Today, I got some free time to spend in the shop. Back in October, I rough turned a green piece of oak into a bowl. I stored the blank in a brown paper bag filled with shaving from the rough turning. Today, I decided I would finish turning the bowl and just accept any warping that would occur as it finished drying. I got the bowl turned down to a finished thickness and sanded and then reversed it to place in my cole jaws. Well, it was too big to fit inside my cole jaws. So, I placed the bowl over the fingers of the cole jaws and expanded the chuck to hold the bowl. I knew this wasn’t a great solution but I reasoned that I would apply only as much pressure as needed to hold the bowl and take very light cuts on the bottom. As soon as I turn on the lathe, the bowl exploded and sounded like a gunshot went off. One piece went flying forward and another backwards. One piece caught my arm and left me with a small cut to remind me not to try to take short cuts. 8DAB8995-5C2B-4E11-B6B4-F4EA031F3C14.jpeg643CCB09-4706-4509-A0B9-CCD2F63D1ABF.jpeg7A4FAC00-D4ED-42B8-A6A6-A311A991C7F7.jpegEBD85342-F810-4C74-9818-C73D9E778B22.jpeg