Bowl-Turning Accessories

These top-notch bowl-turning accessories will make your time at the lathe more enjoyable.

- By Logan Wittmer

In my free time, I'm either out running my sawmill or standing waist-deep in lathe shavings. To me, there's nothing better than roughing out a wet bowl and having ribbons of shavings flying over your shoulder or making that perfect finish cut on the inside of a bowl. And while in the purest form, the only tools necessary are a sharp gouge and a lathe, I've found a few well-thoughtout accessories and tools make your time at the lathe just a little bit sweeter. So, here are a few of my must-have bowl-turning accessories, in no particular order.

SPIKE PLATE

My time at the lathe is valuable. I generally try to make the most of it. This involves roughing out a boat-load of blanks at once if I can. I've found one of the most efficient ways to do this is to take bowl blanks to the band saw and cut them round. After that, I'll head to the lathe to start roughing. In the past, this meant taking the time and screwing on a face plate, or using a screw chuck to mount them. However, with the Spike Plate from Ames Grigg, this step has become much easier.

As you can see to the right, the Spike Plate is essentially a faceplate, but instead of screw holes, it has sharpened steel spikes. The center post registers on the blank, and I actually swapped my bandsaw circle jig post to match the spike plate post, so the hole does double-duty. Mounting a blank is as simple as slipping it over the center post and tightening the tailstock allowing the spikes to bite in. When batching out a large number of bowl blanks in one sitting, the Spike Plate is an invaluable asset to have.

AMES GRIGG

AmesGrigg.com