Turning square bowls

[Chris Yarish]

Just curious about the process of making a "not round" bowl. Square forms obviously first come to mind for me, but I'd entertain making something less conventional as my experience increases.

I have turned square forms on the lathe, but when the tool spans out beyond the solid portion of the wood to the "corners" it can get dodgy. Likewise for sanding.

Question:
Should I just suck it up and deal with the dodgyness of the whole endeavor or should I frame the piece with waste wood, cut a circle and turn the circle and pare off the scrap later on?

Never tried this before, just the dodgy way. Would this work?

[Mark Patoka]

WOOD Magazine had a square bowl project a year or two ago where they did the method you proposed. Scrap wood was glued to to all four sides, they turned it round and then cut off the scrap with a bandsaw to get their square bowl. You could easily use this method to try some other geometric shapes also.

[Harvey M. Taylor]

Hi Chris,
some people glue waste wood to it then cut it off after finishing. Lot of extra work. When I do mine, I just let up on the pressure of the tool when I come to the "air".Yes, you have to sand the part past the wood by hand. I take a felt tip pen to blacken the end of the wing to be able to see it better, then sand it off by hand when finished. Keep on, the results are worth it when yuou see the puzzled look on their face and ask"how did you do that?".

[Mike Golka]

Here's a link to a tutorial for doing square plate/bowls. I tried it and it came out rather well.

http://bobhamswwing.com/Articles/Square%20plate/Turning%20a%20Square%20Plate1.htm

Mike

[Horst Hohoff]

Hi Chris,
When I did my first not round piece it was a bit of a challenge to do it without scrapwood glued around it. But I had to learn that this doesn't work with every type of wood. Walnut and mahogany (among others) are ideally suited, but with coarse grained woods like oak, or brittle stuff like wenge it would be hopeless without wood glued around it.
This one was done without:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=47827

[Dave Stoler]

I just finished one last night out of cocobolo..When I get home this evening i,ll post a pic.It wasn,t THAT hard ,but when turning air it takes a very light touch. My first attempt went to completion.

[Dave Stoler]

5x5x2 in blank.. My 6th bowl ever..Cocobolo..

[Richard Madison]

Dave, good looking piece!

Chris, have done them both ways. Can not tell the difference when the item is finished, so maybe better to do it whichever way works for you. Good point above about splitty/splintery wood.

[Lee DeRaud]

I did a whole pile of triangles awhile back:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=38806
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=37326
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=36966
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=36940

All of these were done without waste-blocks: by the time I'd done four or five of them, my hands were pretty dinged up...not fun.

[Chris Yarish]

I did a whole pile of triangles awhile back:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=38806
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=37326
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=36966
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=36940

All of these were done without waste-blocks: by the time I'd done four or five of them, my hands were pretty dinged up...not fun.

Some of them look pretty gnarly. I thought turning a square block was bad. Dinged up hands from turning on lathe = not fun.

What speed do you run those at....if you change speeds, at what phase in the production do you change the speed....and to what?

[Dave Stoler]

Those are quite unique Lee..

[Lee DeRaud]

Some of them look pretty gnarly. I thought turning a square block was bad. Dinged up hands from turning on lathe = not fun.

What speed do you run those at....if you change speeds, at what phase in the production do you change the speed....and to what?Part of the problem was, I'd only been turning about three months when I started doing those.

As far as speed goes, everything was done either normal speed (~1200RPM for that size) or zero: slowing it down really didn't help any.