Les Thorne
17^th September 2026

Some 40 Members enjoyed another chatty & humorous evening with Les Thorne, who had forgone a quiet evening with his Wife on their Wedding Anniversary to give the Club a

Masterclass on Bowl Turning

Hopefully, the large bouquet of flowers presented to Mrs Liz Thorne showed our appreciation and compensated for any disruption we might have caused.

 A show of hands quickly revealed a few 'Les-Virgins' who hadn't seen tonight's Professional before, so Les described himself as a Jobbing Woodturner who only 'production turns' wood for a living by making it round for somebody else.  As he gets old & grumpy, he doesn't do as much teaching as before because he fears he might find himself one sentence away from ruining his career!  Years ago, Les might have turned 50 or more salad bowls as a job, but these days it is not economic for him to mass-produced bowls by hand.

 Les has found that a significant number of novice woodturners were spurred by nostalgic memories of school Woodwork lessons, where the top achievement was to turn a bowl without having to bother with neat-fitting joinery. Unfortunately, it's a fact that Bowl turners have difficulty turning spindles well, whereas Spindle turners find turning bowls familiar.  A proof of this might be that you won't see a Professional Turner ever needing to use a Scraper when turning a spindle so why would they need to for a bowl. People don't seem to realise that Bowl Turning is actually the same as Spindle Turning while deploying a few cheats. But there are no shortcuts in your new hobby. 95% of wood turning is Basic Tooling - that is getting your cutting tool to always work at its optimum while in contact with your piece.  Optimum is found when the handle is neither too low/high, the flute is not too open/close and happens from when you progress from "can't get a good finish" to that instance when you "CAN get a good finish."  Once that is mastered, you will have no need for specialist tools to get your finish.  That said, rotten or abrasive wood might need to deploy some other techniques in that outstanding 5% of wood turning - but why worry about that until after your Basics come naturally. That's why Spindle Turning is best for honing your skills.

A prepared bowl blank will invariably be side grain & across endgrain on what will be the sides of the finished bowl.  "Why is that?" asked Les.
The alternative is endgrain bowl with grain going from top to bottom. "Why aren't endgrain blanks as popular?"
 Carved bowls have been found in Neolithic Stone Age excavations (10,000 - 2000 BCE). Turned bowls didn't appear until the Iron Age (1200 BCE). Bowls were being made for practical use so Ancient Bowl Makers deliberately avoided endgrain orientation because it is fragile, highly absorbent, and prone to cracking at the base when hollowed wide. Effectively, the endgrain acted like straws and gravity ensured they leaked like a sieve until the Japanese solved the problem with multiple layers of lacquer.

 The sides of Standard (side & across endgrain) bowl blanks present a problem because a gouge can easily cut through the side grain (even a bandsaw leaves a smooth finish) but across end grain, both gouge and bandsaw struggle to avoid rough finishes. The aim then is to concentrate on cutting the endgrain sections smoothly knowing that the side grain will look after itself.
 The sides of Endgrain bowl blanks are easily turned & shaped just like a spindle but they are difficult to become evenly dry, so need to be treated as a 2-stage bowl - roughed out first to quite thin sides and then come back to finish after the walls have dried sufficiently.

