Tips for fine cuts on the inside of enclosed vessels?

[David M Peters]

I'm looking for advice on how to achieve nice fine cuts on the insides of enclosed vessels. I've started to use a long-beveled bowl gouge to do the upper part of the inside rim but I will soon have to switch to a different tool for the lower wall. Normally I would use a round-nosed scraper here but I'm never happy with the surface quality. I have a Woodcut Pro-Forme flexi hollower but it also doesn't leave a great finish.

Do you guys have any scraper techniques for this? Different hollowing tool options?

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[Reed Gray]

My preference is for a shear scrape, round nose scraper at about 45 to 60 degree vertical angle, burnished burr, and very light pull cut. Note, keep the handle low because when shear scraping, just like with cutting with a skew chisel, you work/cut with the lower half of the tool so you don't get high centered and have a huge catch... Some times a honed gouge cut can do the trick too...

robo hippy

[John K Jordan]

I use either a Sorby teardrop scraper or a Hunter tool, sometimes the Hunter first to cut the profile then the Sorby second to smooth since it has a wider contact curve. I rotate the scraper until I find a curved part that matches the inside. I sometimes use this on the straight-handled multi-tip tool and sometimes on the gooseneck, depending on how closed the form is.

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Sorby-RS200KT-Multi-Hollowing/dp/B0000DD14V

JKJ


I'm looking for advice on how to achieve nice fine cuts on the insides of enclosed vessels. I've started to use a long-beveled bowl gouge to do the upper part of the inside rim but I will soon have to switch to a different tool for the lower wall. Normally I would use a round-nosed scraper here but I'm never happy with the surface quality. I have a Woodcut Pro-Forme flexi hollower but it also doesn't leave a great finish.

Do you guys have any scraper techniques for this? Different hollowing tool options?

[Mark Greenbaum]

I have by no means mastered this technique, but occasionally I have used a carbide tool scraper (EZ Wood Tools) with the bowl going the reverse direction. That way I can see what I am doing a bit better. Tool has to be at or slightly above centerline, and flat or pitched slightly down. Otherwise there is a catch looming in your future. Don't ask how I know.

[JohnC Lucas]

Hunter tools all the way. I love the #5 for finishing the bottom. It works very much like a bottom feeder gouge. The cutter is mounted flat so you have what is effectively an 82 degree bevel so you can hollow the bottom of very steep sided bowls and boxes with a bevel rubbing cut. The advantage of these over a bottom feeder gouge is even though you have an 82 degree the cutting edge is 60 degrees and will leave an almost polished bottom. For the sides I use a Hunter Osprey unless the bowl is really overhung. Then I use what I think Mike calls a hooked back cutter. I would have to look up the correct name. I just turned the underside of this bowl with that tool and started sanding with 220 grit.

[David M Peters]

Well I got pretty close to a uniform surface with scraper work. Low-handled shear scraping worked pretty well, but having just watched Ted Sokolowski's finishing DVD I converted a disused bowl scraper into a negative rake scraper and got a nice surface except for those two end-grain to side-grain transition spots. For those I just hand-sanded with 120.

Trouble spots:
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Converted scraper:

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Success!
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