Scrap Wood Project: The Pine and Cedar Yarn Bowl, continued

Hi Everyone,

Ok, back to work.

I've taken off the clamps and we have a large, well, humungous block of wood to turn.  Since it is so large and long I'm going to use a 6" face plate to attach it to the lathe:

I've used 2 1/2" long  #10 wood screws to attach the plate to the turning blank:

And here it is on the lathe. Note the position of the tool rest foot and the use of the tailstock:

Since this is a large blank and it's a little off center, I'm going to turn it slowly until it's trued up and lighter in weight. I'll start this at 300 rpm:

In this photo you can see that I've drawn a circle on the face of the foot of the bowl. To begin with I'm going to remove all the wood between the upper edge of the rim and this line:

This is a photo about 25 minutes into the turn. It's beginning to take shape:

Now, before I get to far into this I need to stop and drill a hole into the side of the bowl. This hole will serve as an exit for the yarn in the bowl. To cut the hole I've used a 1 1/4" Forstner bit for this and I'll drill two holes on opposite sides of the bowl:

Here is this photo I've marked the spot where I'm going to drill the hole. It's approximately half way between the base and the rim:

As I am going to leave the walls of this bowl rather thick, I've drilled down about 1" into the blank:

Now to work on the bottom of the bowl for a few minutes. I've drawn a 6" diameter circle on the bottom. This will enable me to accurately place the faceplate when I turn it over later on:

I've gotten a lot of shaping done at this point and I've used a skew to partially smooth down the sides of the bowl. I learned how to use a skew by using it with the point pointing downward, which is the opposite way you usually see them used. I find I have better control over it and I don't get many catches this way:

The skew is generally used for very fine cutting on the surface of bowls and other things and you should generally be producing what turner Nick Cook calls "angel hair shavings" or in other words, very fine shavings like you can see in this photograph:

I've also begun creating a rim on the bowl. Visually I think this will make the bowl look a little more detailed:

Now in this photo I have removed the tailstock and I'm going to create the foot:

In this photograph I've created a depression for the faceplate and flattened it so the faceplate will sit flat on the underside:

Now after this was done, I did a little rough sanding and here is what the bowl looks like at present:

Tomorrow, we'll sand it smooth and get it ready to finish. I'll use wipe on polyurethane for that. When the outside finishing is complete,  we'll flip it over and hollow it out.

See you tomorrow,

VW