Cutting clean

[Fred Perreault]

I have a maple blank that doesn’t seem to want to be a bowl. It is difficult to get a clean cut. The wood is very dry, and aged. Will dampening the surface some aid in a better cut?

[Richard Coers]

What kind of tooling? Carbide scraper? A damp surface won't help them.

[Fred Perreault]

I am using a very sharp 3/8' Dway and/or Thompsons' 3/8' bowl gouges. It is difficult to get the end grain on the turning to cut without some porosity.

[Kevin Jenness]

Yes, dampening with a spray bottle can sometimes help.

[Richard Coers]

You can try, super light shearing cuts, sharpening the gouges right before the finish cut, a wash coat of shellac before each finish cut, applying shaving cream that swells up the fibers and adds a lubrication factor, or just water.

[Brian Brown]

I have had some success by saturating the problem area with mineral spirits. It works like spraying water, but also has a lubricating factor. Never heard of the shaving cream method, but I will definitely have to keep that one in mind for the future when nothing else is working.

[roger wiegand]

In the usual order I try things: "wicked shaap" (as we say in Boston) tools and _very_ light cut -- hone your gouge after sharpening, both inside and out; shear scraping or a negative rake scraper honed and with a freshly burnished small burr; vary your speed, faster can be better; the "80 grit gouge" (AKA sandpaper). I've used shellac on punky wood with modest success.

[Bill Howatt]

"wicked shaap" is not as interesting as the pretty young lady at the Logan airport car rental booth trying to tell me to take the "fork" in the road.