The weekend of the 8th and 9th December

Another weekend spent in the garage. I started on Saturday morning by visiting the local sawmill to order some oak (that's all they've got) bowl blanks. I handed over a list of my requirements and hopefully they will be ready for collection next weekend. I also popped into the Isaac Lord Iron mongers in High Wycombe. They had a demonstration of artistic turning by Nicos Sirogas. He was working on a stand of some sort called the cobra something or other. He was using a grinder/sander to remove pieces of the turned object to resemble the shape of a cobra (s shape). Quite interesting, but a bit beyond me at this stage of my woodturning.

Got home and attacked the large piece of oak I'd received from the offcut pile at the sawmill. I cut out an 8-inch by 8-inch square that was about 4 inches thick. I then used a compass to draw a circle on the one side and then removed the corners to leave an octagon shaped piece of wood. I put this on the lathe using my recently acquired revolving centre and a screw chuck on the headstock. The base of the bowl was at the tailstock end. Used my ¾ inch roughing out gouge to get the piece round and to stop the vibration on my lathe and workbench. As the piece became rounder the vibration decreased. I then continued using my roughing out gouge to give the outside of the bowl the rough shape I desired as well as turning a recess for my expansion chuck. As luck would have it I made the recess to big. Now what??? Back to the drawing board!!! Ok, I then decided that I could use my screw chuck on the base as I intended (that's right this was planned of course, the bowl was always going to have 3 small feet at its base). I removed the piece from the lathe and turned it round, fastening the base of the bowl to the screw chuck. I measured the depth that I wanted to make the inside of the bowl and marked this on an ordinary drill bit with some tape and proceeded to drill a hole into the centre of the bowl to the depth marked on the drill bit. I then used my deep bowl gouge to remove as much of the inside as possible. I intended to have a wall thickness of about 3/8 of an inch. Now that my wife had gone out I could sneak out to my car and bring in the new tools and supplies I'd purchased. A rotary sander, some speed wax, some liquid Paraffin wax, a Robert Sorby Hollowmaster and some calliper's for measuring wall thickness of bowls. I moved the tool rest back to ensure that the straight part of my new Hollowmaster tool rested on it and started to use the instrument to remove wood from inside the bowl to get the inside shape matching the outside. As usual with me, just when I get near to the end of the turning bit I do something stupid. I managed to get a dig in and the damn bowl came of the screw chuck. It ripped the screw out and when I tried to put the bowl back on the chuck it wouldn't take the screw. I seem to be getting quire good at this, cocking up near the end. Now what?, I packed the hole with wood shavings and saw dust and applied some super glue, left it to dry and attached it to the screw chuck again. Must say, thanks to the Robert Raffan book (Turning Wood), saw dust and super glue is nearly as good as wood and it worked a treat. I finished undercutting the inside of the bowl and then took my new rotary sander to it with a coarse grained sandpaper and slowly progressed to a fine grain. This really gave the bowl a nice finish and is much, much better than holding sandpaper in your hand. Next weekend I'll finish off the bowl and hopefully collect my wood that I ordered from the sawmill.

Things I learnt this week

• Once again, plan what you are going to do and sketch out what the end result should look like, with measurements. This will keep you focused and what it is you are trying to achieve,
• If turning the ends of a blank to use on compression or expansion chucks get the measurements right. There's nothing you can do with a recess to big or a dovetail (I think this is the correct term) to small when you've only got one size of each chuck.
• When turning in oak you need to sharpen your tools regularly,
• Having the right tool for the job is vitally important. You can then concentrate on turning,
• Read the instructions with any new tools etc you have acquired. It can save you a lot of time as well as ensuring the tool is used correctly and does not get damaged.
• You can't remove marks from an over robust use of a gouge with sandpaper.Practise, practise, practise with your gouges.
• Small cracks and chips can be repaired by filling them with sawdust and then applying super glue. Leave it a few minutes to set and then give it a sanding.