Bowl gouge basics and how to master hollowing a bowl

hi welcome back uh so in this video I'm going to try to explain uh the best I can all about the entry cuts on the inside of the bowl now the rules apply not only for a bowl let's say if you're making a nice big platter or wide rim uh plate uh platter anything like that you already have the finished Rim you don't want to ruin it by skiding over with the gouge um that is actually quite common thing and uh happens to me all the time as well um mostly because I'm in a hurry and uh but there are things that you can do to prevent that and uh it goes through the grinds as well uh different grinds can help you out or not help you out with the entry cut as well as the position of the handle and the flute position so we'll get to do that uh when we flip the this um Norway maple blank around to hollow it out um this is the outside now the reason I'm doing this video is um a fellow asked me I forgot his name on the on the YouTube commentary section on my one of my videos um he asked if I could help me help him out about this so uh I hope this will help you out um once again sorry I forgot the name um okay so I'll just uh reposition the camera and uh we'll Dive Right In This Is the Carter and Son um big 19 mil Uh Wood beater uh which is signature tour from Mike Mahone um it has a what is quite common long rind which you can get um with various jigs um like uh very grind or a wood cut uh sharpening jig uh or sorage jig so it's quite common and it has a long long wings and this particular gouge U I believe it has around 45° uh bevel angle um and the other one that I'm going to use is this is from the Gul company in Czech Republic and U this is 16 mil uh B gou and I use it with the primarily with the asymmetric grind which I learned from my mentor uh Richard raen uh it's not long wings um it's a longer left wing but it has a full curve it's not shallow curve it's more more of a full curve and the right wing is much steeper much like a traditional grind and U the difference between the these two is I like on the asymmetric grind to have the full curve on the nose as well I hope you can see that I'll try to zoom in uh in a post production so you can see it a little bit better here and uh and this is um carissan B gouch and although this is bigger 19 mil uh B gou diameter I'm talking um it has a quite pointy uh nose here and uh that we'll see how that comes in handy after and uh we'll just now uh T up the blank here um make it round obviously and uh make a bow shape and I'm going to use only these two gouges okay you always start with the LA slow and crank the speed up little by little until the light starts to shake you can probably hear so I'm drop the speed down a little bit now it's running at 700 RPM so this is the asymmetri [Music] grind does a very nice job and uh let's grab a a long grind with um from the card [Music] Nan also really nice job now um if I have more space let's say behind me behind the laad um currently I have the rack uh the Shelf with the various uh turnings and um all the shavings if I would uh turn with my left hand much as the money does like [Music] this just clean up here and then we can start like this all the shavings fly there and it will collect in the corner or on the Shelf so uh but if I have the space um for roughing out bowls uh this is excellent grind uh because if you're if you know the proper technique um you can use all of the long Wing here um now this is one horsepower l so I can't take this much of a [Music] bite you can see it struggles quite a bit uh but if if it's a strong aade and I have the space uh this is a great option to rub the bowls like this because you're not covered in shavings the shavings collect in one place over there and it's easy to collect but I always turn like this so the handle is in my right hand and um this is smaller La obviously and I don't have the the power to plow with the let's say 1 in cut so now as the the corner here where the bark was is removed I can bring the speed a little bit up so now it's 850 almost 9900 [Music] so but still I'm taking quite a bit of big of cut so that's half an inch [Music] so I'll just grab a a symmetri grind so this is the one situation for an instance uh where I can bring the speed up a little more the dust Hood lid uh vibrates a little bit so uh here for instance I can chew up the rim of the of the foot and then use the bevel here and do a sheer cut down to to the middle like this gives me quite nice uh surface here and uh I can do the same uh with a long grind although I don't like it much for this because it has a point and it doesn't like to go uh where the ingrain is so it's not terrible surface and this Norway maple does cut quite good so so we have a true up blank here and the all can make the foot here uh this is for instance where the long grind um is much better because the wing here and the bevel is less than 90° so you can tuck into a corner where the asymmetric grind isn't so so I can get a nice Corner uh in there but with the long grind I can tuck