BOWL SAVER

[chunkey monkey]

Anyone use one of these and what are the pros and cons ,cheers Ash

[John Plater]

I have a Woodcut which I use on a Woodfast lathe and a McNaughton which I use on a VB36. If you have a lovely piece of wood or an expensive blank you are able to get more out of it by coring. Some people take it to great lengths making sets of nesting bowls. On the down side they can be a bit intimidating to use for some people. They also have a cost. They work best on green timber and timber which as far as can be judged is even in nature rather than soft and hard combined. Last time out with mine I hit embedded ironware which broke the cutter. I have in the past had a catch which bent the cutter, so huge forces were involved in that one ! I like the McNaughton best as it offers me greater flexibility.
ATB John

[seventhdevil]

yes i use the woodcut bowl saver (the two blade version) and yes it was expensive but this has paid for itself 10 times over (probably more to be honest) in the the amount of extra bowls i have sold that would have otherwise been shavings.



this is a video of me coring a wet laurel bowl one handed (obviously i do not recommend you do that) as i needed to hold the camera. shows that it gets alot easier with some experience using the tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Ocfi0OAos

[Martin Lawrence]

  Ash,

  To get your money back you have to make and sell  a few bowls and before purchase is your lathe powerful enough to drive big lumps of wood taking the resistance of the cutter.

Cheers Martin.

[Twisted Trees]

Another woodcut user here, I drive it with the Axminster 1628 (406 in metric!) needs plenty of torque, obviously being pivoted off a point it tends to cut part spherical blanks, but you can tweak that to other shapes with a bit more shavings allowance by cutting the outside of the first bowl to the desired shape then allowing the difference in shape into the wall thickness.

My view is the best fun bowl to cut is the >14" the easiest to sell is the <10" so you can pay for your blank on what would have been shavings, enjoy cutting the bigger bowl and have the big blank for free. I usually go for 3 bowls from an average blank, could get 4 if I let the Woodcut determine the shape.

As Steve said it will pay for itself over a fairly short time, as long as you have the torque to use it.
 

[chunkey monkey]

Thanks for your replies ,my lathe is the new powermatic , so capacity for anything I can throw at it!
 I have 35" mulberry and olive ash ,monkey puzzle , lime , laburnum all big stuff! so it seems sacrilege to waste it!
I am new to woodturning ,just a couple of weeks in  to be honest but have a nice collection of timber ready to go,
Sold a lot of my workshop machinery as I am retiring and setting myself up well for woodturning projects
Loving the last two weeks ,wood flying everywhere !  but evolution Colossus jaws sorted that out!
 My woodturning friends wonder why I need to go so big so soon ,  well that's just me!,
Thanks for all your kind help !!!
   

[Tim Pettigrew]

I use the original smaller capacity BowlSaver (not the Max 3) quite successfully on my first small lathe which was a RecordPower DML 305-VS rated at ½ HP with a 12" swing over the bed.  Excellent piece of kit. I now use it on my Nova lathe. You can see what happened when things didn't quite go according to plan in this You Tube video where it gave me a bit of a surprise!
https://youtu.be/O00orgdqlAc

Tim

[Paul Hannaby]

I used to have a McNaughton and a Woodcut 2 bladed version but ended up selling both and buying the Woodcut Maxi3 instead. My theory was that would cover both the others and really it has.

If you are selling bowls and working with large blanks a bowl coring tool will pay for itself pretty quickly in terms of number of bowls produced/sold.

Most of these tools recommend at least a 1hp motor but you can get away with less on smaller cores and lighter cuts!

Bear in mind that the number of useful cores you can get is often dictated by the depth of the blank rather than the diameter.

[chunkey monkey]

Very interesting ,this is a great forum, gives me a good indication ,,,go for maxi 3 if I can raise some more money ,you can't beat buying good gear first and once!  cheers Ash

[Lazurus]

Another vote for the woodcut Max 3, I use mine on a VB36 and as above it will pay for itself in the additional bowls you can produce - a nice set of nested bowls alway look good. Steve above has some very nice images of the nested bowls he produced. Not an every day tool but well worth it when you need it.

[seventhdevil]

good point, i'd forgotten that i have plenty of pictures of my nests.

the mother bowl of this stunning walnut is about 14"x 6".

i used the bowl saver on the whole tree and instead of only 25-30 blanks i got over 100 so if i hadn't of already had one at that point it would have been wise to buy one just for that project.

[chunkey monkey]

Stunning ,one day I will be able to turn like that!

[TonyLid]

I'm sure this is a stupid question as no-one else has mentioned this, so here goes.

All the videos show the big bowl being cut first, then they reverse chuck the centre, then cut a tenon onto the centre bit, then reverse that back into the chuck & attack the second cut, resulting in 3 bowls.  Lovely.  But why not take out the smaller one first & then straight onto the big one.  If it can be done it would save a lot of work & time.  That's my stupid question.

Many thanks
Tony

[seventhdevil]

it can depend on what system you are using but as i have the woodcut bowl saver it is actually easier to cut the big bowl then re mount the core so that you can create a mounting point for the chuck.

you then do the same for each smaller bowl.

does that explain it?