  Les had a 10" diameter by 5" air-dried Ash standard bowl blank that he had examined for which surface would be best as the base to cater for any obvious splits or blemishes that could be turned away. He had prepared a central drill hole for his Screw Chuck in the planned top.  Because this was a relatively large blank, he chose to use a Tailstock Live Centre with a 'ring' - as point centres tend to wedge themselves into the grain. The Tailstock would be removed later when dealing with a mounting point.
 First, the blank needed to be turned to round in relation to its current mounting. The best first cut is made when you are standing in the safest place. As Les pointed out, he personally turns up to 7' diameter or up to 10' length pieces that will seriously hurt if something unexpected happens, so he makes no apology that he is constantly risk assessing before his chosen tool starts cutting wood regardless of size. Basically, stand where the piece is unlikely to hit you if it comes off the Headstock. He started with a push-cut standing about 45º to the exposed face from where he reckoned by standing behind the toolrest with his gouge pressing on the piece, he was unlikely to end up in the firing line.
 With toolrest height & angle set correct, bevel in the direction of the cut and in constant contact, he eased his way through the wood at a feed speed his gouge could effortlessly remove without fighting to keep the cut from deviating from a smooth trajectory.  Push the tool faster than it needs will result in it breaking out.  Take too deep a cut, the flute in the gouge can't clear the shavings adequately and will choke progress.
 He likened us to Dry Fly Fishermen, who after a bit of gentle casting, relax & enjoy the 'journey' whereas he was a Deep Sea Trawlerman trying to extract the maximum for his time at work. This isn't his hobby. Consequently, he would be pushing his gouge so that it would break the wood off in front of the cut inevitably resulting in poor finishes in places and exhausting himself in the process. But it was not an issue to Les because he was a long way to reaching his final shaping, at which time he would change his approach to that of a Dry Fly Fisherman!

 The Flute of a gouge is designed to direct shavings away from the cutting edge as effectively as possible; that's why they should be kept clean & shiny.  If you were to present a gouge to timber turning on a lathe as normal, but then gradually turn the flute up (ie towards pointing straight up at 12 o'clock) the increase of shavings flying upwards would make you think this was a more efficient way to remove wood, but then it will bite when you arrive straight up because the cutting edge that had been just one side of the tip, will suddenly find itself precisely at the tip and will drag it into the timber instead of cutting. The lesson here is that the closer you get to the best cut, the closer you become to things going wrong. It's down to the individual to work out your optimum safe place.
NB  :  Bowl Gouges have deeper flutes than Spindles so it is easy to leave their wings very high. Don't. You won't be able to make an efficient Pull Cut unless you have low swept-back wings.

 Les then discussed managing Margins for Error. He demonstrated a passing cut with a Roughing Gouge, which despite him going quiet and concentrating, proved that they are a weak tool that tend to leave a poorer finish than a Bowl Gouge. Clearly there was no reason in this case to use a Roughing Gouge - but if the piece had been one of those 5% of awkward blanks that your Bowl Gouge couldn't produce a smooth finish, then one might consider taking a risk to seek a reward.
 Sometimes a difficult/dodgy technique might provide the solution; for example, a Skew Chisel will often produce a better finish, but it cuts with a greater chance of going wrong, so is it worth the risk?  Les suggested there would be no point for us to pick up a Skew 95% of the time because the Bowl Gouge will do it for us. For those inconvenient 5% cases, we might be tempted to consider it as a work-around, but consider that Les is proficient using a Skew Chisel despite rarely having to resort to one and he is aware of the risks of Skew Chisels, and that it's probably an unnecessary risk for Club Members who should be giving themselves safe margins for error until confident with their experience.

 We are trying to unravel the timber properly by cutting it how it wants to be cut. Les spoke of a Japanese Woodworker invited to Shows some 30 years ago, who would use a block plane to produce lengths of shavings several metres long, thus demonstrating cutting properly is possible.
 Tool Suppliers regularly describe their Gouges shaped to specific bevel angles whereas Les determines his gouges as Long, Medium or Short grinds describing the relative lengths of their bevels. He favours a Long Bevel with low swept-back wings because (being a Spindle Turner) he likes its slicing action through the wood fibres - this grind is established with a 40º to 45º bevel angle. He judges Medium length bevels obtained from 50º to 55º bevel angles produce a blunt cutting edge that might well be stronger, longer lasting sharpness & easier to use but at the expense of sacrificing the rest of the tool helping the smooth cutting action that would be available with a longer bevel.  The only cause to use a Short Bevel (about 70º) is for long overhangs of tool rests, which are good for bottom of hollows.
 Long Bevel contact with the cut surface has a burnishing effect when done correctly. It took Les years of experience to learn what amount of bevel contact, weight & feed speed was needed to get that smooth finish. If you get too much of any of these, there is a likelihood of 'Bevel Knock' which is annoying vibration, skipping or chattering across the surface indicating that the bevel has lost smooth contact. If it has caused spiral ridges on the surface, you will need to make a fresh cut from just before where the bouncing starts while making sure your thumb is holding the tool firmly down onto the toolrest and your handle hand is being supported against your body. The thumb on the toolrest will counter any excess pushing the bevel onto the surface; locking the handle to your side converts the tool to an extension of your body movement, which will have much finer control over bevel contact and feed speed.

