Help with green wood

[Eugene Wigley]

Hello everyone,
I am getting ready to rough turn some green bowl blanks. I have only turned one of these and it is not dry yet. I plan on soaking the bowls in DNA. I have a plastic container and DNA for that. What I need is opinions of the best way to chuck the green wood. Is it best to turn a tennon or is it best to cut a recess in the bottom of the bowl and recess the chuck or is some other way better?
Thanks in advance for your help.

[Matt Wolboldt]

Eugene,

When I rough turn my bowls I turn them with a tenon to begin with. After drying I found that the tenon warps a bit so I reverse chuck the bowl, true the tenon, then finish turn the bowl. I hope this helps
Matt

[Steve Schlumpf]

Eugene - With bowls, I always use tenons because when I first started turning I lost a few bowls by having the recess blow out while turning. It was both exciting and frustrating as I ended up losing the bowl.

Since then I only use tenons and found that it is very difficult to crush a tenon - but just a little to much pressure and you can blow out a recess.

Biggest suggestion I can make is to be sure to leave the dimple in the tenon that is formed by the tailstock when roughing out. No matter what moves during drying, that divot remains fairly close to center and allows you to jam chuck the bowl between the chuck and tailstock and true up the tenon for final turning.

Hope that helps.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Ditto the above. Make sure you leave the dimple from the tailstock on the tenon end. That way you can just put the bowl against the chuck jaws, put your tailstock point in the dimple and it will be centered. True up the tenon, put in the chuck and finish.

[Jeff Nicol]

Eugene, I have used both a tenon and a reccess. If the wood is wet right from the tree and very fresh, the tenon is the way to go. A lot of times I start out with the screw center in the chuck then bring up the tailstock to do the roughing and make the tenon or recess. Some of the stringier woods will do fine with a recess so I determine that after I have cut the blank to shape. If the wood is a few months old but has not been debarked or the log split the wood is dryer and has stabilized some so that can also determine what I do. So I guess the more you do the more you will find out what works for you! But either way getting a shower while turning is always fun!

Good luck,

Jeff

[Scott Conners]

Recesses are definitely more fragile - as I learned the hard way. A chuck easily has enough mechanical advantage to let you crack a bowl in half with only a light twist of the key. Large tenons work very well. If you haven't seen it, Bill Grumbine's "Turned Bowls Made Easy" DVD is a really good video, and shows every step of the process from log to bowl, and shows more than one way to accomplish each task.