Turning green aspen

[skott nielsen]

I am a new turner and had access to some aspen recently cut and thought it would be good practice to go through the process of roughing out a bowl but I can barely get it to cut with extreme tearout of the end grain. Any similar experience or suggestions.

[Mitchell Cholewinski]

Skott
The Aspen should turn easily, especially if it is still wet. Are your tools sharp enough and are you using the proper tool for endgrain? You need to give more information as to how you turned the aspen and the tool and even the speed of the lathe before you can get an accurate answer. Mitch

[David Christopher]

What tools are you using ? some wood cant be scraped..you have to use a bowl gouge or similar to give a cutting action not scraping

[Al Wasser]

It is hard to eliminate tearout on aspen but it sands pretty easy. Work fast cuz the stuff really moves. I turned a bowl out of some that was about 50% dry and it warped before I got the finish on.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Skott - I have to agree that the first question we have is - What tool are you using? Lots of folks when they are starting out think that a 'roughing' gouge should be used when 'roughing' out a bowl. Wrong!

Get back to us with that info and also post a photo or two of the problem if you can. We should be able to figure something out!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Skott I agree with Steve. What tools are you using? Also if you are just roughing the bowl and planning on returning it to the lathe to finish after drying I wouldn't worry about tear out. If it is already dry I have found that beech sands really easy but it would be easier to take your final cuts with a freshly sharpened bowl gouge.

[skott nielsen]

I am turning in face grain orientation, using a Thompson V bowl gouge with a swept back grind, trying to follow the approach outlined in Grumbine"s videos. I have done ok trying to learn the cuts with Birch but this aspen seems to be a real night mare. I ride the bevel and gently bring up the edge to engage the cuts but the fibers just seem to fray.

Skott

[David Christopher]

Skott, make sure your gouge is razor sharp..if it allready is then it sounds like you're going to have to turn to sandpaper......sometimes thats all that will work

[Jason Clark2]

I turn quite a bit of green and dry aspen and about half the time I have to adopt a special cut to get a clean surface on the outside. I hold the gouge in a near vertical position and roll the gouge on its side so the flute is pointed directly in the direction of travel. I'm cutting from the base to the rim and using the length of the lower wing to make the cut. The long wing of the gouge acts almost like a skew to sheer the fibers. It's not always the easiest cut to control but it leaves me with a better surface than any other cut that I know of on soft woods.

Jason

[Mark Burge]

Skott, I haven't ever turned Aspen, but the cut that Jason describes is the one I use to clean up the outside of my bowls and anything else for that matter. I've heard it called a shear scraping cut. It can be done with a sharp scraper too. The only thing that I would add is that, when shaping, with the bowl gouge in the usual orientation, you need to take light cuts to avoid deep tear out in the end grain of most woods. The shear scraping cut takes very little wood off and doesn't get deep enough to get to the torn grain from rough shaping.

On the inside of the bowl, I have a rounded skew that I use in a shear scraping orientation to clean the sides. Hope this helps.
- Mark

[Brian Brown]

Skott,

Dry aspen is no better for tearout than green, and probably worse. All the shear cutting in for you have recieved so far is great, but when you are roughing, go with light cuts, cutting slowly. The grain in aspen is tough and when you catch the endgrain it pulls like a piece of twine. What seems like a minor tear out goes really deep, so plan before you start, to begin shear scraping earlier (when the wood is thicker) than you might with other woods. Remember there is no shame in using the 60 grit gouge. Even that can cause some tear out in aspen, so don't press hard, and let the paper do the work. Good luck.

[Cyril Griesbach]

I'm going to disagree with Bernie this time. If you're going to rough turn the bowl and set it aside to dry before returning it it's best to get as much of the tearout taken care of while it's still green because it will only get worse as it dries and it will still be a problem. Also, it's good practice.

[skott nielsen]

Thanks everyone. I got with a turning club member and he showed me how I was holding the gouge too much in the horizontal plane and to go much more vertically giving the more shear cut so aptly described above.