Small maple bowl

[Steve Jones]

Hi

I've been turning this maple bowl on and off for the last few days and have to say it's the worst blank I've turned so far for having ' bad ' grain !
It's approximately 6"x3" in size and finished with chestnut sealer, lacquer and friction polish.

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether this grain problem is the norm with maple or was I just unlucky ?

Steve

 

[PowerTool]

Looks nice,Steve
My experience of maple has always been a clean,easy-cutting timber - when roughing down spindles,comes off in nice little chips;used it for egg-cups,and it's the sort of timber you can get a very good finish straight off a sharp chisel.
There are,however,lots of different varieties of maple - any idea what sort yours was ? (I've normally had American Hard Maple)

Andrew

 

[Steve Jones]

not a clue on species Andrew, it was a blank picked up from the local store a few weeks ago just marked maple.
Chisels were definitely sharp they'd just been on the tormek so don't really know what to say other than it nearly ended up in the bin quite a few times !

Steve

 

[robo hippy]

It looks like sugar/hard maple to me, which is fairly hard. Not sure what problem you were having with the wood as it looks fine now. Some pieces of wood just want to rip and tear no matter what you do, no matter how sharp your tools are. This seems to hold true for all species. If tear out was a problem, you can wet the surface with oil, finish, water, or just about any fluid, let it soak in a minute or so, then take very light cuts to turn off the wet stuff. The cut you take is so light, it takes a couple of passes to turn it off.
robo hippy

 

[Steve Jones]

Thanks for the tips Robo, the problem was major grain tear out, the way I over came this was to seal the bowl with cellulose sealer wait for it to dry then lots of sanding.

Steve