I think it was member Greg Parrish that posted some pics of his beginning bowl makin', which were superb in my opinion. Below is the opposite end of that spectrum, my first attempt using logs from my neighbor's wood pile. What a disaster! Anything that could go wrong probably did including the finale, a catch that ended my effort. We learn from our mistakes so what did I do wrong? First of all a lot of the cuts were rough. I was using a brand new 1/2" bowl gouge from Thomson's and was freshly sharpened from the factory. Why did the surface come out so rough? As for the catch, I was using the tool like many demonstrating it on YouTube. The bottom of the flute was tilted slightly from vertical and I tried to stay away from the outer portion of the wing. What do you think caused the catch?
I'm thinking about giving up on the free wood concept for the time being and purchase some seasoned bowl blanks. The free stuff I started with ended up having knots and since I'm not experienced enough yet to pick out good wood it may serve me better to buy it for now. Any recommendations on a good online source? What wood would be the most forgiving for starters?
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The pic below clearly shows where the catch took place on the left part of the bowl. Were my cuts too deep causing the torn fibers and ultimately the catch?
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Incidentally, I was able to do better on the outside of the bowl and managed to create a halfway decent dovetail for mounting to a chuck. I made plenty of mistakes then too but none that broke the bowl.