Offset Bowl

[Fredo]

Hello everyone,

It was fairly difficult to muster the enthusiasm to venture out into the shed today due to Canberra's wonderful winter weather (see pics). Cool even with the heater on. Anyway, I braved the conditions and managed to make one of these. It is an offset turned and hollowed, also fluted and footless bowl. The wood is Teak. Size is 200mm x 90mm, one coat of DO with more to come. The turning was difficult and time consuming mainly due to the slow speeds used to control out-of-balance vibration. Anyway, I am happy with the result, and quite enjoyed the turning.
As usual, comments are welcome.

Fredo :U

[artme]

Glad you did venture into the shed. That is one beautiful piece of work.:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

[weisyboy]

looks great.
how did you do the fluting?
router?
how did the teak turn?

you can keep you canbera im cold enough here thank you verry mutch.

top of 18 degrees tomorow and i have to work down inthe bottom of the gully. fencing accross a creek would you belive it. had a look today and im gunna have to go for a swim at least onec:C.

[Harry72]

How did you achieve the hollowing with an offset hole?
Does the hollow shape follow the outside or is it thicker on one side?

[Cliff Rogers]

Good question(s) H, I want to know too.

It is a keeper I reckon. :2tsup:

[joe greiner]

Spectacular in every way, Fredo. Thanks for braving the cold.

By any chance, did you take some WIP pics? Lotsa questions about your procedure, like "How did you turn the roly-poly bottom?" That's a very nice feature. I suppose we could figure some of them out, and probably guess wrong.

Joe

[orraloon]

That is up there in the very good range and is also pleasing to look at.

[wheelinround]

:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

[Rookie]

Really nice piece Fredo. Looking forward to the answer to the questions.

[DJ’s Timber]

Nice work Fredo, looks like you've hollowed it out the normal way as the hole looks to go over the centre point and then you've mounted it off centre to shape the final hole size, am I close:shrug:?

[CanFly]

Good on yer Fredo, keep em guessing!

[Fredo]

Hi everyone,

Canberra yesterday: 7 degrees and snow for a while. Sorry about the delay, but work gets in the way sometimes. The bowl - no real secrets, I (and this is my first attempt) mounted the front of the blank onto a screw chuck, turned and sanded the bottom of the bowl to finished shape and added a dovetail foot to hold in a chuck which I removed later. I then mounted the bowl and chuck on my homebuilt adjustable offset face plate, and hollowed, first with a bowl gouge, then switched to a Sorby hollowing tool. The hollowing is relative to the opening and not the blank (wall thickness of the blank varies from 3mm on one side to about 40mm on the other side). Does this make sense so far? I hope so. Next, I tapered the front face down to accentuate the fluting which I added with a router and a home made jig. After sanding the front is finished. To remove the foot, I reversed the bowl onto a vacuum chuck and supported it with a tail stock to turn off the foot. I finished the small nipple left by hand. I hope this covers it for those interested, if not, fire a question and I'll see if I can answer it.

Disclaimer - Re the offset faceplate I made: I have a heavy duty VL300 lathe with variable speed. I am comfortable using this face plate at low speed on small turnings. I am not recommending anyone else use one of these face plates as it is potentially dangerous.

Fredo :U

[Grumpy John]

Hi Fredo
That offset face plate system is sheer bloody genius, you wouldn't want to share the bolt hole pattern with us would you :fingerscrossed::please2:

Cheers
GJ

[joe greiner]

I reckon it's just as well you made the wall thickness variable. It probably could have been turned more uniform through the envelope of the whirling offset rim, but then it wouldn't lie as flat as shown in the first pic 3.

I think I'd be tempted to attach a counterweight to the faceplate to reduce vibration. My lathe's minimum speed is about 600 rpm, so it'd be my only way of attempting something like this; or wait until the new lathe appears (when/if).

Joe

[Fredo]

Grumphy John - I will get back to you with the specs, it's not to complicated.

Joe - I do actually use a lead counterweight bolted to the plate. The speed I turn at is up to 500 RPM, depending on the vibration.

Fredo :U

[TTIT]

Great looking bowl Fredo :2tsup: Can't see anything too dangerous about the offset rig, particularly if you add something to balance it up a bit. Might add that one to the ever-expanding list too.

PS: The only solid square bar available here jumps from 16mm to 40mm - progress is slow :C

[Fredo]

Grumpy John,

Here are the specs. Firstly, this plate was made from material I had on hand. All sizes were a guesstimation at the time it was built or limited by the size of the material. Any sizes could be varied to suit yourself. Obviously, keep in mind the further you move off centre, the bigger the vibration problem. Sorry about the hand drawn pics, they're the best I could manage with my limited computer skills. First pic (6 inch plate) is the rear plate and goes on the spindle. Second pic (5 1/4 inch plate) is the front plate and goes to the chuck. I hope this information's helpful, if you need more, post.

Fredo :U