flattening wood for bowl blank glue-ups

[Dan Gaylin]

Hi all,

Question about glue-ups for turning. It will take me a few sentences to get to it...

I have had some good success using woods of different shades making both vertical glue-ups (wood aligned to make a striped pattern in the bowl as you look down at the bowl) and horizontal glue-ups (wood aligned to make circular pattern in the bowl as you look down at the bowl).

Lately I have been gluing shallow bowl blanks together to make horizontal glue ups. So for example a 4X4X2" piece of maple glued to a 6x6x2" piece of walnut. I might put a piece of thin stock in between. When the blanks are reasonably flat, the result is good. If not, I get visible glue lines (to ensure I am filling gaps I typically use wood glue or sometimes T88 epoxy).

I do not have a thickness planer. Nor do I think it would work anyways (if I am not mistaken, to use a thickness planer with a relatively small bowl blank, I'd have to build some kind of stretchers for it, right? This is not my primary question, but I'd appreciate thoughts on this too).

I am learning to use hand planes and this is an option for flattening and smoothing the blanks so they will glue up better (I posted on this previously).

So here's the noob question: any reason not to simply mount each blank on the lathe, and flatten them up there, and then glue them together? This actually seems about as fast as other options, including a planing sled, which I have considered buying or building.

Thanks for your help,

-dan