Separating a Bowl Paper Glue Joint

when you're turning a bowl on a lathe, a paper joint is a great way to fasten a dummy board to the bowl blank and allow us to separate them later. If you wanna know more about doing this, look for a video. We specifically cover putting these two components together. Now, here's where we're at. The bowl turning is complete. We're ready to separate on the paper joint here and see how this works. But first, before we separate, I wanna talk about this area right here. Notice that, when I turn the bowl, I actually kind of incorporated the dummy board. I cut into the edge of that plywood. And prior to that, there was paper and glue square and all sorts of junk there. And the reason I did that, the reason we make this cut so distinct, is so that we have a distinct starting point for the chisel that we're about to use. So if this inside corner is still a mess, this step is gonna be nearly impossible. So on the turning step, cut into this, clean up that glue joint, get it real crisp. Like this, that makes this easier and doable. You just can't do it otherwise. Put all the finish on the bowl. It's sanded, it's finished. It's ready to go. Now right about there is the brown paper, the craft paper that I use to create the paper joint. And sometimes you can feel it with the tip of the chisel, 'cause it's a little softer than the plywood or the bowl. But do your best to get the tip of the chisel right on it. Notice that with a chisel, the bevel is facing the dummy board. Back of the chisel is facing the bowl. We're not gonna be able to do this all from one location. We're gonna start with a couple of taps. Take the chisel out. Turn what I always say in my classes is See it's just starting to separate a little bit. Don't pry with the chisel. It's a little tempting to wanna use it like a crowbar. You don't wanna do that. You'll break the chisel or break the bottom of the bowl. Just let this do its thing naturally. Now we're getting a little more split. And you know it's not unusual when I'm teaching this technique for people to get a little nervous. This is a natural cause of separation anxiety. I'm very funny. Now, if there were an extra pair of hands in the room, I would have somebody stand here and play catcher because we don't want the bowl to just come careening off of here, but I'll see if I can make this happen. Another alternative is put a carpet pad or something on the Lathe. So if it does fall off, it doesn't get damaged there. I think we're close. And again, I'm not prying. I'm just pushing. There we go. Here's what we have on the bottom of the bowl. Now we can still see the hole. That was the center mark. That's back from when we assembled the dummy board, the paper and the bull blank. Next step, a random orbit sander. I'll take that paper residue right off of there. And we're gonna end up with something that looks like this. Sand the bottom cleaned. If you're proud of your work, sign your work. I always put my initials, the type of wood, and the date I did the turning. Once you've got that on there, finish over the bottom and you're all done. And there's no visible sign here of how we held that bowl on the Lathe. So a paper joint is really a great way. A great approach to make this happen. Works really well.