First Hollowform Attempts

Oh, and the pecan HF is now back in the pile of wood for the smoker!

Nice first attempts. I’ve turned lots of planned hollow forms into bowls over the past few years.
I’m signed up the HF course too.
Cheers

-- Glen

Your underwear still clean??? :-) I know the feeling, it happened to me several times and it made me go buy a set of calipers that will show me the thickness of the wall and I check frequently! Very nice first successful HF!

Erwin, Jacksonville, FL

-- Erwin, Jacksonville, FL

Hey James, welcome to the world of “designer firewood”, nice result in the finish :)

-- Pete G: If you always do what you always did you'll always get what you always got

You may already be aware of this technique, but one of the visiting demonstrators at my woodturning club had a set-up with a rod with a light bulb on the end, which he inserted inside the hollowed-out form. He then finished the outside, using the reduced ‘glow’ to show where the walls were still too thick.

Experience obviously told him that when the glow was extremely bright, he had gone too far LOL!

The one you completed successfully fills me with envy – a beautiful shape and colouration.

-- Don, Somerset UK, http://www.donjohnson24.co.uk

Nice turnings, I think you’ll do very good in Joe’s class.

-- (You just have to please the man in the Mirror) Mike from Michigan -

an ouch and a winner. looks like fun.

-- W James Brokenbourgh Custom furniture maker http://artisticwoodstudio.com/

Nice job. Great learning experience too. Exciting for a few minutes while you are feeling around to see if your body parts are still attached and you’re not leaking red anywhere. How do I know this? Nothing like first-hand experience.

-- JoeR Nothing that I could make will ever be perfect but I'll use it anyway.

I’ve been turning for a couple of years now. I’ve had bowls blow up on me before, and those were a lot more of an – ahem – check my pants moment. Because my hollowing tool was still inside, the separated part just spun around my tool a few times until it stopped. Not too violent at all – a very low kinetic activity to blue streak swearing ratio.

But yes, I’m already hooked on the hollow forms.

@Don – I’d be afraid that my insides were not uniform enough to try finishing it from the outside. Although I have used that method for natural edged bowls that I wanted under a sixteenth thick.

At the Tennessee Assoc of Woodturning Symposium this January, one of the demonstrators mentioned that he has students use cutaways on their practice hollow forms, so that they can see the hollowing tool on the inside. I may give that a shot as I work to refine my freehand hollowing technique.