 A gouge will leave a smooth finish when the cutting edge is moving into a grain supported contact.
To highlight this, Les demonstrated cutting in the wrong direction (against the grain) and pointed out that he could feel through his hands and by the coarser sound of the cut that the tool wasn't working smoothly.  A lot of the cut was acceptable but there were obvious pull-outs where the cut had passed into endgrain.
 For Spindle Turning, the cut will be supported by cutting down into the wood - think of when creating a bead, the tool starts cutting at the highest point, then down either side to its lowest; with a cove, again the tool starts cutting at the highest point, then down either side to its lowest.
Less intuitively :-
 For Bowl Turning a Standard blank : the direction to move the tool to cut into a grain supported surface for the outside of the bowl is from the Centre towards the Rim; and for the inside of the bowl is from the Rim down to the Centre.
 It is totally opposite for an Endgrain blank : the direction of cut into a grain supported surface for the outside is from Rim down to base Centre; and for the inside is from Centre towards the Rim.
 The Diagrams to the right show that as you work in the direction of each arrow, there will always be some grain extending below & beyond your cut.

 The two types of cuts are
the Push Cut : when the gouge's tip is pointing in the direction of the cut, which has the advantage of arms & body helping to control the bevel against the piece while applying an element of burnishing; Spindle Turning is all about Push Cuts.
the Pull Cut : when the gouge's tip is following the direction of the cut, though this time your body can't help as much to control the smaller amount of bevel in contact and its consequent less burnishing effect - but with the toolrest set close to the cut, it will help to compensate that reduced control; It is also a quicker method to remove timber; Bowl Turning is a lot about Pull Cuts.

 Les demonstrated a Pull Cut by holding the Gouge horizontal; rotating the tool in his hand until the flute pointed towards 10 o'clock; positioning the bevel against the piece with the tip just clear of the surface; moving his handle-hand down to below his hip, he started making a cut by moving the tip towards the timber. He moved the tool slowly & steadily towards himself allowing the gouge to do the cutting through the wood supported by the bevel while producing strong shavings flying up from inside the flute - all because the wood was unravelling properly.
 He commented that a Pull Cut with a ½" Bowl Gouge would perform better with a more powerfully driven lathe but a Hobbyist's Lathe of up to 1 horse power would be ideal with a ⅜" Bowl Gouge although it is important the toolrest is kept close to the work. Don't attempt a Pull Cut with the tool overhanging the toolrest excessively when you could move the rest to a new position that would be a closer support for the cutting edge. A curved toolrest can be a great help, particularly for deep inside Pull Cuts.
 He demonstrated with the aid of wet felt-tip ink drawn on the bevel that while it was in contact with the surface of the piece above centre, he could maintain smooth control of the tool.
 Les then finished his outside shaping, restating the Basic Tooling Optimum performance depended upon the coordination of Tool Positioning, Lathe Speed & Tool Feed Speed. We would recognize this when it felt like the tool was doing it on its own.  His tip to find this 'sweet spot' was to practice at a very slow lathe speed with the tool held as described above so the gouge is effortlessly creating a shaving while you slowly follow the cut.

