Tuesday 20 November 2012

Training day for Mike and Bob



Training day for Mike and Bob

One of the favorite things I do is to talk about making bowls and what better way than to pass on skills to others, so having Bob and Mike round was a pleasure. 
  
Making a bowl from scratch in a day for the first time is a lot to ask as the skill set is a leap up from spindle turning as the hollowing has many different angles at which the hook tool is being used to make the fine planing cuts that are needed.

So we first started with a one-month old log of Silver birch.  It is not what I would call mellow but fresh.  Normally for a timber such as birch I would normally leave to mellow for at least three months but will have used it up by say nine months before it starts to rot or dry out.  In previous tests of fresh birch, I have found it to give a very good finish and a very clean bowl.

Bob axing out a blank of birch.





Mike also axing out a blank.

Preparing the blank comes first and it is important to spend enough time so as to end up with a blank that will only take two turning passes to remove all of the axe marks.  My two rules are to axe as close as possible to the scribed line (within a millimeter) and to remove all the high “hills” so as to make as true as possible, a half sphere.  Once this has been achieved the mandrel is set on the flat top side of the bowl and installed onto the lathe ready to turn.

Base completed, now hollowing.


The main rules of hook turning is to keep the cutting angle of the hook tool close to the wood so the back bevel stops the cut getting deeper and to make sure the hook of the tool is rotated so the amount of cutting is reduced.  If the cutting tool is allowed to cut too much, then dig-ins, spiralling and bad finish will result. 

Some nice clean turning.
Beautifully hollowed out and ready to seperate.
So both Mike and Bob breezed through all this to complete a finished bowl, besides plenty of tea coffee and of course a warming soup for lunch.  We all had a great time and I believe Mike and Bob will be practicing frantically as soon as they get home!  They even went home with some extra blanks so they have no excuses!  So thank you both and hope the bowling is going well! 

Well done!



1 comment:

  1. Having made a bowl lathe and got the tools together i was finally ready to have a training workshop with James, Mike was also in the same position and it made sense for us to team up, (especially as it was a bit cheeper too).
    I had a great day, watching, trying and discussing our way through all aspects needed to get me up and running. James did well fielding my thousand and one questions with pacients and enthusiasum for this rewarding skill. I ended up with a bowl that would have been at home on the Mary Rose in it's hay day, a wonderful thought as i went through the same process they would have done all those years ago. (only I'm sure James soup was better than anything they would have had). A great day, Thanks
    Bob
    (Bob Iles, APT member)

    ReplyDelete