Question about Rough Turning, or First Turning

[Scott Brandstetter]

I realize that a lot of folks turn green wood to a thickness twice what they expect the finish thickness to be. I get that, allowing the moisture to come down to less than 10% before doing the final turning. Questions I have are the following....

1. How do you plan for the final "look" of the bowl?
How do you know where the curves and angles will end up? Do you simply rough turn and then create from there on the final turn?
2. Hollow Forms
Is it the same process, rough turn to double the final thickness
3. Lidded Vessels; boxes
Same as above, turn to twice the thickness, base and lid, then turn final finish to fit and form

Any help would be appreciated

[Steve Schlumpf]

Scott, when I rough out a form, whether it is a bowl or a hollow form, I turn it to the shape I want the final product to be. Meaning an ogee bowl will have that set of curves, a Southwest style HF will have that form, etc. I turn everything to a little less than 10% of the diameter of the piece so that I have enough wood left when finish turning to make the piece round again.

When I started out, the general rule was to turn rough outs to 10% the diameter of the bowl - meaning a 10" bowl would be 1" thick. Well, I learned that you don't need that much wood when it comes time to re-turn the blank but you do need the blank thicker than twice what you want the finished thickness to be.

One thing to also keep in mind is that wood moves, and depending on the wood, sometimes it moves a lot! When it comes to hollow forms (or bowls to a lesser degree) turning the piece end-grain helps minimize the warping that takes place. Usually that is not a problem - unless you are turning lidded vessels. In that case you really want to make sure you have enough wood to make everything round again when finish turning.

Hope that helps.