 Finishing is where the Hobby Turner believes that Special Tool he saw the Professional use at a show will allow him access to the last 5% of Basic Tooling. That's not guaranteed. The Pro would have made sure that he chose a perfect piece of wood for an amazing demonstration of his Special - after all, he would lose his audience if it didn't impress.  Les admitted he was the same. He would want to buy a putter that he saw featured at a Golf Event and which worked every time for that Ryder Cup team winner - but in the cold light of reality, it's unlikely his handicap would be troubled much.  The winning strategy is not that Special Tool at all, but rather the technique you use with your own tools. Save your money and practice more!
 It was now time to remove the tailstock and create a mounting point for Chuck Jaws before Les finished off the outside like a Dry Fly Fisherman until he was satisfied with the shape.
 For final surface refinements, a Shear Cut with a Bowl Gouge can be useful but there are a couple of warnings when not to. This cut involves holding the gouge with the flute facing the bowl's outside surface so it's almost closed and entirely without any bevel support; toolrest further away than with Pull Cutting and regularly re-positioned around the outside so gouge can be kept perpendicular with an overhang to cut above centre; handle-hand down low allowing only the lower gouge wing to caress the timber.  With an increased lathe speed, bring the tip towards the surface to start producing ultra fine shavings.
Do NOT try to Shear Cut on :-
    an inside surface - use a Round-Nose Scraper instead.
    on curly wood types - eg rippled, knotted, Rosewood, some Oaks etc.
This technique could achieve a 320 grit finish straight off the tool.

 Tenon or Recess? Les declared that this decision had nothing to do about strength; both have plausible arguments for and against. A more important consideration is versatility.
 A Tenon/Spigot has options to incorporate it into the foot or remove it. Several millimetres from the bottom of the piece would be lost - although if it's such exquisite wood, you could just glue some scrap timber to the bottom for shaping a Spigot without losing those millimetres.
 A Recess is just a hole in the bottom, and that would be perfect for a pedestal bowl or for a large platter - be mindful that the shallower the vessel, the less you would need to make the depth of your recess while still maintaining enough grip.
 Les decided upon turning a straight-sided spigot to fit his jaws with a flat clean-cut ring around it that will let the top of the jaws have a firm grip of the bowl during subsequent side forces of hollowing tools.
 Having got the bowl's outside surface to a shiny tool finish, he wanted to demonstrate a Continuous Bead Cut.  This Ash will be perfect, which is why he chose it, but it is a wood dependent thing. Not all woods respond to this cut and faced with a blank he wasn't certain about, he would have turned a practice 4 or 5 beads before he had got to here. The main problem to overcome is that there is endgrain in these beads, which are susceptible to torn out grain - sanding can hide lumps but not holes, so is not a solution.

 Using his Signature Tool (this one isn't for awkward woods so is worth buying!), his first pass was for marking out, his second would be a turning pass.  With toolrest set high, Les stopped talking and his tongue was between his lips so he must have been concentrating hard. 70 seconds later he had completed 27 beads from spigot to rim in one continuous movement of sweeping elbows and darting changes of tip direction. Afterwards, there was applause.

(click for close up view)

 The technique involves a proper cut on one side and a cheeky cut on the other. The cheeky bit is taking advantage of when cutting a bead on side grain, the upward cut of the bead is in fact cutting into a grain supported surface.  Les is cutting down into the groove while lifting his handle-hand so when the gouge reaches the bottom of that bead, it scrapes a V-shape where the next bead will start. So when he opens the flute for the upward cut, the bevel is there to support a smooth finish, It is effectively a Pull Cut into a Push Cut which leads to a perfect surface without sanding. 
 Start off practising with large beads one at a time. It does need you to be bold with your movements but your main focus must be prevent the tip dropping into the wood, which is best done by starting to move your handle-hand down just before the cut gets to its lowest point as you change from the Pull to the Push.
You might be tempted to try specialised Beading Gouges & Cutters but they are designed specifically for spindle work. They rely upon scraping so will inevitably create pull-outs on side & endgrain.

