5/16/2005 09:27:00 AM|||Badger|||

Well, I finally got a weekend day to work some wood, and in the end got mixed results.

Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood, maybe I was too tired, but the actual turning part was terrible and very frustrating.

I made a cutting sled out of some 2x4's and cut a couple of bowl blanks out of the green Applewood that my mom brought for me from my home town a while back. That went ok, although my hands and arm are now a little sore from the vibration of the Saw, and and trimmer I was running earlier (but on the plus side I actually got the hedges trimmed on the walkway, long overdue).

I took one bowl blank, chucked it up, and started work on it. I took my new 1" bowl gouge (more on that later) and tried it out with the default sharpening (I knew it would suck, I just wanted to see.) and it didn't do much of anything. I kept having problems with the drive spur, which I think was part of the whole problem. The wood kept breaking free and spinning free on the spur. The tines on the spur are chipped and totally messed up from a time where I accidentally caught it a few times with a tool edge, when I was learning. I think it's time to replace that.

I sharpened the chisel on the belt sander, and it cut much better, as I knew it would. But I was having problems with catches. I would be cutting fine, and then *snap* it would catch. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong, but boy howdy was I doing it wrong. I probably should have given up then, but I didn't. One of the catches pinched my finger between the tool and rest, and gave myself a bloody finger. I should have given up then... But I bandaged it up, and kept on going.

I got it roughed into a good/decent outside shape, and was starting to work the inside of the bowl when it caught again. This time it broke free and pretty much ruined the blank. I was trying to do it between centers because I don't have a jaws chuck, or a screw chuck. and there wasn't much room to mount it on a face plate.

Ah well, I guess it wasn't meant to be... I'll try again when I'm less tired, and have had a time to review how to turn bowls. I hadn't done it in ages, and I think I was pushing myself too hard.

On the plus side, the tools seem to be working ok.

-- Badger

|||111626515750332689|||Some good, some bad...