My response is “I keep my eyes open, something strikes me, and I try to make something like it out of wood”

In preparation for just such a talk this week to a local woodworking guild, I have put together some work that I can directly correlate to the inspiration for same. My hope is that it might help you get creative, too!

The order will be – first what iinspired the design, then the work. Hope you find it useful!

The yin/yang is a very widely recognizable symbol. While it holds no real significance for me, the design does.

One of my most requested works – slither, came from a child’s toy.

Anyone who has played “Half Life” would recognize a sentry bot.

A seed pod of some sort

And my version…an EYEpod

A sea cucumber

My version

Milkweed seed pot

Scary looking camel spiders in Iraq

A forked tongue

Look at the area where the bowl meets the handle, see the fork?

Asteroid!

Graceful ballet dancer

Inchworm

Giant clam

As you can see, I get most of my ideas from the surrounding world. Hope you liked it!

Burrs come in plenty of different shapes, types, sizes, and materials. You can find them with diamonds, rubies, ceramics, and various oxides of all sorts. Then there are HSS, carbide, carbon steel, etc.. Add fluted, structured carbide, and a few other types and you’re soon as confused as can be. I’m still not sure I have it all down, but I’ve certainly spent too much money, and have drawers full of burrs I should not have purchased.

One of the considerations when buying burrs is to examine what type of carving you will be doing. Will you be carving lifelike birds, or other animals, or will you be making other types of objects, like spoons for example? Maybe you’re carving Santa figures, or whimsical sailors or something. The types of burrs you’ll need differ based on type of carving. We will be discussing carving burrs in order from least detailed carving to most detailed, and then get into a discussion of burr shapes/profiles. Mostly though this article will deal with burr type as opposed to burr shape.

Roughing burrs

Carving is a reduction activity – that is we are removing material from our product rather than adding it as in clay making, for example. There are therefore times when you will want to remove large amounts of wood in a hurry, while composing or following a prescribed shape. Burrs suited to this purpose leave very rough surfaces, cut very aggressively, but can be very sensitive to grain direction, too. Some burrs are more sensitive than others. I have found carbide based burrs to perform better than HSS or carbon steel tools, as well as never needing to be sharpened. There are both fluted (edged) and abrasive carbide burrs. The abrasive burrs come in several flavors as well. These are the safest choice for beginners as they are generally indifferent towards grain direction.

Abrasive burrs come in structured and unstructured formats. The two types I prefer best are sold under the Typhoon, Saburr, and Kutzall brands. Typhoon/Saburr burrs have cutters that are aligned with each other in rows whereas Kutzall burrs are mostly randomly arranged on the burr head. The cutting action is similar but the Typhoon burrs will remove wood more quickly and do not seem as prone to burning the surfaces of some woods, and they work better in burls that have swirling grain directions. Another advantage is that they clog far less.

Here you can see the difference between a Typhoon and a Kutzall. The Typhoon is on the left. Saburr in the middle and Kutzalls on the right. Several carving supply sites have recently dropped the Kutzalls in favor of the Typhoon/Saburr type burr.

Another type of roughing burr is the “stump cutter”. I don’t like them, but they must be very popular as they’re in about every catalog. I find them inadequate compared to the other types of roughing burrs.

One of my favorite cutters is the fluted or ‘edged” carbide burr. They cut quickly and leave a remarkably polished, clean surface, often devoid of any defects. Another advantage of them is that they produce larger chips that fall to the ground rather than dust which might remain suspended in the air. The main downside of these burrs is that they can be very sensitive to grain direction and rotational speed. Cutting “uphill” is not productive and can result in digs, nicks, and kickbacks. A slow bit speed will also detract from this burr’s usefulness.

These fluted bits can also be found in a “doublecut” arrangement. The doublecut is meant for working in metal but I find these very good for woodworking, less sensitive to grain orientation, and produce a very nice finish. Here is a standard cut burr..

The “Monster” carbide burrs shown above are VERY good tools. I would not recommend buying steel carving bits, not only do they not perform well, they don’t last and it is a waste of time to try and sharpen them. HSS or high speed steel tools are an acceptable compromise, but carbide cuts and lasts best.