It was now time to mount the piece on its spigot.  Les found the top surface was dusty & weathered so rather than using a freshly sharpened gouge, he used a well-worn one (or even a carbide) instead of blunting something perfectly sharp.  The plan was to have a fancy rim without colouring or texturing and demonstrate an undercut with a Gouge without needing a Scraper.
 He used a Spindle Gouge (despite it being a bowl) because he could work very close to the toolrest.  He shaped the rim with a curve ending far enough from the outside edge to give room for wall thickness plus an undercut and highlighted the width of the rim with a couple of beads, which would enhance the piece.

 Hollowing a bowl is much the same as turning a cove except there are a lot more sideway forces (particularly at the rim) acting on the Headstock, hence that flat clean-cut ring for the jaws to latch on & resist any rocking.  So the timber is not for moving but when you present a gouge at a normal cutting angle, you will have a devil of a job to prevent the spinning blank grabbing the cutting edge and hurling your gouge outwards leaving a spiral groove across the rim. To control that tendency, you have to stop the cutting edge from skipping outwards by firmly gripping (eg overhand with the shaft held steady by your palm) as the edge goes in and makes a groove for the bevel rub to control the direction of cut. Other ways to help are to use a parting tool to start off the initial groove. However, for a Natural Edge bowl with its variable height rim, you will need to master a clean cut in from fresh air to the side wall every time in order to keep the edges crisp.
Les quickly hollowed out towards the rim & about 1" below in a series of steps and body movement leaving a pyramid in the centre to add stability to the base. He commented on the constant sound made when the bevel was being kept in contact. He demonstrated what happens when it started to lose contact - the sound went higher in pitch and shrill-like until he lowered the handle or brought it back towards his body or a combination of the two.
 There was now room for an Undercut, which Les feels can create a shadow and a little air of mystery. The technique relies upon if a gouge tip is pushed straight in, it will continue in a straight line parallel to where the bevel is pointing.  So going under the rim is simple but we have to quickly turn to curve parallel to the outside edge within about 1" of travel by opening the flute and curving up, over and back down towards the bowl centre. This will require an intuitive movement of the handle-hand going away from your body to start then goes down and twist to open the flute to arc the cutting edge round the corner while maintaining bevel contact.  It's like driving a car properly - you stop watching what you're doing in favour of where you're going. This method is far superior than a Scraper but it needs practice. With the increased overhang, there is a likelihood of some vibration which could be alleviated by using a ½" Bowl Gouge rather than the ⅜" - not for taking a larger cut but just to ride through that vibration. When cutting the bottom of the bowl, a Short Grind tool on a long overhang can pick up the bevel contact with ease (so long as the wood is stable and not spalted) but it cannot remove timber very quickly.

 You have probably been told never to leave a lump in the bottom of your bowl; well Les is doing so on purpose and to ensure nobody thought it a sloppy mistake, he made it big. If the bowl blank had been orientated with its base close to the centre of the tree and the rim nearer the tree bark as Bowl A in the diagram below, astonishingly the grain of the button would run as curved lines at right angles to the rest of the bottom.  Clearly, tonight's bowl was orientated like Bowl B.

(click for close up view)

The important point to take away from tonight's demo is that Les does about 10,000 hours every 5 years of production turning so, inevitably, this technique comes to him without thinking much. But no one wants to just tediously practice, practice, practice. What Les would like us to do is get a little better every time. Try what he has covered tonight and if it hasn't worked, then of course resort to Shear Cutting or going round with a Scraper or abrasives to get it to a finish you are happy with. That's not a failure because every time you have attempted, you are adding to your experience. Take opportunities of trying that smooth Push Cut with the bevel in perfect contact while, for example, getting a blank into shape. You will find it more & more satisfying as experience is gained.

