Tearout help

[Robert Hayward]

Working on Christmas bell ornaments and having trouble with the inside only. It is not the wood as I am seeing the same condition with cherry, walnut, ash and sassafras.

The tearout is mostly at the glue joints and on the leading edge of the glue joint. That is, the edge of the glue joint that meets the gouge first. Gouge used inside is the same one used outside which has no tearout.

Difficult enough to get in the Christmas ornament making mood when it is 90~95 degrees and a blazing sun outside and then having quality issues.

[Dwayne Watt]

I suspect the tools are not sharp enough. There is quite a bit of tearout throughout the piece shown in the photo.

[Richard Coers]

Are you using the gouge as a scraper, and is the gouge a spindle or bowl gouge? A swept back bowl gouge used as a shear scraper will remove curls as small as whiskers. It will quickly remove tear out.

[Paul Williams]

While I agree with the sharp tools and shear scraping, I wonder if the glue joints were starved. In past years I have made many of that type of segmented bells and not had the problem. I am not known as the best gouge sharpener. The outside of the bell is near the outside of the glue up while the inside is about in the middle of the glue up and may not get full coverage if the pieces don't fit real tight.

[Robert Hayward]

The ornament is at most 1/8" thick so the likelihood of having a glue up gap on one side and not the other is very remote. I also have made these in the past and not had the trouble I am seeing this year. The picture attached to this post is of an ornament made last summer. Out of Honduras mahogany though and I did not glue up any of that wood this year.

I am using a bowl gouge with a swept back grind. Difficult if not impossible to do a shear scrape on the inside of something as small as these ornaments. I have a 1/2" Thompson negative rake scraper that will fit inside these ornaments but it has a round nose grind. Not wanting to grind it so it can scrape the inside of the ornaments or I would try it. I think I will order a new 1/2" scraper blank and do a negative rake grind to fit inside these ornaments. I have 100 of these to make and do not want to send them out looking like the one in my first post.

Will the negative rake scraper produce a better finish that what I am currently getting?

[Richard Coers]

The ornament is at most 1/8" thick so the likelihood of having a glue up gap on one side and not the other is very remote. I also have made these in the past and not had the trouble I am seeing this year. The picture attached to this post is of an ornament made last summer. Out of Honduras mahogany though and I did not glue up any of that wood this year.

I am using a bowl gouge with a swept back grind. Difficult if not impossible to do a shear scrape on the inside of something as small as these ornaments.

Wouldn't that depend on the size of the gouge and user technique? I do it all the time with a 3/8" bowl gouge and will definitely say it's not difficult nor impossible. But it's your choice.