For roughing work, the types mentioned above are my favorites and seem to work the best. You can find roughing bits in 1/4”, 3/32” and 1/8” shanks, but they really shine in a powerful tool with a 1/4” shank.

Unstructured and structured carbide bits are also available in different grits. Use them in the same order you would sandpaper, and don’t hesitate to buy fine grit carbide burrs. They will save you LOTS of sanding time.

Detail work

Detail work is generally the work of smaller tools, with detail bits and burrs typically found mounted on 1/8” or 3/32” shanks. Burrs are available in several different media and a befuddling array of shapes/profiles in this category.

Ceramic, or “ceramcut” stones are available in several grits, generally blue being the roughest. The blue ceramcut stone is great for texturing and detailing and is available in all sorts of profiles. Try a couple or buy a small set. Red ceramic stones are next up in the grit rating (smoother), and white stones are for polishing. White stones can be great for adding detail lines, veins, feathers, etc.. Most all of the ceramic stones can be reprofiled to your liking by holding them up to a diamond stone or file as they rotate.

Diamond and ruby and sapphire stones are an alternative to ceramic stones. Ruby stones cut more coarsely than diamond. Ruby stones are susceptible to damage from heat and pressure, so care should be taken when using them. I prefer the ruby stones to diamond stones in almost every case. They are great for gentle shaping and adding details. Both diamond and ruby burrs wear more quickly than ceramic, and not all diamond burrs are created equal. The cheap ones are – cheap and you will find that the diamond pieces are irregularly sized, leaving a badly finished surface. The better diamond stones are great. The advantage of the sapphire burr is they last longer than the ruby.

Sanding sleeves

In my opinion, these things are incorrectly named, and it causes confusion. “Sanding sleeves”, such as those offered by Typhoon, can be aggressive carving tools. They are inserted over a rubber drum on a ¼” mandrell and come in different grits. These are fantastic tools and though straight profiled, excel at creating convex surfaces such as spoon bottoms and handles. They do not produce what you would consider a sanded surface at anything other than a rough grit.

Other bits

Lastly, there are bits that don’t fit into any real category described above. They have unique uses.

“Dura Grit” abrasive cutters are tough, tungsten carbide cutters. They are not as aggressive as a typhoon but much more so than a ruby. They come in 1/8” shanks. Get them at LeeValley.

Vanadium steel burs

I think these things are junk. With the easy availability of carbide and HSS burs, I just don’t understand why anyone would want to bother with these vanadium burrs. I notice that Lee Valley has discontinued them.

Shapes

My carvings generally use 3 basic shapes of burr – straight, round, and flame.

The straight shape is used for creating curved surfaces on exteriors. It sounds counterintuitive but it works better than using a round or a flame shape. Trust me on this. I use flame and round, generally spheres as opposed to ovals, to produce concave interior surfaces like those of a spoon or bowl shape. As most of my work these days is not detail oriented I don’t typically need any of the pointy shapes you see in the picture above, but they have their place. You will have to experiment to find the shapes that work for you, or consult a woodcarving website that has a bunch of detail carvers.

In general, small work does not require the same perfect, unblemished sanding/preparation that flat work does, as the eye can only focus on a few planes at a time, whereas a large surface can be examined for differences in the finish with only a glance. That does not mean you shouldn’t shoot for perfection, however.

First lets talk about sanding small stuff, rather than incredibly detailed work. If it is flat, you can probably get by with your tried and true sanding methods, except in small corners and overhangs, or for example in a box – sanding that bottom inside corner can be problematic. You can alleviate much of the problems here by thinking about how you’re going to sand a piece before you put it together. Where you think there may be a challenge, sand the work before you attach or assemble it. This saves a lot of time later on, as well as frustration. When assembling such pieces that have been pre-sanded, put some blue painter’s tape just outside the glue line to keep the glue from getting on the work, as glue causes problems with finish penetration and adhesion. Other difficult to sand things on flat work might include moldings, their odd profiles can be difficult to sand without removing the detail. There are contoured sanding pads available for these, but I don’t find them to be worth the trouble. The tool catalogs are full of them…in my opinion you won’t see them in tool catalogs who’s owners actually are woodworkers. Check with LeeValley – no sanding gimmicks. However, look at Woodcraft – they carry all of the money pits..

