I agree Richard always make it look so easy. I am fortunate to be in a workshop with him for a week in the near future. I intend to ask him for guidance on that exact tool skill.
This will be the second workshop with Richard, the first one was like a blur sooooo much info, but fantastic inspiration and education.  I just got a copy of Richards latest book "all new Turning Projects", great projects book. I have some questions for him when he is here in person. Hope to have him show us the lamp and shade project live.

First video and book I ever looked at was Richard Raffen, and I thought every one turned like that... If you have seen my videos, I use scrapers way more than most people. If I am sweeping across the bottom of a bowl to clean up ripples, I use a shear scrape: scraper up on its edge rather than flat on the tool rest, handle lowered, working below the center line of the tool/lower half, and on the inside I use a ) shaped nose rather than swept back or round nose. You can use a big scraper, and scraping cut, and like you said, you are taking tiny whisper cuts. However, a smaller scraper works fine. If you are getting catches, I would guess it is when you sweep from the center bottom of the bowl  over to the transition. Common catch because you hit the transition area, you end up with both the nose and wing of the scraper getting into the cut at the same time rather than just the nose. If this is the case, remember to pivot/rotate your body as you come into the transition so you keep the same amount of metal in the wood. A negative rake scraper works very well for this cut and it is almost catch proof. It does work better on harder woods, and not as well on softer woods.

robo hippy

If the wood starts singing you are likely creating tear out.

The wood singing is what happens when you work a scraper flat on the tool rest near the rim of a bowl. As some one once said, "my bowl started making this strange screeching and howling noise, and then it blew up". Since there is no mass behind it, working near the rim, more so on bigger bowls, the walls start to vibrate. If you don't pull off or change cutting pressure to almost nothing, it vibrates more and more till you get a big catch.

I have my scrapers at a 70 degree bevel, which as near as I can remember, is how they came, and that was 18 years ago. I have seen less, and more, but have learned with them as they are... I do sharpen on CBN wheels, and the burr from the 80 and 180 grit are fine for heavy roughing, and pretty good for shear scraping. I just got a 600 grit CBN wheel, and the burr from it isn't good for heavy roughing, but excellent for shear scraping. For any clean up on bowls, I prefer a shear scrape to a negative rake scraper. Negative rake scrapers excel on end grain, like box lids and bottoms.

I will have a shear scraping video later this year, and hopefully a sharpening video next week. Some final editing to do....

robo hippy

Robo, have you made a "big ugly" inside the bowl scraper yet?  Thinking about trying it..........just because

Lloyd...
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ok now i get it the 6k holds a toothy edge and also forma a nice bur to work with
knife makers hate the stuff cause it is a bugger to grind nicely