Hey Guys. I've had my lathe for about two months now and have attempted to turn several small bowls and vases. Most of the wood I've used was laminated walnut and/or cherry (taking a 12" wide board and cutting it down to 12" long and gluing 4 or 5 boards together on top). I'm having a huge issue with getting a smooth finishing cut with no tear out. So much so that I'm not even able to sand the areas smooth. Is tear out more common when turning laminated wood like I have been? I've read and tried lots of different techniques with bowl gouge and scrapers but still no luck. I also purchased an easy tools finisher hoping that would help but I can't get a good finish at all with that tool. Any advice would be great!
Some ideas: You need super super sharp tools - if you haven't resharpening your bowl gouge while doing shear slicing cuts in the last 5 minutes - it is dull. If you are scraping, your important burr disappears in about 30 seconds. Avoid doing scraping for the general shaping of the bowl Learn to ride the bevel on your bowl gouge and take slicing cuts. Re-read the posts on finishing cuts: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...finishing-cuts
Read post #17 from Steve Schlumpf: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...79-New-turning Steve starts out: "Anytime you get tearout it is because the wood is not being cut - it is being ripped out...."
Most beginning turners do not sharpen nearly often enough.....most are afraid they will grind away their gouges, so are reluctant. A good touch up every 2 or three passes on a bowl will help with tearout. On punky woods, sometimes soaking with sanding sealer helps, which is basically a shellac, which will stiffen the fibers. You need to make sure you are shear cutting the fibers if you are using a scraper, which means handle a little higher than the nose, and turned to a 35 to 45 degree angle......as Brice mentioned, the burr will be gone in about 30 seconds, so touch up again on the grinder, with a light pass.
Thanks for the information guys. Does anyone here use the Easy wood tools round finisher? I purchased it thinking it would be the answer for final clean up passes but I get more catches with it than my bowl gouge.
Yes, Dusty, I've used the round carbide scraper in hollowforms and under the inside lip of a bowl. If presented flat, inside a hollow form it may be a little grabby or catchy if you have very much overhang over the tool rest. If you are working inside a bowl or hollow form and accidentally (or unknowingly) try to cut below center, you might get a bigger catch. One associated reason is that a large part of the round scraper is coming in contact with the concave surface of the bowl. One soft wood, this round scraper may lead to tearout, especially if it has dulled due to use. The mfr recommends dedicating one cutter exclusively for finishing cuts. Inside a bowl, I use a curved tool rest to minimize the overhang. On some hollowforms I use a 1 or 1.5" wide tool rest that is like a "diving board". It is narrow enough that it will slip into many of the hollowforms I make. If you rotate the round cutter counter-clockwise (from your body end) it will be less aggressive.
For clean up passes, I will often use a round-nosed scraper that is fresh off of the grinder. That is, it has a good fresh burr. I will never start a clean up pass unless I have just finished sharpening the scraper. If it is sharp enough and I'm taking a light-enough cut, the shavings will sometimes come off almost like feathers and float through the air. If you are just getting sawdust and powder (with either the carbide scraper or a round-nosed scraper) it is too dull.
