Overview:

Stuart Batty grew up in Buxton, England and presently lives in Redondo Beach, California. He began turning at the age of 11 under the expert tutelage of his father Allan Batty, an internationally recognized turner and teacher. At the age of 16 Stuart joined the professional ranks as spindle turner and teacher in his father’s workshop. At age 18 he became the in-house teacher and woodturning demonstrator at Craft Supplies Ltd. in England and a tool tester for Robert Sorby Tools. While working for Craft Supplies Ltd. he helped set up their first sawmill, as well as being their buyer for exotic woods. Stuart then went on to set up six additional sawmills in five African countries, which included Cameroon, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, and Madagascar.

Stuart’s style of woodturning is a development of an orthodox British spindle turning style that he has altered or modified to suit modern tools and steels. He uses very simple tools and grinds them to enable him to create his pieces. He has spent much of his time teaching the traditional skills he learned as an apprentice turner and he has demonstrated his skills at over 55 international symposiums in 12 different countries.

One does not see any carving or surface texturing in or on Stuart’s artwork. It is pure lathe made. He specializes in bowls with corners, deep, thin bowls and tall, very thin goblets, as well as a variety of boxes. His work has been depicted on the covers of many catalogs, in the White House collection and has been sought after by many of the wood art collectors, as well as by many other woodturners who appreciate the skill shown in his work.

Morning Session:

Stuart began by placing an ash bowl blank on a chuck. He had previously turned a tenon on the piece which was about 10 inches in diameter and 6 inches thick. The piece was rough turned. He controls the tool with his right hand on the distal handle. His left hand does very little except to lightly hold the tool to the rest. Before turning, Stuart discussed seven factors in turning in decreasing order of relative importance:

1. Grain – One needs to know where the end and side grains are. In bowl turning one deals with mixed grain due to the rotation of the end and side grains on the piece. Most catches occur when inadvertently cutting end grain – (face a cutting edge up hill in to the end grain).

2. Chucking – must be secure and safe

3. Sharpening – Stuart does not use a jig.

   1. Correct Type of tool

   2. Correct size for the work

   3. Correct shape of cutting edge eg. Curved or straight cutting edge etc.

   4. Correct cutting angle – Stuart uses 40 degrees the majority of his tools

4. Tool Rest – Height, angle and distance from the piece

5. Lathe Speed – The faster one can turn the better, always keeping safety in mind. Stuart sets the speed “to where he is nervous but not suicidal.” Variable speed is a big asset.

6. Stance – Your foot position is important.

7. Techniques – Straight line (2 Dimensional Cut) or curved line (3 Dimensional Cut).

There are 13 possible cuts in Stuart’s style of woodturning.

Stuart rounded the piece using a straight cut. This was in preparation for shaping cuts. With M2 HSS only the first cut gives a finish cut – all following cuts are roughing cuts. He then began shaping the piece. When using the bowl gouge a 5:1 ratio between the distance of the tool behind the tool rest and in front of the rest is needed. If this is not adhered to, tool control will be reduced. If you mistakenly scrape with the gouge, a finish cut is not possible because the cutting edge is rapidly dulled (Scraping dulls the tool approx. 30 times faster than cutting). Stuart uses the push cut, not the pull cut. With the push cut heavy cuts give a good surface whereas with the pull cut light cuts give a better surface. With the gouge the wings produce the bulk of the cut and the tip gives the finish cut thus the gouge does two cuts at the same time.

Stuart then did a finish cut on the piece – high lathe speed, slow tool feed. He put a dovetail tenon on the piece to fit into the long jaws. The piece was then hollowed. First the surface of the opening was leveled. A cone shape was formed into the center of the piece. This was continually enlarged and deepened. If wall thickness is to be thin one needs to hollow in stages in order to maintain wood stability and prevent flexing. If one needs to go thinner the wall can be kept from flexing by pressing the outside of the wall with several layers of paper towel while turning the inside. Stuart then used a heavier, longer handled gouge to do the deeper parts of the interior. To finalize the wall thickness in the deeper parts of the bowl one glides down the already turned area to begin cutting the thicker wall in the deeper areas. This prevents going through the wall and gives a continuation of the wall shape. To do the bottom of the bowl another tool – heavier and longer with a grind nearly approaching a roughing gouge is used. The angle of this tool is between 50-70 degrees; the greater angle being used on narrow, deep bowls or vases. Above 70 degrees the tool will not cut well and a scraper is then used. The piece was then taken off the chuck, to be jam chucked later in the demonstration.

