How I make a bowl , a quick tutorial for Tyler-…and now, brother dave

After having a ‘conversation’ with you yesterday about turning and making stuff I thought I would document the experiment I had going on in my home shop. I started making a bowl blank out of Beech from a board I had purchased at a local Rhode Island sawmill.. local sawmills are always the best resource for wood. Above is the finished bowl, this was about a 1 hour project, with a couple of bumps along the way.

This is my ‘new’ lathe, I have had it since about this time last year so I guess it is not new anymore. This is a midi-lathe, meaning that the max length is small, about 16 inches, and the motor isn’t all that powerful. It plugs into regular house current and is perfectly fine for the kinds of crap I make.

Typically I start with a block of wood, this piece is Oak from a corner post from a friends post and beam porch.

Typically I cut the blank to to a kind of round shape

I attach a faceplate as close to center as I can (this image is actually removing the faceplate but you get the idea.

Back to the Beech blank I had in my lathe, I turn it round and flatten the end. This cuts down the vibration when turning to final shape.

Be prepared to make quite a mess. I almost always fill a my shop vac with each bowl turned.

I turn a mortice in the end for my 4 jaw chuck to grab so I can hollow out the bowl.

I unscrew the faceplate from the lathe and install my chuck.

Then install the bowl onto the chuck and expand the jaws

Now I can begin to turn the interior of the bowl, you can see here where the faceplate was screwed onto the end of the blank. You can also see that I had almost brought the side to a finish, burnishing them with a handful of shavings.

Making progress, to me this is the fin stage where it begins to take shape as a bowl. I let the wood show me the design, I seldom start a bowl with a shape in mind. The wood will reveal what it wants to be.

When I get to a depth I like I sand and burnish the bowl. I start with 120 grit and step through the grits to 400 or 600 and then burnish with a hand full of shavings.

I then wipe down the bowl with shellac, let it dry and then burnish once again.

I then give the bowl a coat of furniture paste wax, let that dry for a few minutes (spinning) and the polish it out with a paper towel. So basically this bowl has no real film finish on it. The shellac I use is mixed 50/50 with denatured alcohol. This really soaks into the wood and dries in about 30 seconds. Burnishing this or sanding with a high grit provides a nice base for the wax which is the final finish. It is all food safe.

I then change the chuck to a large gripping chuck where I can hold the bowl from the top with little rubber fingers. Unfortunately this time as I started to finish the bottom, the bowl left the lathe at a very high rate of speed.

My gouge had dug in and dislodged the bowl and it took off. The sides got scared up a bit as well. I always like to give the bottom of the bowl a more finished look, rather that just a deep mortice.

It exited the lathe again and I readjusted the little rubber nubs and my speed and realigned my thinking… I was fortunate I didn’t get hit and that the bowl wasn’t destroyed..this has happened a few times… it is one thing to get a bruise or a cut but worst, if you get a bruise or cut AND loose a bowl…

You can see here how exciting this can get when that large disc is spinning and those little rubber nubs just want to break you fingers if you get too close.

Ultimately I did end up with a bowl and it is OK. It could have been a bit deeper, and still has a few visible scars but it was an experiment to see how the Beech would turn..I like it and will be making more bowls from this plank.

I hope you found this a bit informative and I had fun making it. Feel free to ask questions if you have any, I am almost always here on this end of the cloud. And BTW I am really jealous of your lathe. . . but my love is in wood and my shop is really full of too much stuff and couldn’t support another lathe..well maybe it could. . . And remember when you are turning you will make more scrap than you can possibly imagine so make sure you have a good shop vac..the shop vac is my most used tool, whether I am turning, carving making spoons, making furniture or just messing around, the shop vac always comes into play. . .

Everything gets covered with shavings. And you may be interested that this bowl took less than an hour and a half from cutting the bland, installing the faceplate to the final turning of the bottom for the third time. This includes all shellac, waxing and burnishing, so don’t overthink things, just jump in (safely) and make shit.

Ed