best tool for bowls?

[ElizaLeahy]

What's the best chisel for the inside of bowls?

Why do I ask? - I can't get a smooth finish and today I went through the base.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Bowl gouges & round-nosed scrapers. (I'm counting oland-style tools as scrapers, here.)

Which works best depends a lot on the type of wood and whether you have the room to swing the tool.... a scraper usually works where a bowl gouge simply won't fit.

[DJ’s Timber]

Bowl Gouge

[powderpost]

Bowl gouges and round nose scrapers.
Jim

[ss_11000]

i like a bowl gouge i currently have an old P&N one that i use.

but for the inside of a goblet - >75mm, i like a spindle gouge (10mm hamlet).

occasionally i will use a round nose scraper as well but i'm not a big fan of it (i've never been shown how to use it).

cheers

[joe greiner]

What they said. And welcome to the club of expert funnel makers.

Cheers,
Joe

[rsser]

Proforme hollower (attached to an informed user)

[Ed Reiss]

Bowl gouge, then a round nose scraper taking very light cuts...plus you need to get the tool rest in as close as possible to the inside walls of the bowl.

Eliza...once again would encourage you to take a turning course from someone in your area, believe me it would be worth the time and expense.

[ElizaLeahy]

I have problems with a scraper. Don't seem to have any control.

For some reason I took a picture of the "bowl" when it was a lump of wood and I'd just finished the outside - almost as if I knew I wasn't going to have a finished product!

I'm getting a beading gouge (whatever you call it) for my birthday, but I thought I'd try an outside bead on a bowl without it. And I was going to leave the bark on the edge, seeing it was there anyway.

Now I'm wondering if I can insert a false bottom, or just call it quits and start fresh.

[TTIT]

Haven't gone through the bottom of anything for a good year or so now but it is easy to do if you get greedy and don't check with some sort of gauge now and again. You can make something really simple or as fancy as you like. This is mine but it could be as simple as a piece of dowel through a hole in a stick.

[artme]

Are you using the scraper correctly Eliza? Toolrest on or slightly above centre, bevel of scraper down and whole scraper pointing downwards, light cuts.

[ElizaLeahy]

Are you using the scraper correctly Eliza? Toolrest on or slightly above centre, bevel of scraper down and whole scraper pointing downwards, light cuts.

Probably not!

[Paul39]

"Now I'm wondering if I can insert a false bottom, or just call it quits and start fresh."

That is a nice piece of timber and a nice shape. You could cut the bottom out making a tapered hole, then make a tapered plug to fit from a contrasting piece of timber. Glue in place and finish.

You would learn lots of new things doing this.

If you are too busy or not ready to do this, put it on the shelf until you are ready for it.

As to your scraper troubles, I really reccomend the book WOODTURNING by Keith Rowley. Just about every difficulty you have related on this forum is specifically addressed in the book with explanations, photos, and diagrams.

I abe been turning off and on for over three years and bought the book used from Amazon after seeing it reccomended on the forum. I had several AHA! moments on first reading and continue to find helpful things.

It should cost you less than the proceeds of two hair sticks.

I have used a spindle gouge as a scraper down in the curve of the bowl. Sharp tool, slowly and carefully.

I have a piece of 220 sandpaper stuck to the face of an old ping pong paddle.
I scrape a little, and with the top of the gouge or scraper away from me, angled slightly toward me, drag the tool toward me several times while swinging left to right and right to left. This raises a little burr on the top of the tool and slices or shaves very nicely.

I cut a bit, sharpen a bit, repeat.

The curve of the scraper MUST be tighter than the bowl or you will get a catch from the corner of the tool every time.

Stick a square piece of what we call a 2 X 4 up here, in your lathe so that it it is presenting end grain - side grain to you. Round it off and practice scraping on the outside. Then hollow it out a bit and practice on the inside. When it is cutting nicely it makes a hissing sound and the cut is clean with minimal to no tearout on the end grain. Some woods - soft, spalted, half rotten, you just have to sand, sand, sand.

"Are you using the scraper correctly Eliza? Toolrest on or slightly above centre, bevel of scraper down and whole scraper pointing downwards, light cuts."

The above works.

You have gotten very good with spindles quickly. Every day at the lathe shows.

[hughie]

Probably not!

I would look at shear scraping. Turn your scraper over on an angle so you present the blade at around 45' to the work ie 45 in the vertical [like a forward slash / ] . Have the handle up so the cutting edge is below centre.
This will let you shave off small amounts and not dig in so much.
The angles are not hard and fast, just fiddle around until you find what works.

[robutacion]

Hi Eliza,

Some good suggestions made already but I prefer to use a forstner bit (the larger the better) on a jacobs type chuck on the tail stock, and measuring how far I can go into the bowl, then making a mark with a bit of masking tape on the drill bit shaft. I got a couple of twisted wrists out of the drill bit on a wood handle idea so, I found it safer this way. Depending obviously on the recess (hollowing) size required, a good size and quality forstner bit is capable to remove safely a large portion or nearly all of the wood, needing to be removed.

The Huggies EziKut Hollower, is a good option as is the small Ci2 from Easy Wood Tools.

In relation to the hole in your piece, you can do it the hard way on the easy way. The hard way, you need a thin piece of the same timber to make a complete new bottom, cutting the old one just where it start to come up into the inside walls. Turn one face of the new bottom piece as a straight gluing contact surface, glue it and let it dry. Remount the piece and continue on where you left (sort of speak...!). The easy way, just make the hole on the bottom nice and straight (don't open any more than what you need), turn another piece of timber (maybe contrasting, maybe not) with a tight fit, glue it, let it dry and finish.

Like someone reccomended, if you don't feel up to it right now, put it a side for some other time.

Cheers
RBTCO