Richard Raffan wrote a book called 'Turned Bowl Design'. I got a
used copy from Amazon. I assume the book copyrighted in 1987 is
out of print by now.

The reason I am posting this is the book talks about using templates
as guides to doing bowls. I just did 6 rough bowls using a template
made from cardboard. I drew a picture of the bowl shape I wanted and
cut it out. The negative of the bowl (Raffan's term) is the template.
He also says be sure to turn off the lathe before touching the
template to the bowl you are trying to create.

Perhaps the real experts can make all their bowls look alike but it
appears templates can be a real help to the rest of us. I have seen
pictures or videos where people drew on bowls logs with crayons but
have never seen any source besides the book where templates were
mentioned.

Has anyone else seen any mention of templates?