If you really want to sand your profile perfectly, take a scrap piece of your molding, wrap it in plastic or wax paper, and apply a heathly dollop of expanding insulation foam to it. As it expands mold it into a shape that you can hold on one side and allow the other to form itself to the shape of the molding profile. When it has hardened, attach some sandpaper to that profile, you’ll have an exact match contour sander. A drill press mounted sanding mop (also from Klingspor's ) can be used extremely effectively on moldings, before they’re attached. These mops are expensive but WELL worth the money in time savings and quality improvements. I have several and use them constantly.

“straight line disease”. That is what I call the sanding marks you see in corners, against molding profiles and anywhere you can’t get a power sander that has been hand sanded. Look into the insider corner of a drawer or a box or up against a molding – you will see sanding scratches that are perfectly parallel to the long plane of the nearby junction. These are caused by sanding in the same exact plane and direction against a corner or joint. They represent inferior work and are fortunately not difficult to avoid by sanding in small circles with a sanding aid. If the area is too narrow to get your fingers in, use a pencil with the eraser side on the sandpaper. Or if you have a rotary tool, use a rotary tool, or the Fein multimaster will also do a good job there. All said, these things are the best tool I have ever discovered for sanding difficult items… . they are mini sanding mops from Klingspor's woodworking shop. There is nothing these things can’t do, and they leave absolutely no sanding scratches.

If however, your work is an item like the spoon here, you will need different tools, and have to wait till my next blog entry as this one is getting too long.

This blog will teach and show you how to produce turned work that is free from those circular sanding scratches you see in most turners’ work.

The most typical sanding error seen in a woodturner’s work is the circular sanding marks that circumscribe the surface of a bowl. You’ve seen them. You’ve even created them, those marks that occur when you hold a piece of sandpaper against a spinning chunk of wood on the lathe. I hate them and am on a personal quest to rid them from the earth.

The first and best way to avoid these scratches is learn proper gouge technique. It is quite possible to turn both interior and exterior surfaces that really need little or no sanding, but that discussion is outside the scope of this blog entry.

Lets face it, sanding with the lathe turned on is great, it is fast, quick, and easy, except for those darned scratches. They occur quite simply from stationary (unmoving) sanding grit staying in contact with the rotating bowl surface. If you are sanding by hand with the bowl rotating, there are a few things you can do to improve your results.

1. Lathe speed low. Very low. This will prevent the stationary sanding grit from creating a long straight scratch pattern.
2. Hand speed high. Very high. Keep your hand constantly moving back and forth on the bowl surface, never ever ever letting it stand still for even a moment. This will also prevent long scratch patterns from forming.
3. After each grit with the lathe turned on, turn it off and lock the spindle. Use that same grit by hand again, going over the bowl with the grain orientation. Any sanding scratches will be removed.

In between grits, wipe the surface off with a tack cloth and/or compressed air. This will remove any grit that has come loose and keep it from rescratching the surface with the next higher grit.

Eventually you will want to power sand, with a drill mounted sanding pad and the lathe turned on. This is a great way to speed up the process but you can still wind up with the same poor results if you are not careful. In fact, it is easier to make mistakes and alter the form of your turning as you can sand with more gusto, removing more material with each pass. The same exact process applies as when doing the sanding by hand, low lathe speed, very high drill speed. Never let it stay in one spot for even a moment. When done, lock the spindle and go over it again with the powered drill, this time in the reverse direction (reverse the drill rotation). You’ll see your sanding improve immediately. Also, if your lathe is reversible, reverse the lathe rotation direction with each successive grit.

Employ critical observation in your sanding process. Take the piece off of the lathe (chucked up). Put it in a bright light, examine it in a very detailed manner. Move the light around, (incandescents, btw, fluorescents won’t show the problems well), wet the surface with mineral spirits. PUT ON YOUR READING GLASSES. Look for scratches, because I can tell you that in a competition/show the jury will. Wetting the surface with mineral spirits will give you an idea of how it will look with a finish on it, and often will show hidden defects that need more work. It is a very good method for detecting sanding scratches.

Consider raising the grain on your projects. I hate to do it too because it requires even more sanding and time, but it helps with the finishing process. After you get to 320 grit, wipe the surface down with water, then wait for it to dry. Go back to 220 grit and proceed from there.

