I had to take a break from making plugs tonight so I decided to chuck up some wood and make a bowl. When my Opa taught me how to turn on a lathe, bowls were the first things I was shown. This was actually my first attempt making a bowl in about five years.
The proper method to starting a large project like this would be to use a circle jig and cut out a roughly circular stock to turn, but I have always started with a square piece of wood and turned it to a perfect circle on the lathe. When you start a bowl like this, you really have to pay attention to the angle of your tool and be mindful that the stock has A LOT of momentum.
A lot of momentum that has no problem with kicking the tool back at your face if your not paying attention.
Almost circular.
Things were going very well until I got it to about this point. Unfortunately I hit a knot in the wood weird and chewed up the wood (see below). What did I learn tonight? Sharp tools are incredibly important. Also it never really pays to rush, as long as I continue to take nice conservative passes I believe I could have avoided this whole incident.
Tomorrow, if I have time I will try and fix this imperfection.
Comments
Post a Comment