the first para-lam bowl crituqe please (now theres good pictures)

[curtis rosche]

heres the first para lam bowl. i used 5 minute epoxy to fill in the holes then once i sanded it i put poly on it.

[curtis rosche]

sorry about the quality, i will repost tonight

[curtis rosche]

now theres good pictures

[Glenn Hodges]

Help me out here Curtis. Tell me about this good looking wood you used for this nice looking bowl.

[curtis rosche]

its para-lam beam, its from the plywood beams that they are now using in homes, its pine with epoxy, i believe, it turns easy, but sometimes the peices will pop out when you start getting thin, they also make these beams with other woods too, this peice is from a 16x4 beam, that we got for free. from stock building suply, they cut the legnth the customer buys from a 20 something ft peicce and the throw away the rest,

[Jim Becker]

Nice work, Curtis.

Keep in mind that this stuff is very abrasive to your tools, so sharpen VERY often for best results. Like every minute or so... ;)

[robert hainstock]

Those bowls sell remarkably well Curtis. A member of out turning club Makes them and sells them at his shop. Good luck with them, and check tyour PMs. :)
Bob

[Tony Bilello]

The first time I turned paralam was back in the late 1980's.
I had been to an AAW Woodturning Symposium outside of Seattle. I extended my vacation by going into Canada. I saw some turnings made of paralam in a gallery and couldnt figure out what it was. I asked the owner and they gave me the turner/artists name and address. We went to his shop and spoke to him and he told me where the factory was. We then went to the factory, as paralam was fairly new back then. I dont remember if the factory was in Victoria or vancouver because we had been to both cities. Anyway, the factory had given me some scraps for free. I couldnt take too many because I had to fly back home.
It turned pretty easy but split easily also.
I personally didnt like turning it at the time because I preferred green wood, but it certainly did make some interesting turnings.

Its nice to see that others are experimenting with everything thay can get their hands on.

This is a great posting.

Thanks for bringing back old memories.

Tony B

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking bowl Curtis. You can turn that stuff. I tried some and then did a plywood bowl. Two were enough for me. Like Jim said sharp tools and sharpen every minute or so.

[curtis rosche]

the sorby roughing gouge i used was hss steal and i think it had an ellsworth grind on it, i had to sharpen it only twice, once for the inside and once for the outside. whe scraper was another story, the scraper was not hss, i had to sharpen that about5 times. question: is a scraper not made from hss steal sharper? i know the harder the steel the longer the edge lasts put it cant get as sharp.

[Jim Becker]

Curtis, never use a roughing gouge on anything except spindles. They are not designed for the forces generated by this kind of work and can snap off at the tang...resulting in possible grave injury to you. If you are not sure about what the tool you are using is, please post a photo so we can help you better.

[Jerry Rhoads]

Cool bowl Curtis
I'm going to have to get me some of that

Jerry

[curtis rosche]

http://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/images/fingernail_pro_gouge.jpgthis tool, about2-3ft long i think, our grind on it is not as steep as this one

[Gordon Seto]

Curtis,

Look at the cross section of the on the right hand side.
http://www.robert-sorby.co.uk/gouges.htm
Most of the roughing gouge (except P&N and Thompson ) are forged, the tang is flat and relatively small. That is the weak point, if you have a severe catch, it could snap. Now they changed the name to Spindle Roughing Gouge (SRG) to raise the awareness of using it on spindle only. Don't use it on side grain work.

Bowl gouge is made from round tool steel.

[curtis rosche]

sorry for the confusion, it was a bowl gouge, i use the bowl gouge as a roughing gouge too, the other kids at school dont use either just roundnose scrapers, and when they move the bowl gouges around they drop them and bang them, so they are never sharp or have the right angle

[Richard Madison]

Curtis,

Would like to see larger pictures of your para-lam bowl and other pieces. Consider the following. Leave original file size as is and crop the picture to your liking first. Then resize the picture so that the larger dimension is 640 pixels or a little less. Then, and only then, check the file size. If necessary, then compress the file size to 105K or a little less and post.

Others know more about this than I do. I just want to see a larger picture of your bowl.