Some 40 Members enjoyed a chatty & humorous evening with Les Thorne, (who had come from a day's work turning green Oak).
Les envied a hobby woodturner's lot who could turn what and when they liked.
He was a Jobbing Woodturner, which meant he had to turn what others wanted for when they wanted them.
Consequently, he listed his hobbies as golf & fishing and never woodturning.

His woodturning meant constantly looking at how long a job would take. For example, if his first gouge work was to turn the piece from square to a cylinder, he would reduce time wasted in moving his tool rest from its starting position by cutting several squares at a time into octagons with his bandsaw; when there are 100 units to turn, that apparent extra job saves about an hour overall.

Since his last visit, he has moved away from colour and texturing demonstrations as he had noticed that very few recreational woodturners chose such finishes in preference to just working with the wood.
Tonight, Les was making a box with a reversible finial while spotlighting basic gouge work and planning considerations along the way.
Starting with a 3½" octagon of Oak for the body and 2 pieces of Sycamore (which Les considers as Hampshire Weed) for the base and for the double ended finial.

The Oak octagon was mounted between centres and turned to a cylinder.
From a professional's point of view to be productive, one has to be as quick and effective as possible and there is no reason why the hobbyist shouldn't be the same.
Les talked about presenting the Roughing Gouge at its 'sweet point' and maintaining the angle with body movement.  Faster body movement achieved quicker removal but concluding with slower movements achieved a smoother finish.
A common fault with hobbyists was allowing the bevel angle to get larger than the ideal 40°- 45° when sharpening. A longer bevel may have a weaker edge but it remains sharper for longer if always presented at its 'sweet point'.
Les used the centre quadrant of his Roughing Gouge's cutting edge for the quick removal and kept the outer quadrants sharp for his smoother finishes.

With a cylinder turned, he needed a spigot to fit his chuck. Les prefers to create this at the head stock end of the piece where the best support is found.

The initial hollowing could be done with a gouge or a drill. If the latter, he suggested to enlarge the centre point of the piece with the tip of your tool sufficiently to avoid the drill bit 'skating' over the end surface and ending up off-centre.
Les started with a Spindle Gouge with a reasonably fast lathe speed to better throw out the shavings.
He finished off the hollowing showing the pros & cons of various hollowing tools.

(click for close up view)
Surprisingly, the smallest diameter scraper seemed to be the quickest at removing the inside.

Les is a great advocate for not letting a spigot dictate the size of the base. In tonight's case, the hollowed body was shaped like a trophy cup finishing off narrow at the bottom allowing only a small diameter spigot. An appropriate design to connect to the base was small at the top, wide enough at the bottom to avoid topple while remaining squat overall. He demonstrated how his Detail Tool could get into tight spaces and how it could produce a smooth finish with just its pointed corner.
Rather than parting off completely, Les chose to part down to leave a central stub of a couple of millimetres diameter which could then be easily & accurately removed with abrasives.

Finials need to be in balance with the overall piece; what Les described as, "seen but not heard."  They shouldn't dominate nor should they appear measly. The ideal woods to select for fine detailing tend to be fruit woods; Cherry, Holly etc.
Tonight's finial was going to be double ended so thought had to be given as to how to mount the wood to turn the second finial after completing the first.
With the last piece of Sycamore between centres, Les turned a spigot to fit his chuck and demonstrated various techniques to produce a tall, thin finial coming from a base turned accurately to the top lip of the finished body.
Having cunningly planned the diameter of the body's lid to be oversized compared to the chuck's true circle diameter, there was now plenty of room for the tall thin finial to disappear down the centre of the chuck while allowing the jaws to grip the first finial's base securely before turning the second finial.
There is little point in turning an identical finial to the first so Les decided upon a door knob type.

(click for close up view)

It is worth noting that all surfaces in the above photos are remarkably, just tool finished.
Les didn't want to bother with abrasives in order to complete the demonstration within time.