What to sand with? There are many, many choices, and you’ll have to find one that works for you. I prefer the sanding discs made by Steve Worster. http://www.turningwood.com/

He also sells Abralon discs and Micro Mesh discs. Abralon is fantastic stuff for turners. It offers grits from 360-4000 grit and is wonderful for polishing the surface. Polish with Abralon and then finish with Watco oil – you’ll be amazed at the finish.

Micro Mesh – a cushioned abrasive used for polishing scratches out of windows, is also now available in discs for power sanding. I have only used the micro mesh paper, but with my next order will probably try some of the pads. For now I highly recommend Abralon pads for your powered sanding work at high grit.

Try some of my techniques – if you don’t like the results you can always go back to your old methods. And remember, sanding scratches are the mark of someone not concerned with quality. You won’t get to the top without putting in top level effort. You would be AMAZED at the amount of time the top level turners put into their work.

There is an old adage that says “the finish goes on before the finish goes on”. This refers to surface preparation, sanding included. This series will hopefully shed some light on the techniques I’ve painstakingly tried to learn from some of the masters who were kind enough to help me.

Some woods can be polished to a high luster, almost glossy finish with no finish at all. Hard maple is one such example, bubinga is another. Others get wonderful sheens to them, hand planed pine is a soft wood that lends itself well to such surface finishing – with the right kind of plane.

Most woods can be finished more pleasingly with planes and scrapers than they can be with sandpaper. The reason for this is that sandpaper is an abrasive, whereas a plane is a bladed cutting tool. The sandpaper will actually abrade the grain, leaving a microscopically “fuzzy” surface that is smooth to the touch, but not the microscope. A hand plane shears the grain cleanly, leaving a sharply defined, very flat surface that reflects light. Probably the greatest reason that more woodworkers don’t use handplanes to finish surface their projects is that it is a difficult skill to learn, and a random orbit sander is so easy. One has to learn how to read the wood with handplanes, as all woods react differently to an iron. Some surfaces, like curly maple, are incredibly hard to hand plane, requiring smoothing planes with very high angled blades and cross grain cutting techniques. Other woods, like cherry, plane wonderfully with a simple old Stanley #5. This past weekend I showed my home builder brother just how fantastic a surface can be put on a piece of pine with a low angled plane – he was floored.

The results are well worth the trouble.

Another reason to avoid a hand plane for a finished surface is the choice of finish. Planed surfaces aren’t great for receiving stains and dyes. When I am to apply a dye to a surface I’ll plane it finish ready then go over it with 220 sandpaper prior to being dyed.

Sanding flat surfaces is no big deal, and a skill most woodworkers have mastered. A few hints might help a little here and there though, so here goes;

Use fresh sandpaper! I’ll repeat that it because it is the most important thing we need to know. Use fresh sandpaper! Use sandpaper like someone else is paying for it. Start with a grit lower than your first choice. If you wind up with sanding swirls after using your ROS (random orbit sander), go over the surface again, this time by hand, WITH the grain orientation. You’ll see those swirls disappear.

Wipe the surface off before starting on the next higher grit. The reason for this is that sanding grit comes loose from the backer during sanding, and coarse grit on the surface will scratch the surface as you go over it with the higher grit. Do this every time! Work your way up to the desired grit in this fashion and you will have a scratch, swirl free surface. When you’re done, consider going over the surface with a freshly tuned cabinet scraper, or some Liberon 0000 wool, depending on the look you’re after. You’ll likely be pleased. The steel wool will give it finish similar to that of a satin piano finish. The scraper will get it closer to that of a hand planed finish.

Liberon steel wool is the finest I’ve ever used. Some of the non metallic woven pads are also good for polishing the surface, WEB abrasives makes a synthetic steel wool that is pretty good, neat stuff. I like it because it won’t leave metal in the surface that might react with finishes or moisture over time.

Abranet is a product I’ve been using lately for sanding. It is a metallic screen with grit particles somehow attached to it. Truly marvelous stuff! It has replaced all of my standard ROS discs.

The next entry will deal with sanding round objects and discuss the use of Micro Mesh products. The entry after that will deal with sanding small, complex surfaces. I hope these blog entries turn out to be of some value.