Finishing Dried/Warped rough outs?

[alex grams]

I am starting to get my first batch of roughed out bowls (osage orange, oak, a mystery wood (maybe poplar?)) dried, and am experimenting with some turned thin, and some to the 10% thickness guideline. However, I have several bowls that have warped to an extent where if i turned them round they would turn through, they warped more than their thickness from their original diameter.

Is the only option I really have to just do a bunch of sanding and not finish turn them? And if so, I can use a ROS on the putter diameter, but what tools/methods do you guys recommend for sanding the inside of the bowls?

Thanks in advance.

[Brian Kent]

http://vinceswoodnwonders.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Neiko-8-Inch-55-Degree-Quarters-Right-Angle/dp/B000XUHA8C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365570910&sr=8-1&keywords=angle+drill

[Fred Belknap]

If the warp is less than the thickness of the wall of the bowl it usually will turn. If you can round up the outside you should be good as the cut on the inside is on the other two sides of the bowl 90° from the outside cut.

[alex grams]

brian, do you prefer the 2 or 3 inch pad system? Most of my bowls are fairly large radius (the smaller ones don't warp as badly, obviously).

How do you like that right angle drill for sanding? I see the grex pneumatic on vince's site, but my compressor is 6.6 SCFM @ 90PSI And a 30 gallon tank, not the 60 they reccomend.

[Brian Kent]

My lathe produces 10 inch bowls (12 inches if the blanks were perfect fresh from the band saw) so Vince recommended the 2" disks. They are just right for me. For larger bowls - yes on the 3". I just got the little right angle drill and I like it. I can easily keep it at a low to medium speed. I have never used pneumatic equipment.

The secret here is that Vince will spend time with you on the phone. It took some phone tag back and forth to reach him, but he called back and talked to me for 15 minutes and we got to exactly what I needed.

[Mike Lipke]

I use Vince's stuff with a Makita right angle drill. Tried a Bosch, but Makita has much better eronomics and speed control. They are spendy, but bullet proof. Got mine used on Ebay.

[Thomas Canfield]

Alex,

If the warp is very servere, often you can shorten the height of the bowl and get back to a section that you can turn round. I like to mount between centers using the expanded jaws of the chuck on the inside and a live center in a dimple (made at inital rough turning) in the tenon and true up the tenon and short section near tenon on bottom. I then reverse with trued tenon in chuck and a block or protection on live center in inside to true up the outside. You can then shorten the height to point that you can have a suitable wall thickness since the diameter of the bowl will normally also be decreasing or the amount of warp reduced. To me that beats all the hand sanding.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

10% rule? Should have been enough. 10" bowl should be 1" thick, that should be plenty thick for warping.

For your big bowls, I would go with a 5" PSA disc sanding pad. Makes way quicker work on the rough stuff than Vince's disks. I like his stuff and have lots of his discs, but for big bowls I use the automotive type 5" discs. Fast. I got Norton pads from the BORG. They even come with a small assortment of various grades of paper. Get a couple, so you can have 80 grit on one snd 120 on another etc. Same for Vince's discs. I have about 6 of his pads, each with a different grit. Saves wear and tear on the pad and velcro.

[alex grams]

Kyle, some of my blanks are a red oak, which is extremely prone to cracking and warping. One of the methods I've tried on several of the blanks was to turn thinner to help prevent cracking, I did only get a few minor cracks which I could epoxy, but the tradeoff was bowls that warped.