First Turning with the new lathe

[John Keeton]

Getting a flat bottom is far more difficult than one might think - nice work, and no doubt the Revo made it far more enjoyable.

[Greg Parrish]

Getting a flat bottom is far more difficult than one might think - nice work, and no doubt the Revo made it far more enjoyable.

Yes it is. One of my biggest challenges.

[Barry McFadden]

Thanks Richard and John.....at the moment I use a 1" round nosed scraper to finish off the bottoms....am thinking of getting a 1" flat scraper thinking it may be better for something like this platter...what do you use and do you think the flat one would be better than the round one?

[John K Jordan]

Thanks Richard and John.....at the moment I use a 1" round nosed scraper to finish off the bottoms....am thinking of getting a 1" flat scraper thinking it may be better for something like this platter...what do you use and do you think the flat one would be better than the round one?

Barry,

When I turn a flat bottom with a flat ended scraper like that I do two things: grind it with a top bevel (the negative rake) and radius the corners a bit. The negative rake makes the scraper much easier to control and can give a better surface. Knocking the sharp points off the corners help prevent digging them into the wood if the scraper is not held perfectly perpendicular.

That said, I take out any ripples on flat bottoms (used mostly on platters) by hand with a small hand-held scraper. With the lathe off, I scrape with the grain for the most part. This not only quickly removes any ripples but any issues common in the center. (It's not so useful with larger undulations.) I have a variety of small hand scrapers, some flat or mostly flat, some curved - they will handle almost any inside bottom of bowls and platters as well as wings of square/squarish platters/plates, outside and in. I used one the other day to remove some evil tearout in the endgrain on the side of a vessel. Some of the scrapers are thin like cabinet scrapers, some I got more recently are thicker, hardened steel. Look up StewMac scrapers.

Once scraped, usually only a relatively little amount of sanding is needed. I usually do this by hand as well. I use a sanding block of sorts, a piece of sand paper held over a soft backing - a Magic Rub eraser for most things:

sanding_soft_block.jpg

JKJ

[Richard Dooling]

Getting a flat bottom is far more difficult than one might think -

Glad to know it's not just me!