4 Bowl Gouge Techniques — Push Pull Scrape Shear Cuts Video

today we're going to go over the four main cutting techniques with a bowl gouge [Music] hi i'm kent and welcome to turn a wood bowl today we're going to talk about the four main cutting techniques when using a bowl gouge now a bowl gouge is probably the most versatile tool for turning wood bowls hence the name bowl gouge but did you know that there's four different cuts or techniques that you can use with this bowl gouge that will allow you to do pretty much anything you need while turning a bowl from roughing out the exterior of a bowl blank to putting a final really smooth finish on the surface of the bowl as well so let's dig into this and let's look at the bowl gouge a little bit closer and talk about the four different cutting techniques okay before we dig into this too far let me explain to you that i'm using a swept back bowl gouge this profile is a 55 degree bevel front bevel with a swept back wing profile now there are many different ways that you can profile your bowl gouge this happens to be the way that i prefer there is no right or wrong way but this particular bowl gouge profile will give you the ability to do these four cuts that we're going to cover very easily and very efficiently you could do them with a fingernail grind with other grinds but these long wings are going to come into play especially when we get into the last two techniques that i'm going to share with you so this is a 55 degree bevel swept back bowl gouge some people also call this the irish grind or the ellsworth grind just keep in mind you can use any bowl gouge that you would like but the smaller the wings are the more difficult it's going to be to do the third and fourth techniques that we're going to cover okay so the first bull gouge cutting technique is called the push cut now the push cut is the workhorse of the bull gouge cutting techniques what is a push cut essentially the nose or the front cutting edge of the bowl gouge is going to be pointing in the direction of the cut so if i'm making cut from left to right that bowl gouge nose is going to be rotated and the flute's going to be rotated towards that cut and i'll be moving with the leading with the nose of the bowl gouge now even if i rotate and make a cut the opposite direction from right to left it's still a push cut when that nose is leading the cut when it's moving along with that cut first one of the huge advantages of the push cut is the fact that you have bevel support now riding the bevel which i have a video on if you want to check that out is going to give you added support as you make your cut what am i talking about well if you think about the fence on a table saw the bull gouge bevel is similar it's going to guide that cutting tip and prevent it from digging in too deeply and from popping out so it acts as a support system for the cut to stabilize the cut and make it easier for you to make nice smooth curves on your bowl so regardless of the direction of the cut whether you're moving from right to left or left to right if the nose of the tool is pointing forward in the direction of the cut it is a push cut and it also doesn't matter where your body position is sometimes when we're roughing we'll actually stand in front of the bowl and make what looks like a pulling cut back towards our body but we're actually leading with that nose so it's truly a push cut so our next bull gouge cutting technique is a pull cut it is just like a push cut however it is going backwards where the push cut had the nose or the tip of the bowl gouge pointing in the direction of the cut the pull cut is the exact opposite the bowl gouge is being pulled away from the nose in a backwards position we still have bevel support which is great because it's a bevel supported cut so it's going to be a very secure very safe cut you want to make sure that you don't get over on the side wing and grab too much of that wing because it's easy to get a catch that way and flip the the bowl gouge over instead you want to be up near the tip just like you are with a push cut and make sure you have bevel support first and then introduce the cutting tip so when you with that bevel support you're going to be able to make a nice smooth cut now when would you make this cut well quite honestly i don't use this cut very often actually of all of the cuts and the percentages i use the push cut the most probably 80 percent of the time and the pull cut i would say probably less than two percent of the time but there are times when you have a a little indentation or maybe the base of the bull and you can't quite get in there to start a push cut instead you can make a pole cut and get that shape started with a nice bevel supported cut and you're going and cutting with the grain support now what is grain support well if you're not familiar with grain support please when you get done watching this video go check out my other video on which direction to cut it's going to explain all about supported grain grain cut and that's a huge advantage once you understand that thoroughly you're going to have much smoother bowls so you're going to want to check out that video hey do me a favor if you're liking this video so far click that like button below the screen would