Carving a Pine End Grain Bowl

George Vondriska

Duration: 7 mins

Description
Discussions

Power carving is such a blast! I love the way you can work with the shape of the blank you’re starting with to create an organic shape in the final result. Arbortech has been in the power carving world for a long time. Their new Turbo Scraper is crazy cool. It’s a 4” diameter multi-wing cutter that uses three carbide cutters to do the work.

Negative rake

The really big deal with the carbide cutters is their negative rake. This helps give you better control over the tool, and provides a better surface finish. You can really see this on the end grain pine bowl I’m carving in this video. Let’s do everything we can to minimize sanding. That starts with getting the best possible finish off the cutter, and the Turbo Scraper excels at that. When the cutters get dull just rotate them to a fresh edge, or replace them.

It’s like a cabinet scraper

If you’ve used a card or cabinet scraper in your shop you’re already familiar with this technology. Scrapers are commonly used on woods that might otherwise tear out such as woods with curly or birdseye grain. The Turbo Scraper works in a similar way and provides the same benefits.

Big stuff and little stuff

The large end grain bowl is a great example of where the Turbo Scraper excels, but it’s also great for smaller scale items like spoon bowls. Bowl calipers give you a great way to monitor wall thickness as you’re making your cuts.

More info

Arbortech has a number of power carving tools. Check out the WWGOA videos on their products. You can also visit the company’s website for more information.

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2 Responses to “Carving a Pine End Grain Bowl”

George Vondriska June 24th, 2024

I'm holding the piece in this device https://amzn.to/4ctUKOp To carve the bottom of the bowl I screw a board to the top and grab onto that board with the vise. The screw holes go away when you hollow the interior. When I flip it over to do the inside I use hot glue to fasten the board to the finished bottom. You can release the hot melt glue when the project is done.
rl2thdr June 14th, 2024

Can you explain how you claamped the piece when cutting both outside and inside? Also, what is that clamping device you are using that sits on the floor? Never seen that. Thanks