Another Use for Bottom Jaws
Woodturners have variations on how to turn the bottom of bowls. Most use a donut jig or some sort of chuck jaws such as ones with plans on my web site, Bottom Jaws. However, any of these methods can also answers what has been a problem for many of us, how to save a bowl that has become a funnel.
By this I mean the times that I have had a bowl almost finished to find that a lapse in attention has caused me to turn through the bottom into the waste block I commonly use. I know; using a depth gauge would have prevented the difficulty but so would hove not permitting my mind to wander. However, I do know that I am not alone here, most of us have some pretty kindling with nice bowl sides and a hole in the bottom.
One way to solve the problem is to glue on a separate piece of wood to the bottom of the bowl and turn it cleanly. The difficulty is remounting to the lathe so as to leave everything centered. The answer is a flip.
1) glue the new bottom in place and about 1/4" too thick.
2) mount the bowl in the bottom jaws
3) turn a tenon on the bottom
4) FLIP the bowl over so as to hold the tenon in regular chuck jaws
5) turn the inside, sand and finish
6) FLIP the bowl into the bottom jaws
7) remove the tenon
8) turn and finish the bottom
hope it helps
2 comments:
I had a teacher that said there are no mistakes in wood turning only design changes. He showed a segmeted bowl that the points in the middle broke on some of the pieces. He glued the segments then drilled a hole in the center and glued a contrasting wood and finished it. You would never know it was a "mistake" I think that would work on your funnel bowl. Drill into the bottom, just into the glue block and turn as normal. I tell my wife it was intentional so she could have something to plant her flowers in. :)
I had a teacher that said there are no mistakes in wood turning only design changes. He showed a segmeted bowl that the points in the middle broke on some of the pieces. He glued the segments then drilled a hole in the center and glued a contrasting wood and finished it. You would never know it was a "mistake" I think that would work on your funnel bowl. Drill into the bottom, just into the glue block and turn as normal. I tell my wife it was intentional so she could have something to plant her flowers in. :)
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