Cutting a Live Edge Bowl Blank Round On a Bandsaw

Any time you're gonna turn a bowl on the lathe, you should start by getting it cut round. That makes life so much easier, and so much safer. And the problem with live edge stuff, natural edge stuff becomes, when I wanna cut this round, how do I get a compass centered on here and then draw a circle with, I dunno, a pencil or a felt tip? I dunno. You just can't use a compass for this.

So, we still wanna do the cutting round part. And the answer to this is to have on hand a bunch of discs, and you can cut these from plywood like I did, or these are cut from hardboard. You can use cardboard. The way it works is that, with your selection of discs, looking at your blank, you lay the disc on there. That one's a little bit too little, too little.

That's about the right size. About the right size means that when I bird's-eye view this thing, when I look at it from the top, the edges of the circle are within the edges of the blank. This one is maybe a little bit better. Yeah, I like this one better. Now, when you make the circles, notice that on each of these there's a center point.

And what we're gonna do with that is, through that center, we're gonna drive a screw, once I find it. So before I drive the screw, I'm checking my positioning. The way this works then, the line that we're following line, that line that we're following is the edge of this disc. I'm gonna come to the bandsaw. And when we get running here, what I'm gonna do is eyeball this.

And what you really wanna do is kinda get down here where I can see the blade coming in on the edge of this disc. And that's what we wanna follow. I'm using a 3/8 inch four tooth per inch blade for this. It can vary a little bit with the size of blank that you're cutting, but in general terms, that's a pretty good size for what we're about to do here. Aren't brakes a wonderful thing on a bandsaw?

Now. Mostly what this is gonna do is, make me wanna stop everything else I need to do and put this bowl blank on the lathe, because I think this is a pretty cool chunk. Maple with some beautiful spalting. Maybe a little epoxy work will be in order to fill that. But anyway, I digress, because I just get excited about bowl blanks.

These disc sets are a great way to have the ability to cut your live edge stuff round before you get it on the lathe. And like I said, it's something you really need to take this step, you really need to round these out before you put 'em on the lathe to make your life easier and to make sure you're safe when you're bowl turning.