Woodturning: Finishing the bottom of a bowl without a vacuum chuck or cole jaws. Cheap and simple!

No vacuum chuck? No problem! In this video designed with beginning woodturners in mind, I give a complete explanation while I share my simple and cheap low-tech method for finishing the bottom of all of my bowls using just a shop made jam chuck (or jamb chuck) and some craft foam.

This method is an effective way of removing your tenon or screw holes to remove all evidence of the mounting method that you used to hollow the bowl and leave nothing but an elegant foot behind.

In addition, this method of re-turning the bowl to remove the tenon does not take that much longer than using cole jaws. When you take in to account the time needed to switch out the bumpers on the cole jaws (unless you always turn a bowl of exactly the same diameter), this method only takes a little longer, and if you only have one chuck body and actually have to swap out the chuck jaws as well, I think this method is faster.

Beginners, ditch the mortise and switch to using a tenon that you'll remove using this method. You'll have less of a chance of going through the bottom of the bowl because of the additional thickness provided by the tenon and you'll end up with a more elegant final product!