It's been a while, since I cranked up the lathe, but I did today. And I've
forgotten about some of the basics, I guess.

There's a bowl blank mounted there, California Laurel, and I've turned the
outside of the bowl, and cut the foot for chuck mounting. That part I've
got fine, I think. But there's some torn end grain that shows when I sand
it out to 400, and particularly when I wipe on some shellac.

Do I need to resand back in the 120 grit range? Or go back to a scraper or
gouge, and recut the surface? Is there a benefit of higher speed, or
lower?

This laurel is prety dry. I bought it from a wholesaler a couple of years
ago. It was coated in wax, which turned off pretty easily, but it turns
differently from the air dried walnut that I've used most recently.

Opinions? Other than that cherry is much easier to get right?

Patriarch

"Patriarch" wrote in message
. 136...
There's a bowl blank mounted there, California Laurel, and I've turned the
outside of the bowl, and cut the foot for chuck mounting. That part I've
got fine, I think. But there's some torn end grain that shows when I sand
it out to 400, and particularly when I wipe on some shellac.

Do I need to resand back in the 120 grit range? Or go back to a scraper
or
gouge, and recut the surface? Is there a benefit of higher speed, or
lower?


How far back you go depends on how deep the tearout. If it's all the way to
the gouge, so be it.

Of course, one has to ask how you went all the way to 400 without taking
care of it? Don't move to the next grit without a surface inspection after
wiping off the old dust and grit. It's going to show tearout without, maybe
some heel bruising with mineral spirits, and that's the time to work them
out.

A few days back I posted a question about seeing endgrain tears before
it was too late. Several valuable replies came back. This post
reminded me to ask a follow-up question:

If a person uses mineral spirits to find torn endgrain does that
create any problems later if you want to use a bowl for food?

No.

TWW wrote:
A few days back I posted a question about seeing endgrain tears before
it was too late. Several valuable replies came back. This post
reminded me to ask a follow-up question:

If a person uses mineral spirits to find torn endgrain does that
create any problems later if you want to use a bowl for food?