Balancing Natural Edge Bowls Questions and Answere The Pen ...

Continued from Previous Page.tendency would become all the more obvious once thepiece was mounted on the lathe.The softer woods would naturally cut faster andoccasionally there would be an obstinate harder piecesandwiched between softer pieces. The natural tendencywould be for the gouge, scraper, and even sandpaperto act more aggressively when encountering thesesofter woods, so to avoid craters, it was necessary to becognizant of this tendency and to struggle to maintainall tools steadily on the plane surface to be worked.Figure 1. Side View of finished bowl.In the end, I was pleased with the overall shapeachieved, which amazingly was pretty much what Ihad intended. This isn’t always the case with free-formitems like dishes and spindles where sometimes thewood itself seems to want to do something different thanwhat I have pre-conceived. Usually I assume the woodknows better than I do what it wants to become and I letit guide me. Perhaps because this was a conglomerationof small pieces there was no longer a guiding principleand my desire was adequate.Most of the shaping of the bowl was achieved withsome basic tools, namely a roughing gouge and a heavy1” round nosed scraper. To put a small lip on the inside,a hollowing tool with moveable and replaceable carbidebit was helpful, but I suppose people strongly adeptwith the bowl gouge could achieve the same result. Iwas most pleased with the flat bottom and 90 degreeangle sides achieved with the flat nosed scraper. I justhad to be careful since it cuts much more aggressivelythan I had anticipated.There were to be gaps and voids but surprisinglynot as many as I had feared. I quickly learned to discountthe initial voids that appeared in the early stages ofturning since most, if not all, of those would disappearin the general turning process anyway. Instead, I onlychose to fill those voids that remained as I was performingthe sanding stage. Sanding powder mixed on eitherwax paper or on the mounted dish itself with mediumconsistency cyanoacrylate (CA) worked perfectly andblended remarkably well with the epoxy sections, theonly places void fill would prove necessary. I havefound through trial and effort that blending the requireddust with a medium or thick CA on wax paper and thenapplying with applicator sticks available at the craftstore gives me greater control over the placement ofvoid fill than attempting the maneuver on the roundedand mounted piece. Using a thicker consistency, andtherefore longer set time, gives one the time neededto blend and fill prior to CA set up. Some patience isthen required to allow time for the CA to set. Usingaccelerator will only result in hideous opaque whiteresidue while turning the lathe on too soon results in CAsprayed at high velocity on to your lathe and anythingwithin the centrifugal throw range as well. Typicallythis will include you, yet another reason to have old,but well fitted, clothes along with safety glasses and arespirator mask as well.Figure 2. View of bottom of bowl.I decided to try a new finish idea on this piece soI used, for the first time, some Minwax wipe on polyurethanein a satin finish with the piece off the lathe. Ifound that the wood soaked up more of the finish thanI had anticipated, although this wasn’t a problem, andthat at least a good 15 ml could be poured into the 4-5”diameter bowl of 2-3” height and easily absorbed asit was rubbed into the wood. I assume that the epoxyPage 22 More Woodturning June 2010