Serious Lathe Company 3" roughing gouge

The 3" roughing gouge and 3/8" bowl gouge from Serious Lathe are my favorite tools and I do at least 75% of my work with them.  I welded a 1/8" piece of steel rod to act as a chip deflector because I normally hold the handle close behind the gouge with my right hand and the left hand holds the gouge body either overhand or under hand.  The steel rod protects my right hand from abrasion by wood shavings which can get painful after several hours of turning.  The 3" is also great for finish work and leaves a finish almost as good as a skew but has the advantage of being able to roll the gouge and getting a 5" wide straight cut.  Takes getting use to but a great tool. 

This is the blank for a 7" by 12" mahogany finial.  The balk is 7" by 8" by 12".  Rather waste time trimming it to 7" by 7" I drilled the 2" mounting hole in the center and will turn off the excess.

Here I have trued the blank, cut the base slightly concave, the two depth groves and the decorative V.  So far I have only used the bedam and the 3" roughing gouge.

Here I have turned the waist with the 3/8" bowl gouge and the bottom half of the rounded top with the 3" roughing gouge.

The top of finial has been rounded with the 3/8" bowl gouge because it cuts faster and cleaner than the roughing gouge. 

I have finished turned the top half with the 3" roughing gouge and sanded with 100 grit.  Notice the fault that that appeared.

The two voids have been filled with WoodEpox by Abatron.  This is a two part epoxy putty that was designed to replace rotten and missing wood.   Many use Bondo but it has been my experience that Bondo will not hold as well as WoodEpox.  WoodEpox turns, sands and accepts paint just like wood.  It can also be colored with liquid or powdered colors.  It can be purchased at www.abatron.com .  After it has cured for about 4 hours it can be sanded.  The spigot at the live center is sanded off with the angle grinder using 24 grit.

The finished finial.

Using the angle grinder the shoulder around the mounting recess is removed and the bottom has a 1/8" concave shape.  The primary reason is reduce the wicking of water into the center of the finial and reduce rot.  Finials usually start to rot in the center which retains moisture longer than the outer part.  The secondary reason is that the finial sits better on it's base regardless of normal wood movement.  Time to turn one was 15 minutes. 

Twenty one of a batch of 50.

The shavings from the job filled my 4' by 8' trailer.  More mulch for the flowers.