you please thank you so much so essentially the pull cut is going to be used in areas where you just need to get into a little tight spot and make make a make a nice smooth cut but in general it's not used that much the push cut again is the workhorse of these four cuts for me personally the push cut is what i used the absolute most all right our third cut or our third technique i should say because this truly is not a cut it's a scrape and that's our third technique is a scrape with a bowl gouge now the way you scrape with the bowl gouge is you present the flute to the surface of the wood and you're basically going to scrape with the lower wing of the bowl gouge only you're holding the bowl gouge in almost a horizontal position you're also going to want to rotate the tool rest so you have about a 90 degree support to the tool it's a little different than the push and pull cut where you want that tool rest right up against your turning material instead you want about a 90 degree support you're going to put pressure down on top of the tool into the tool rest and you're going to let that bottom wing just scrape all the way the surface now when would you use the scraping cut well the scraping cut which i shouldn't call it cut because it's a scrape but a scraping technique is used to remove material that is going to be more for shaping for instance you wouldn't use a scraping technique to rough out a bowl blank for that you would want to use a push cut so this scrape cut is more for refining a shape so let's say you've had the bulb blank pretty much shaped the exterior of the bowl is pretty much shaped however there's a couple bumps in that that you want to get away you want to remove that material very quickly well a scraping cut is great for that you want to make sure that your scraping cuts are grain supported because you're basically tearing out fibers here and this is not going to leave a smooth surface it's going to rough up the surface pretty good so you want to keep that in mind as well you don't want to be using this to shape the entire bowl because you're going to have a rough finish when you're done instead just use it sparingly to help refine that shape to get it right where you want it and get the form of the bowl the way you want it now the scraping cut can be used up near the rim a little bit and a little bit inside the rim of the bowl but not down inside the interior of the bowl this is this technique is only for the exterior of the bowl the fourth technique is called a shear scrape now like the scrape we're using that lower wing however instead of being horizontal like we are with the scraping cut we're dropping the handle to about 45 degrees and we're using the bottom wing so the material that's coming around is essentially going right past that that wing and making just a very delicate shave and we're going to see this in just a minute with the shavings that come off of a sheer scrape they're much more refined and delicate compared to all the other shavings so what's happening is the shear scrape is used last on the exterior of the bowl and it's designed to refine the surface of the bowl it's going to take out any tool marks it's going to refine any last little imperfections with the curve you can easily smooth them out when using the shear scrape now a really cool thing about the shear scrape because it's making such a light scrape or cut across the surface it is grain support direction independent meaning you can go left or right or right or left and as long as you're making delicate light cuts with a shear scrape you're not going to tear out in-grain fibers like you will with the scraping cut or with any of the other cuts that you really need to be using that grain supported direction with this cut you can actually go back and forth so you can just kind of rock your body and go back and forth across an area and smooth out a surface and i'll tell you what when you get good at doing this you can start sanding at 180 or even 240 because the surface of your bowl will be that smooth now like the scraping cut the shear scrape absolutely cannot be used on the inside of a bowl do not do this in the inside of the bowl because of the orientation of the bowl gouge being at a 45 degree angle and pointing up you could potentially get a really nasty catch break the bowl or throw it off the lathe very easily so do not use the sheer scrape on the interior the bowl only the exterior now if you want to shear scrape or delicately refine that surface of the interior of the bowl try using a round nose scraper i have a video all about round nose scrapers check that out and the technique is somewhat similar to what we're doing with the shears the shear scrape on the exterior except the round nose scraper is designed for the interior of the bowl this is pretty cool you can see the shavings from each of the different cuts so what we have here on the left is these are rough cuts push cuts and pull cuts used to clear away material quickly deep cuts and they're making large shavings these are also push and pull cuts however they're smaller they're made with a smaller bowl gouge and they're designed for finishing or refining and making more smooth finish on the bowl so they're not as big and deep they're basically more delicate