cherry tearout

[Paul Rains]

I am turning one of my first cherry bowls, how do you keep from getting fiber tear out on opposite sides of bowl, I realize I must be cutting against grain at those spots. Then when I sand it fills with dust, looks cloudy, haven't put finish on it yet. :confused: One of my first bowls!

[Bernie Weishapl]

Paul I spritz with water lightly and sharpen my gouge for the last one or two passes. I use a P & N conventional bowl gouge for the last two passes that I got onto after listening to Mike Mahoney. Or you can use a shear cut if you watch Bill Grumbine's DVD.

[Curt Fuller]

Paul, tearout in any wood is one of the most difficult things to overcome in turning side grain bowls. The thing that made me realize how to minimze it was first understanding why it tears. An old time turner in our club explained it like this. Think of sharpening a pencil with a pocket knife. You cut towards the tip of the pencil and rotate it until it's sharp and it works just fine. But try to cut from the tip back toward you and it just doesn't work. In essence, that's what's happening when you're turning a bowl. As the gouge cuts with the grain it makes a nice smooth, clean cut. But as the bowl turns the gouge begins to cut back against the grain and the wood begins to tear until it turns enough to begin cutting with the grain again. So you have that small area of tearout on opposite sides of the bowl. The best way to minimize it is a combination of three things. Make sure your gouge is razor sharp when you make the final finish cuts so it can cut as well as possible. Then take as light a cut as possible so that it's not tearing very deeply into the wood. And when those two won't do the trick, you can try lubricating and softening the wood to help ease the tearing. You can use water, some sort of oil (even WD 40 works very well), or wax. But in the end it almost always requires some degree of sanding to get a nice smooth surface. And I think some type of rotary sanding (with a drill or air sander) is best because the sanding is in a different direction than the original tearing.

Hope that helps.

[Mitchell Cholewinski]

Paul try this. Turn down as far as your going to and apply paste wax with a brush and sand through two or 3 grits. Do again and sand and like Bernie said spritz a little water, sand lightly and maybe turn one more turnTry it, if you do it right it will work great. You won't have no finishing problems. Next time get your tools sharpened right cause I turned a truckload of cherry in the last year with no tear out. I don't mean to sound sarcastic Paul, sharp tools saves half the work. Mitch;)

[David Lancaster]

Paul sometimes when turning if you don't apply enough pressure to the bevel of the gouge you will have a problem with tear out.If using an Irish ground gouge keep it lelel with the floor and rub the bevel on the tip of the tool not the side ground part. If using a pulling cut I guarantee you will get tear out in those two areas, pull back on the handle and rub the beval. If using a straight across gouge rub the belel and cut on the side of the gouge. The size of the gouge is very important don't use a tool that is too large save them for roughing out. I use a 3/8" Mastercut with a straight across grind and that has usually done it for me. Use a curved rest when using tre smaller tools to give you a smooth curve and eliminate vibration. I hope this will help you with your problem

Dave Lancaster