Magnolia bowl available in the store

The magnolia bowl I shared yesterday is now available in my store, along with two other bowls and two nostepinnes.

Magnolia and Mulberry bowls

I buffed the two bowls I turned yesterday... one mulberry (7.5"):





and one magnolia (8.5"). Anybody see the happy face in the magnolia? My lovely wife spotted that first.

Box Elder Bowl, 8"

Here's a second box elder bowl I completed last night. This one is slightly larger, and the red inclusions in this piece look a bit like tiger stripes, or maybe even claw marks.

Box Elder Bowl, 7"

Here's a box elder bowl I finished last night. The rim has two burned lines to add interest to the shape.

Black cherry bowl

This is a black cherry bowl from a blank I got at the local club meeting a few months back. It measures 9 1/2". The pith in the bottom does not penetrate the inside surface, and I left in the crack intentionally.

Red maple and apple bowls

After packing the kitchen for our remodeling I buffed a few bowls, including these red maple and apple ones. The maple is 6" in diameter and the apple is 5".





You can see our kitchen "before pics" here. Ugh...

Box elder round-bottom bowl

This is from a box elder branch, turned end-grain. It's about 5 inches across, and has a round bottom. It's not very practical, but it gives it a nice floating look. It was a fun experiment, and I'll likely do more of these.

Cherry utility bowl

Here's a utility bowl, about 9" across, that I turned to completion from wet cherry. I probably said this before, but I really like to turn to completion in one step because the warping of the bowls makes them look so real and natural. It also makes me think of bowls turned generations ago that are still surviving but keep getting better with age. This one has been in use in my kitchen for a few weeks, and current holds lemons!

Speed test

I just took a dogwood blank that I got at tonight's club meeting and did a bowl, sanded to 400, with a finished bottom in under 40 minutes. Not fast by some people's standards, but a lot faster than I used to be.

Recent work

In between making nostepinnes, I've had a chance to work on a few bowls. Here are some recent completions. First is a boxelder bowl, 7" wide, with a nice ambrosia streak and a natural hole & bark inclusion. It's treated with danish oil, buffed, and waxed.



Second is a madrone burl, 6" diameter, buffed and treated with mineral oil.



Third is a beech enclosed form with a bark inclusion, 5" diameter, with danish oil, buffed, and waxed.

From the chainsaw to the finishing table

Tonight I cut up a cedar log I had in the garage (mostly dried), and took it all the way to a sanded bowl. I feel like I've got a method down that I like for turning bowls, and the key is doing the outside finishing cut as a push cut (bevel in contact) from the base upwards with the tailstock removed, before ever remounting on the chuck to do the inside. The grain really cooperates when I do it this way.

I applied some Watco danish oil to the new cedar bowl and WOW did those colors pop! I won't post a photo yet, but I'll follow up after I get some polyurethane on it.

I also did two coats of wipe-on poly on my beech test piece and it looks good so far. I'll post pictures of the finished product later this week. Maybe then I'll be brave enough to put a finish on that big ambrosia maple bowl.

Hand finishing with Watco

I made my first start at hand finishing, with Watco Danish Oil and a small beech bowl. After drying, I'll wipe on a few coats of satin-finish Watco wipe-on polyurethane to protect the wood and add a bit of shine. I want to use this method on the large ambrosia maple bowl, but I want to try it on a test piece first. This piece isn't perfect, but it actually looks pretty decent when the oil makes the grain features pop. The photo here show a few coats of oil only. I'll follow-up with photos after the poly is applied.

Cherry Bowl

Since I had such great help from Doug with turning the ambrosia maple bowl, I've tried to incorporate the lessons I learned into my current work. This is a cherry bowl from a mostly dried blank that Doug offered to me. I was very careful with the outside shape (and the inside as well) to make sure I had no flat spots, etc. I was also carful to sand any and all tool marks out. (I have a better eye for spotting those now than I used to)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way this came out. It's 8 inches in diameter and about 3.5" tall. This is sanded to a high grit, and I've yet to put a finish on it. I'll probably finish it at the same time as the ambrosia maple one that's waiting for attention. The bottom (though not shown here) is actually one of my best ever, I think. Hopefully I can make more like this one.

Other aspects of life have been very busy lately, so my turning time has gone way down. But, I think I should start getting more done after this week, so stay tuned.

End-grain maple bowl

Here's an end-grain maple bowl I turned last night. End-grain (as opposed to cross-grain) bowls are traditional in Scandinavian countries, while cross-grain bowls are more traditional in England, the US, and Australia.

I was finish-turning a dried bowl when I made one cut that was too aggressive and the whole side blew off. So, feeling like I had to redeem myself I grabbed a piece of green maple and powered through this in about two hours. The wall thickness is pleasantly consistent, and the diameter at the top is about 5 inches. The inside shape is great, and the outside shape I like except for a few nitpicky things. I also enjoy the color variation and the other small grain features. It's sanded to 400, then polished and waxed with Liberon.

The results of mentoring

I turned this ambrosia maple bowl from a rough-turned dried blank that my extremely patient mentor provided. I did it on his lathe, with his help and guidance at every step. (Notice the dramatic improvement in quality over anything else I've ever done, and that's the effect of having an expert give you directions!) It took three turning sessions to finish, about 10 hours total. It measures 12 inches in diameter, 5 inches high and has a 2 inch base. The thickness is a consistent 3/8".

I'll write more about the mentoring experience later. It's way too late for me to be writing about anything, but I'm so excited about this bowl that I just have to post a picture.

Chery burl bowl

This was wet-turned from a piece of cherry burl that I harvested from the side of the road where a neighborhood tree crew had taken it down. It has a nice wavy grain in the bottom, a bark inclusion (shown on the far side of the photo) and some bristly (rotten?) texture on the near side where there is a knot hole. This bowl is about 4" across.

Figured maple bowl

There's the excitement of turning your first bowl, and then there's the excitement of turning your first good bowl. Well, as far as I'm concerned, this is my first good bowl. It's maple with a nice figure, due to its location beneath the intersection with a large branch. I roughed and soaked it a few days ago, but wanted something to take to the local club's show & tell on Thursday so I microwaved it for a while. I got lots of checking, but was able to turn it away.

I waxed the hell out of this, so much that it took 40 minutes to buff out the globs of unnecessary wax that I accidentally applied. 5.5" x 2.75". Hope you like it.



And the inside... note the figure with the windswept appearance: