George wrote:

Should have read it before sending. It is I who am prejudiced toward
dovetails. This type of circumstance is one of the reasons for it.
Inside
or outside, they grip on a broad, nondestructive face. Lots of folks
believe otherwise.

And some agree with you.

Actually George, having rough turned about 40 bowls so far (I never had a
lathe in my life until August of 2004), I very much favor dovetails. It is
easy to turn the recess and, as nearly as I can tell, they center a WHOLE
lot better than a tenon does. Before I remount it to turn the face, I
calculate the maximum depth I want to turn to so I avoid going too deep
over the dovetail. Then I'll leave the edge intact so I have a reference
point to measure from until I am done machining the interior. From this rim
I use a straight edge and a ruler to make a simple depth gauge.

It's simple, works really well and the only expense is a minor amount of
thought.

To mount the bowl on the chuck, I place the bowl face down on the lathe bed
ways, drop the el-cheapo utility chuck into the recess and expand them by
hand until snug. Then I give the chuck a quick twist with the tommy bars
and mount the whole arrangement on the headstock spindle.

To make life just a little easier on myself, I ground the edges I need into
a piece of HSS bar stock I found at work (From a broken cutter blade. So
far as work is concerned, it is junk metal. For my purposes, though, it is
'found gold'.)

Bill C.
on the western edge of Detroit, MI