than the first shavings that are for roughing now these are scraping cuts it's technically not a cut it's it's a scrape so you can see that these are torn apart they're actually just shaved right off the surface of the wood and over here we have shear scrape these are the angel hair really thin wispy shavings that come off when we're using the shear scrape and the shear scrape is used to refine and really smooth that outside exterior of the bowl so here you have the four different types of shavings that are created with the bowl gouge cuts you've got the push and pull cut you have the scraping cut shaving and you have the shear scrape shavings so there you have it four different bowl gouge techniques to completely turn an entire bowl from start to finish the only thing the bowl gouge can't do very well is get into really tight areas like the dovetail angle on the tenon that's where i use a detailed spindle gouge just to get down there and make a nice angle and clean out that little area other than that the bowl gouge can do an entire bowl all by itself you don't need any other tools as a matter of fact you can do it with one bowl gouge now i get this question often too it's like well then why do you have different sized bowl gouges well bowl gouges come in different sizes for the different finish and cut size that they're going to make the larger the bowl gouge the more material it will remove quicker you want to think of the larger bowl gouges for roughing and getting material away quickly not really giving you a very refined surface you could use them to make a refined surface but they're a little more difficult to do that with instead you use the larger bowl gouges to rough out material and take material away and you use the smaller bowl gouges to make those nice finishing cuts and make those light light passes that are going to give you a really nice refined surface that would be your different reasons for sizes but as far as the cuts we have the push cut the pull cut the scraping cut and the shear scraping cut those four techniques will let you do anything you want with a bowl gouge now guess what this is where there's a big line in the sand as far as the difference between a carbide scraper and a bowl gouge and i have a video all about carbide scrapers and bowl gouges if you want to check that out but essentially the bowl gouge can do things that a carbide scraper can't do you can't do a sheer scrape on the exterior as efficiently with a carbide tool as you can with a bowl gouge and you can't make really clean bevel supported push or pull cuts with a carbide scraper now that being said as you'll see in the other video i don't have a problem with carbide scrapers and they have their place so go check out that video and you can learn more about that and i get that question a lot people ask about well carbide and and the bowl gouge are the same why do you use the bowl gouge well they're not the same and this video hopefully illustrates the versatility of the bowl gouge and the fact that it has four very different styles of techniques that can be used just by simply rotating the tool and using it and holding it in a different direction all right guys i hope you've enjoyed this video if you have do me a huge favor click that like button and subscribe if you're not already subscribing click that bell and you'll be notified when i have a new video coming out i hope you've enjoyed this and i hope this helps you understand the versatility of the bull gouge these techniques don't come overnight so don't expect to just pick these up and and learn how to do them instantly you need to practice them as a matter of fact if you want to check out my wood bowl turning start to finish online e-course i actually use the bull gouge throughout that course and we are turning a small bowl when i say weir that means you and i are both turning the same type of wood at the same time and i'm going to give you exercises in that course that you can follow and as we progress through that course each lesson is going to give you different things and exercises to do with the bowl gouge when you're done with the course you're going to be feeling pretty confident about all the techniques that we just illustrated here in this video so go check that out if you're new to woodturning if you've been turning for a while and you're struggling a little bit with the bowl gouge if you're a carbide tool user and you're thinking about trying out the bull gouge then definitely check out my online wood bull turning start to finish ecourse you're going to love it all right guys thank you so much and as always until next time happy turning you

Channel: Turn A Wood Bowl

Views: 19,171

Rating: 4.9808612 out of 5

Keywords: woodturning, Kent Weakley, Turn a wood bowl, wood bowl, 4 Bowl Gouge Techniques — Push Pull Scrape Shear Cuts Video, bowl turning techniques, bowl gouge technique, bowl gouge push cut, push cut, scrape cut, shear scrape, shear scraping, bowl gouge pull cut, bowl gouge basics, bowl gouge cuts, bowl gouge sharpening angles, bowl gouge angles, bowl gouge grinds, wood turning tips, how to use a bowl gouge, wood turning bowl, woodturning videos, bowl turning, bowl gouge

Id: DA4fwZCv_8Y

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 20 2021