I suck.... well - just frustrated!

[sachbvn]

So - I spent a few hours turning this morning. Well, quite a bit of time prepping blanks, bottle stoppers, etc.... then turned some stoppers. I tried some Bubinga and Zebrawood. The first Bubinga went well - the Zebrawood went well, but that stuff seems to tear out a bit, I try to take one last, grazing cut, on everything before I sand.

Those two I finished and set aside to cure before buffing (probably won't get to it until tomorrow or Tuesday)

I chucked up another piece of Bubinga.... got a pretty neat golf ball/water tower shape going, something a little more plain..... well... since I can't seem to get the tops totally round, I always have a flat spot - well, I've tried to do some cool things with that flat spot - I was trying to "scoop out" a little bit of it, kinda make it go down into the stopper a bit.... I was able to get a nice little gentle divot with the tip of my skew, then I tried to use a 3/8" gouge to go further, CATCH, try again - VERY GENTLY, CATCH, CATCH, CATCH.... what gives? Watching a guy do it on a DVD he is just plowing the damn thing into the bowl blank, why isn't going ever so gingerly working for me? Does it have to do with the grain on a bottle stopper running parallel with the lathe bed vs perpendicular?


Zac

[TDHofstetter]

It may be that your gouge wasn't tipped over onto its side far enough - a hole that small is really pretty tricky to get into, especially when you don't have a ton of support from the headstock end 'cause of the necking-down next to your stopper chuck. A small scraper would probably have given you the best results there, since you were turning into endgrain. Scrapers LOVE endgrain.

[boodrow]

Zac when im workin on the top of a bottle stopper I use my 1/4" spindle gouge. And as Tim said make sure u have the cuttin edge about 45 degrees laid over and 45 degrees to the work , go slow and see if that helps u , part of the learnin curve. Dont know how many I pulled off the mandrel and chuncked in the trash. Be patient it will work for u, I also run my lathe at about 1800 rpm when I do stoppers.
Boodrow

[Ruffnek]

If you were using a 3/8" detail gouge, they usually have a pretty aggressive grind on them so there's not a lot of bevel to ride, if any.

I'm with Tim on this one, try a scraper.