it into a corner like in there don't need that toall of foot like this and now I can just shape the rest of the bowl now you can use let's say push cut with a long grind so here I'm taking a little bit too much grab a asymmetri grind just to show you this is really pristine surface here so try to show you a bit closer so this is really nice surface um now this is personal preference uh with a long grind like this you keep it the flute let's say at 10:00 and then you can make your Shear cut or U push cut let's say uh with the asymmetri grind I can go that way or I can use a little bit the right to the nose of the [Music] gouge just remove that [Music] extra and slowly at the top so that's another sheer cut push cut whatever you want to call it it a little burnish Mark at the top but that's okay but you can see it's a really nice pristine surface you don't have to sand this at all we can we have a little bit of figure here which is nice what I'll do is just make a little smaller foot like this and I'll do one more uh push [Music] cut just to blend these two curves now this is quite good but if you have a little like finessing to do you can do it with the asymmetric [Music] grind you close the flute but the longer Wings on the um on the long grind Works actually a little better like so so you can see that's again nice clean surface and uh so we can flip this around I'll just readjust the camera and flip this into ch and we'll start with the entry Cuts so as you saw on the outside of the bowl uh the grind doesn't matter too much um on the outside of the bowl I quite like using um spindle gouges I have the bigger ones 16 mil and they all work quite nicely and uh uh but you can use b g just you can use wherever it works for you so let's now FOC focus on the on the inside so first what I'm going to do is actually readjust the camera a little bit so you can see a little bit better um so first is obviously to chew this up so what I like to do is grab a asymmetric [Music] grind so now the speed I increased the speed it's now 12 100 RPM so you true up this part this is now true and you can ride the [Music] bevel and this leaves quite good surface because the right wing acts like a a traditional grind and um that's pretty good surface I could get it a little bit better uh so now the entry Cuts so uh actually first what I'll do is drill depth [Music] [Music] hole what happens uh if you uh like approach with the gouge like in the same um position as you Hollow so this is what happens so if you open it up to let's say 2:00 the usually um position that we have to hollow it out and uh you drop the handle so this happens you make a nice spiral Spiral and um I'll just uh do that as well with the uh a met grind so again if I position it at let's say 2:00 drop the handle you can see again SS same stuff so I'll just clean this [Music] up so first I'll do uh with the LA off so you can see so the position that we have uh for the skate if I bring the gouin and rotate it by hand the bowl you can see what happens how the gouch is creeping towards the rim slowly makes its way so to prevent that again I'll clean this up so to prevent this uh first uh actually what I'll talk first is the different the difference in grinds so if you have the point on the tool or the pointier curve let's say smaller curve at the end that helps you out with the entry Cuts so what that does is it makes one point of contact versus and for instance on the on the aetric grind you have the full curve at the nose of the gouge and that doesn't usually help you out uh to have a single point but um I still don't have the skate with this because if you do the proper technique then then it is a one point of contact with the wood so uh the way you want to approach the the bowl is you close the flute so the flute is now facing up at the ceiling that's 12:00 and uh to fully close it uh you'll uh point it at 3:00 and raise the handle so it's flat so the handle is flat the tool is closed and now see what happens the tool is neutral no matter how much I spin it it just digs sort of one place of contact the hole here uh do that as well uh from a little different angle so close the flute at 3:00 raise the handle uh if you set up uh the height of the lead correctly then you would um bring the the handle up to your um elbow so 3:00 and level handle and you can see it doesn't creep anywhere and obviously when you hold it it's safe to uh make an entry the same uh procedure with the a symmetri grind so I pull the handle up to my uh my elbow close the flute uh to 3:00 and you can see I'm at one place it's not going back to the rim so let's do that in motion uh bring the the handle up flute closed once you're in the wood and the bevel is has a place to uh to ride to rest then you can open up the gouge to let's say 2:00 one and a half let's say and then you can proceed forward so same with um long grind ra the handle slowly go in like this open the gou once you're in and then you can move forward I'll show that again just clean this up so bring the handle up uh flute is at 3:00 