Stuart then placed a previously rough turned, thick walled elm bowl on the lathe using a Stronghold chuck with #3 jaws. This piece was out of round due to drying. A tenon was turned on the interior of the bowl to accept the long jaws on the Vicmarc chuck. Before placing the bowl in those jaws it was shortened. This eliminated the warped edge. The piece was then placed on the long jaws so that the outside could be shaped and the tenon on the bottom refined and trued up without the use if a tailstock. He thus had total access to the outside of the bowl. It was then rounded and shaped. The gouge was sharpened and a finish cut completed on the exterior of the piece except for a small area near the rim which would later be completed from the opposite direction when the piece was reversed. A tenon was turned, the piece reversed and the outside edge finished. This completed the outside of the bowl. The rim was turned into a slight dome shape. The piece was then hollowed. The elm used was quite abrasive making repeated sharpening of the M2 steel necessary (40 degree cutting angle was used for the first 2/3 of the inside of the bowl this is the side walls). When hollowing, the edge was slightly undercut. A longer and heavier gouge with the 55 degree bevel was used to complete the bottom area (Last 1/3 of bowl). Later in the demonstration the bowl will be jam chucked to complete the bottom. This completed the morning session.

Afternoon Session:

Stuart began with a discussion of the steels used in making turning tools. In order of increasing edge life there is M2, M4, 2030, 2060, 10V and 15V. (V=Vanadium.) Vanadium and tungsten are the two primary alloys used in turning tools to assist the steel in keeping its edge sharp for longer. The problem with steels above M4 is that our sharpening wheels tend to chip them. It would be much better to use a wet stone, a zirconium belt, or a hone. These would give a much smoother, longer lasting edge. Even at the 15V level one only gets about 225 seconds of ideal grind retention but this is still 7 times longer than what the life of an M2 tool edge is. 15V is the most wear resistant steel available to woodturners but requires more attention when sharpening than M2.

Next Stuart discussed the illusive topic of negative rake scraping. It is negative because of the two angles ground on the scraper. The scraper was demonstrated on a previously roughed cocobolo bowl. The negative rake scraper looks like a usual scraper where the top has been ground to a second bevel. The included angle can between 40-80 degrees – the sharper the angle the bigger the burr. It must have a burr for it to function properly. A straight negative rake scraper is used on convex surfaces and a curved one on concave surfaces such as bowl interiors. Because there must be a burr it is necessary to touch up the tool on the grinder quite frequently for it to perform well. It appears from Stuart’s discussion that making a negative rake scraper from a usual scraper is quite straightforward. The negative rake scraper functions well on harder woods. On soft woods the wood fibers tend to clog the burr and prevent it from working as well as this technique on denser woods. To produce a good size burr on the negative scraper Stuart uses a coarser wheel 46-60 grit.

The bowl turned in the morning session was jam chucked. The jam chuck was turned using a 4-inch disc mounted between the tailstock and the chuck surface. Turning was done below 1000 rpm. A recess was formed to accept the chuck jaws. It was then mounted in the jaws and shaped to fit into the bowl opening. Once fitted, the base of the bowl was formed. The entire surface of the outside of the bowl was refined. This completed the bowl.

Next Stuart turned an off-center square edged bowl. The pre-band sawn piece was placed between centers. To practice for turning the square edged bowl, put a rectangular waste block between centers and do pummel cuts as done in spindle work. To achieve this one simply floats the gouge during the cut. One cannot ride the bevel because of the broken surface as the piece turns. The faster the lathe speed the easier it is to turn. One can rotate the block 90 degrees and practice again.

The real piece was placed between centers. Most of the block had been cut away to decrease the degree of off-balance. The base of the bowl was turned and the undersurface of the rim leveled. A tenon turned on the base and the piece placed on the Vicmarc chuck. The tailstock was brought up for safety, which also enabled Stuart to use a higher lathe speed. The upper face of the bowl was leveled. Once leveled the negative rake scraper was used to achieve a more finished surface and to aid in shaping the piece. The scraper was used as one would use a cabinet scraper. The piece was reversed in the chuck and the undersurface of the rim was further shaped with the gouge. The negative rake scraper was used to clean up and to achieve the final thickness of the rim. This was about one-eighth of an inch. The bowl portion of the undersurface of the piece was shaped with the gouge. A tenon was turned and the piece reversed. Again the tailstock was brought up for safety. The upper, outer edge of the bowl was turned to blend in with the bottom, outer edge of the bowl. A skew was used to sharply define the angle where the side of the bowl meets the rim (used as a negative rake scraper not a cutting tool). The bowl was then hollowed. The wall thickness was made about the same as that of the rim.

The wings or rim of the bowl were hand sanded and Stuart started at 220 grit with the lathe not running. The lathe was turned on and the rim sanded with sandpaper formed around a foam block. The sharp angles were sanded with folded paper that was cut on the end to allow a sharp corner to be sanded. A jam chuck was then made to reverse the piece and complete the base. This completed the square edged bowl and a great demonstration. For anyone interested in more details about this demonstration please refer to the DVD that will be available in the CMW club library in November 2006.

--Bob Gunther

More about Stuart

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