He said he was cutting a small log in half for bowl blanks. I said a bandsaw did that. He said, no the table saw kicked back. I still cringe when I think of that.

pennview wrote:On the subject of cutting wood safely for turning bowls, I met a guy about a dozen years ago who was just getting into woodworking. We talked a while about woodworking and I remember him telling me that he had just gotten a Powermatic cabinet saw with 5 HP motor. You remember something like that because not too many hobbiest woodworkers buy such a nice saw. The next time I saw him he had a big bandage under his chin, a bunch of stiches, and his lower face was black and blue. He said he was cutting a small log in half for bowl blanks. I said a bandsaw did that. He said, no the table saw kicked back. I still cringe when I think of that.

Yes! Sawing walnut log on mark 5 not for the faint hearted(nor ignoramuses of obvious hazardous locations for the operator)!;)

You're nuts if you try to cut a log on a regular table saw.