once you're in the wood open it up drop the handle and move forward again with a uh asymmetric grind 3:00 raise the handle up to your elbow and you're standing comfortably you're not sagging you're not bending over or anything you just you have to stand at the laid comfortably so if you're like I said if you're set the height of the LA correctly so the elbow once you're relaxed your elbow is the center height of the LA then uh it will bring the handle and it will be pretty level it's not perfectly level but it's close enough and 3:00 and once you're in the wood you can now open the gou you can see doesn't skate over open the gouge let's say to 2:00 and drop the handle to get a better cut and move forward so to close the topic on the entry Cuts uh um the difference in the grind obviously helps you out so that's a benefit but it's not crucial so as you saw I can do the same with the asymmetric grind but there are two other um things that you can do to prevent Skating close the flute bring the handle up start your cut once you're in the wood open the gouch drop the handle a little bit and move forward it really is that easy so again I'll show it bring the handle up close the flute 3:00 once you're in the wood a little bit open the gouge so the bevel has some somewhere to rest open the gouch drop the handle as you would normally Hollow and push forward like so to to sum things up on the entry cut um so you saw the position of the flute is key so hold it at 3:00 raise the handle so it's close to your elbow or at the elbow and that will make the tool levish and uh once you're in the wood open the gouge and proceed forward now I'll actually discuss a little bit why I like the asymmetri grind over the long grind um and this is my opinion don't quote quote me on this um I've tried believe me uh 4040 grind I've tried uh long ride traditional grinds everything now uh the ra on methods um not just because he's my mentor but those methods suit me perfectly and U to my uh like uh flow and everything uh just works best for me now that does doesn't mean that it will work best for you so uh somebody uh prefer the long rind and that it's okay that's nothing wrong with that uh it's just personal preference but the position of the flute and the handle position so it's level that's not U preference that's actually what happens the tool from skating over and uh that usually makes the single point of contact to the wood and not the The Edge on the top that then carries the ball uh to the rim the cut so I hope this will help you out uh with your entry cuts and the entry cuts are quite important now not on a rough out ball like this but for instance if I want to leave this kind of Rim uh let's pretend this is the platter this is your wide rim and you don't want to ruin it so you have to have um entry cut position right so for instance here if I want to go straight in again close the flute raise the handle now the the handle is away from me at the other side of the LA to have the here the bevel in the point where I want to go and once you're in the wood you can open it up and do your cut if I do that like this then it wants to you see lightly wants to skate over so and if you does Skate over now it's uh your beautifully let if it's painted Rim then it's much worse so you just ruin your Rim so the entry cuts are important and like I said in many times I don't um especially on the rough bowls I just plow it through or just grab it a little bit harder here and I can be aggressive like this if I know this is a rough out Ball but if I know that this Rim has to stay intact then raise the hand and close the flute position the the bevel here where you want to go straight in once you're in the wound you can now open the gou and drop the handle and proceed with your cutting so I hope that help you out uh with the entry Cuts now the difference in my opinion uh the way or the reason I like the asymmetric grind is I find it much Superior to for hallowing uh so this right wing now this right wing uh at the moment like I have it here it's much closer to 4040 grind than the traditional grind uh but the difference on um 4040 grind versus mine that mine is a curve here I hope you can see it's a curve curved Wing uh where on the on the 4040 grind it's much straighter and uh now that doesn't like mean much but what I've experienced with sharpening when I started uh turning balls when I use the 4040 grind versus the asymmetry grind is I get just get a much better cut uh finished cut and a much uh uh let's say like mulch machine uh when you want to uh remove a lot of wood um for hollowing so here I'm taking taking pretty much all of the wing same [Music] here and uh for instance with the long grind it's a little bit different uh it's not that it's bad it's different uh position so um if you ever heard the the expression like peel the side grain and uh slice the end grain that's actually uh from Stuart B I believe so I hope you can see uh from the light and everything so I positioned the bevel on the nose um in direction that I want to go and that is