Any way to get the waste wood out first?

[Wade Lippman]

I am making something to hold an iced tea decanter. It is basically a 10" diameter plate, 1.5" thick. The center portion will be reduced to 0.5", with a 0.25" rim around. Some maybe a really short bowl rather than a plate. That is a lot of wood to remove. I frequently use a forstner bit to remove wood before I take a gouge to the inside of a bowl; perhaps there is something similar here? Any ideas? Maybe something with a router? Anyone lend me a 9.5" forstner bit?

[Shawn Pachlhofer]

Maybe I'm missing something here - but a bowl gouge or a scraper (if you're Reed Gray ) will remove all of the wood inside your "shallow bowl" or "deep platter" in a matter of minutes.

In fact - it would be quicker to just turn it out than it would be to set up a drill with a forstner bit, then switch to gouges.

[Roger Chandler]

I agree with Shawn.......if you are going to turn something anyway, something like you describe can be done in a couple of minutes with a bowl gouge and if you want straight edges on the inside edge of your bead, then use a square scraper. Seems like all the setup with a forstner bit or router would be wasting a lot of time.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Did you want to save the wood? You could core it out, but I agree with the above. Just takes me a minute with a 5/8 gouge to get that waste wood out. Coring takes longer.

[Brian Kent]

On plates I use an almost square scraper - very slight convex arc. I make sure it is freshly sharpened and then use a diamond hone if it is on a wood prone to tear out. It takes about a minute to remove the bulk of the wood and the rest of the time is fine-tuning the surface.

[Tom Brouillette]

To me, that is the funnest part of turning - making the big curlies and getting knee-deep in fluffy wood. It is also when you test your technique and tooling.

[Reed Gray]

Yea, like others have said, much easier to turn it out than it is to drill it out. Well, unless you don't know how to keep your tools sharp.

robo hippy

[Leo Van Der Loo]

You mean something like these ??

I use a bowl gouge and maybe a scraper to finesse, a skew for the lines in the square platter, but yes basically all you need is a bowl gouge and sand to smooth.

Maple platter.jpg Ash platter.jpg