A new trick for me!

[Bob Haverstock]

Yesterday, I was turning a small walnut plate and was having minute tearouts on opposite sides of the interior. I just could not get to scrape out.

The little light comes on in mind, like it used to in the in the Popular Science Magizine's Wordless Workshop. I sharpened the scraper, left the burr intact. I moved the tool rest to the other side of the plate. Then I scraped the offending zones by taking intermitting LIGHT cuts by hand turning the work in a clockwise rotation. Remember, I just light scraped the torn areas.

Dang, I was a happy camper. Maybe this will work for someone else.

Bob

[John Keeton]

Bob, I just did this yesterday on the piece I am finishing up!! It did work, and worked great. Thanks for posting! I hesitate to mention any techniques because I am so new at this. I figure everything has to have been tried before, and I am probably doing it wrong anyway!!:o

[charlie knighton]

Bob, John, i had never heard of doing that and i am sure i will get the opportuntiy to try it out, but it makes sense, thanks for sharing

[Bernie Weishapl]

Bob I just watched Mike Mahoney's new DVD Hierlooms. He was making canisters out of cottonwood. He reversed his lathe and with a conventional bowl gouge he did the inside of the lid. He said sometimes that doing this will rid you of 95 to 98 percent of the tear out. I tried it yesterday on a canister I was turning. Low and behold it did work. I actually started sanding at 150 grit.

[Bill Bolen]

Thinking about it I guess in the end it is really the same thing I do with spots like that. I lock the spindle and get out a card scraper to smooth away that contrary grain. ...Bill...

[steven carter]

Bob,

Thanks for posting this, I have not tried this yet, but will try to remember it when it is needed. I do know that I could have used this technique in the past.

Steve

[William Bachtel]

Bob,

Thanks for posting this, I have not tried this yet, but will try to remember it when it is needed. I do know that I could have used this technique in the past.

Steve


One good turn reverse another.

[David Hostetler]

Just a thought, if you guys have camcorders, some video of the techniques you think would help people would be a HUGE bonus...

[Joshua Dinerstein]

He reversed his lathe and with a conventional bowl gouge he did the inside of the lid. He said sometimes that doing this will rid you of 95 to 98 percent of the tear out.
Ooohhh a new DVD. I will have to put that on my Christmas List. :) But I must be missing something here. How does just reversing the lathe help with tear-out? It would seem you would be cutting on the other side and tearing out in the opposite direction. Is it that it is tearing out because of a grain direction that is not reversed?

Care to explain in a little great detail Bernie?

Thanks,
Joshua

[Leo Van Der Loo]

You're right Josh, it doesn't always work with powered reverse, at least for me, what Bob and John did was by hand scrape the spots, it works most times.
Coarse sandpaper can do the same, try sanding in both directions also, it does make a difference at times, and yes as I have said before, Walnut can be a finicky at times.
It is just another weapon in your arsenal to use when things don't want to go as intended

[Reed Gray]

I have never done it by hand turning the lathe, too much work. Same thing with a card scraper. One thing you can also try is to have the scraper on its edge at a 45 or steeper degree angle, and do very light cuts. A fresh burr is good to have, either burnished or from the grinder. Having it flat will cause more tear out. You can also wet the wood. Get a misting bottle, or a wet rag and get the wood wet. Let it soak in for a minute or so, then take more light passes. May take several passes before you have turned off the damp wood. Some do use finish to wet the wood, or walnut oil.

robo hippy

[Bob Haverstock]

Just a thought, if you guys have camcorders, some video of the techniques you think would help people would be a HUGE bonus...

David, I can capture this, well, perhaps my wife can. It may be weeks before I have that situation again. So, if I get it on video what do I do with it? What image quality? Help me out, I'm not an electro-tecky, my lathe has step pulleys.

Bob

[Ryan Baker]

Yeah, i've done that trick of scraping while turning by hand.

The "heirlooms" DVD is a really good disc, BTW. I'd rate that one as the best Mahoney DVD by far ... and the others are good too. Worth picking up. When he is cutting on the other side of center, I think it had more to do with the change to a conventional grind gouge, and only somewhat with the direction change. The change of direction just made the cut easier to perform. He also demonstrates some other "tearout" tricks on that DVD, like wetting the wood with finish (walnut oil) first, etc.

And when all esle fails, there's always the 80-grit gouge.