straight in and U so like this and you can I hope you can see uh the right wing is almost like uh in a in a right angle uh to the bevel here on the nose and um what that will do is that will make peeling the side grain [Music] so hope you can see that these are the shavings from it so uh let's do this with um long grind so uh the bevel angle is close to on on both of these so around between the 40 and 45° I don't measure it I just know when it works right and I feel when I'm working that is right so um so the bevel angle here goes straight um forward like straight in and you can hope see the bottom Wing here that it's way in different angle um than the asymmetric grind now on the what that does is it's not that it's bad in any case but it's a little bit different approach to side grain or the end grain so if I want to go straight in still I'm getting quite nice shavings and I get um still I'm getting nice shavings and here I hope you can see uh this is slightly different angle here so it's more of a dove tail here and this is more open so on the a meture grind the angle here on the tuck here portion is like this and on the a long grind here is much closed like a dove tail it's uh it doesn't matter way too much here at The Rim or the let's say half of the ball down uh that way you will peel the side grain with both of these gouges but where it comes uh differently is the bottom turr and you have to have a different gouge if you want to get nice clean cut around the Bottom now uh these gouges are like I said around 40 between 40 and 45° nose angle so I don't know if that will allow me to get all the way down but I'll try to show it to you the difference between the the two so I just grab the ACM grind to get to the bottom and it helps if we tighten the rest and I'll do one more [Music] cut and I'll stop here and just to show you so that's quick cut but it's silky smooth and there's no tear out out and works beautifully and uh now the long grind will give me the same cut here and I believe I on purpose left this so try to show that the difference between the aetric and the long gr here on this stub uh but let's just do that as well with the long grind [Music] so again the the surface is quite good uh now I would argue that on the asmet grind it's a little bit better uh but here is here is something that I want to show you which is quite important so if you look the stops here in the in the middle here and uh just to to clarify I will do the same with the ASM grind here so you can see the difference but I hope that it will show on the on the camera a little bit better so here on the a mure grind this is like I said again opened angle here so this angle is uh over 90° way over and this portion acts like a traditional grind something like this so this is uh traditional grind or a bottom ball gou let's say and uh that will give you that same uh result here which I'm getting with the right wing on the asymmetric grind so if I have the bevel here riding um going straight in I will get the same opened angle over 90° on the left over here which in Translation means that this surface here is much cleanly cut um and that's why you let's say on a straight cut where the end grain is exposed so the grain now runs like this and you can see we have a lot of end grain all of this is end grain and on this side as well so uh this will lay down the um the ingrain fibers much much cleanly same pretty much happens with the uh asymmetric grind now bear in mind that this one on uh on this gouge here particular if you look the nose angle try to I'm balancing two gouges um if you look at the nose here it's pretty close angle and this is the way I just sharpen mine is just get a little bit more curve at the end let's say from the half uh up I get a little bit more curve here but the bottom portion is um pretty much uh the uh traditional grind here and that lays down the fibers much cleanly let's say on the bottom of the bows uh versus where we look at the long rind here and uh that pretty much goes with any grind that is uh like in that fashion of the long grind so you can see much much severe damage here on the end grain it's like pulled out here on this side as well especially so the grain is like going like this so here it will cut it pretty okay but as you can see here it's much more damage now in mind this portion here is as well a little bit torn out but if we switch it over here you can see here it's much less damage than for instance this and this is cut this part should be cut relatively clean here across the end grain but as you can see it's very very well uh Tor out so that's the reason you'll see most of the Turners grab the use uh like a long grind we'll grab um different gouch or a bottom feet either bottom ball gouch doesn't matter what it's called um for the bottom of the of the curve of the bowl platas or wherever you have to deal with the end grain which in this case is a lot now there is other option for instance uh for instance I like to use um uh like my mentor uh scrapers for for the bottoms and if you have