Derek Andrews wrote:

For the record, what type of wood was this? Presumably still green?


Absolutely. Ash that was as we say in Texas, "green as a gourd". It
had been cut about 3 weeks before, so it was a green as it could be.
He used a 5/8 bowl gouge on it with his own version of the Ellsworth
grind and it looked like he was running it through the shredder. He
was tuning on the biggest Jet in the shop. I think it is Bill
Grumbine's video that shows turning in this manner, and the long shreds
of wood fly off the piece.

Did he expand on this any further? Most bowls are pretty simple, and
I
can't imagine what more there is too understand. I'm really curious in
case there is something I've beem missing all these years.

I am not trying to make anything mysterious out of something simple.
Out club tries to instruct to all levels of turning. So for the
beginners, the message of sawing in two was "It isn't as thin or
consistent as you think", and for the rest of us, it was more of a
study on the uniformity of the shoulder/transition from the walls to
the base on a curved form. He is quite talented and likes to turn for
the joy of turning, not competition; so the better he gets, the more he
likes it. He is not concerned about competitions (he found there was
no real money in it so he lost interest!) and is unconcerned about
bragging rights.

Thankfully for all of us in our little group, he is one of the nicest
guys you would ever meet and takes his skills totally for granted,
willing to show anyone anything he knows. All you have to do is ask;
he is one heck of a guy. As for form, he does not turn salad bowls.
His bowls are almost all for decoration only; they have small bottoms,
sides that sweep up, then out rapidly. His favorite design it to make
a curl on the rim that he feels compliments the size and shape of the
bowl.

Now that might be some justification for the destruction! Did he explain
how this has helped him get faster? I'd certainly like to be able to
turn a bowl that fast

Wouldn't we all. I swear to you, you cannot stand by his side of the
lathe when he is turning as it looks like the long shreds of green wood
are being shot out of a machine.

Here's what he found on sawing his pieces in half. First, it enable
him to see the grain of the wood and how it changed under certain cuts
when he was making his transition to the bottom of the form. If there
was tearout, he could see if it was incorrect tool presention if the
grain was consistent, or if there was a reason such as a little swirly
he couldn't see well.

Now the big stuff: With the 1/2 piece in hand, he takes the actual
tool and holds it in the profile to match what he was doing on the
lathe. He studies angle of presentation, postion, and where on the
bevel the gouge is cutting in regards to those considerations. He
takes what he sees, tries to remember exactly how he cut the half piece
in his hand, and then adjusts or confirms what he did accordingly.

When he held it up for us all to see EXACTLY what he was talking about,
it was was easy to see in the bowl half. Really easy. He just put the
gouge inside the bowl and said "you wanna come at it like this, not
like this" (imagine shifting the gouge around inside the form). He
said by cutting his favorite form in two (notice I did not say piece)
and holding the gouge inside the piece he was able to picture what he
was doing, and what he needed to change. This is actually no
different than the way they teach golf swings; the pro walks you
through your swing and you mimic what he teaches you by cementing the
changes into your brain by practice. However, he eliminated the other
guy and just cut his form open and held the gouge inside to see what it
was doing.

On reflection, one can easily see how this method would be helpful for
anyone that had a particular form they liked to see how the tools were
really doing their job inside the form. I can imagine how much this
would speed teaching a production turner along when they were just
looking for a small improvements here and there.

And for the record, his technique is to cut the bowl from inside out,
or outside in without a second thought. He changes when one cut is not
quite as easy as it should be, and changes as needed. Some of the
shreds we swept up after the meeting were probably just under 1/8"
thick and he could tell by the amount of curl in the shaving whether it
was from an inside out (less curl from cutting on the side of the
bevel) or more curly from outside to in (less width of the shaving from
cutting closer to the point). I know most of us turn whichever way the
wood/piece/grind makes it easy to do, but again, I don't know that I
have seen a non-professional turn with such ease and a relaxed
demeanor. For that matter, not many professionals.

Now a dose of reality: he hates, hates, hates, the skew. He isn't
very good with it and swears he only uses it to open paint cans.

Robert