a properly sharpened bur and everything you can get a pretty close um Quality cut as with the bottom B gouch now the bottom B gouch in my opinion is it has a learning curve um obviously with all tools there is a learning curve especially with the scrapers but I just find the scrapers a little bit more friendly let's say um if you know the proper ways to do it so um I just clean this up with um um asymmetric grind so you'll see the difference and uh um I hope this clarifies a little bit on the difference between the uh long grind and the traditional grind and the asymmetric grind and this is just the pure logic you can try this for yourself and you'll see um in your workflow now everybody has a different flow uh of the work uh somebody doesn't use the uh bottom bul they just use the different angle on the long R and that that is okay there nothing wrong with that uh you will get this portion on the long grind if you have a more steeper angle like 50 or 55° even 60 uh you will get this much steeper surface and you'll get a little bit cleaner cut uh then than it's for instance here like I said I'll just clean that that portion there with the asymmetric grind so I hope you can see how as I will start to cut it will move this shoulder further uh forward and I hope you can see that there is zero chip out here and the the portion on the bottom uh the surface that it's actually important rather than this tub here uh is clean um now now before I move any further down I'll just make it thinner [Music] here I'll do it in [Music] [Applause] [Music] steps use the long grind as well so you can see how it works I lost that cut so much more used to asymmetric grind just make room on the bench so I can drop the handle a little bit more so that's pretty Wiggly uh but I can t it down a little bit [Music] more okay I'll leave it as it is continue [Music] [Applause] on so that's the bottom so now I just want to continue on now the outside I didn't plan for thin Bowl so this shape isn't it won't get on the bottom as thin as it should [Music] be a little bit more now it's really thin so I'm basically holding it on the on the gouch on the Cutting Edge now ideally if you want to thin this down even more you will do it from the outside you would jam Chuck this and the bow will stay um quite true and now as the light is coming here it does look quite now the camera shut off uh I'm shooting 4K so 8 minutes I only have procession um so I finished the bottom with the scrapers and I hope you can see the difference let me just manage the focus and you can't tell the difference between scraping here and the cutting and uh it really is a thin and I'll actually show it to you on the light so I hope you can see it it's quite thin not at the bottom as much but like I said I didn't have the uh the best curve on the outside to to get it nice and thin but that's really darn thin so that's around 1 mil maybe uh you can see it even now it's not close to the light so I hope I clarified a little bit on the entry Cuts how to to do it without any skating and how to get a nice entry without damage let's say the rim uh and um I hope you understand um the differences between the long grind uh the symmetric grind um my opinion on this is there you can do one with one gouch and one angle bevel angle and uh you can do one let's say a bowl in total uh to an extent so if you want to do any intricate shapes um a little more pleasing shapes let's say different kind of shape um with a a lot of Curves in it uh then you will have to use um different approaches let's say so uh as you saw if I would go uh to the bottom of the bowl this one uh with any of these gouges I would hit the rim first so I have to use the different approach so you can use the bottom B gou with different angle you can use a long grind uh B gou with different angle on the on the bevel or you can use the scrapers and get that done as well so um there isn't one gouch and there is that is total and uh like uh any there isn't any other gouges now that being said um I sharpen all of my gouges and um shape them uh the way this one is so around uh between 40 and 45° bevel angle and it's asymmetric grind um because I use the scrapers for the bottom of the balls and um now sometimes if I can manage uh to do the bottom with the gouch I'll do it um but in most cases I use the scrapers just to refine it to get nice smooth shape uh curve going through the bottom as well and um now instead of the scraper you can use like I said different angle long grind on on the bevel on the nose bevel um bottom B gouch again with the 55 50 60° um so whatever works for you so just don't fall into arguments that there is a one gouch for everything and it's you can do everything with it with it like I said you can do it but to an extent so um yeah thanks for watching and I hope you like this video and uh see you in the next one

Channel: Tomislav Tomasic Woodturning (Dodir Drva)

Views: 91,121

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Id: nEm18RjFRB4

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2023