Black Ash bowl

Hi Everyone,
Well, I began work on a black ash and Brazilian cherry bowl today. Its apart of the same order for the walnut bowl and what a difference this is. This was one lovely piece of wood and its turning out really nicely:

This is sooo much easier to deal with than walnut. Ash is a lovely wood and white ash in particular can really be a joy to work with. Im surprised it isnt used more in furniture and kitchenware as it has great workability and finishing qualities to it. This bowl needs to be flipped over now and hollowed out and Ill be getting to that as the week goes by.
I have another bowl like this to make and then Im going to be working on two large and deep salad bowls: one in white ash with a cherry rim and the other will be solid cherry. And as always, Ill have pictures of the process for both.
VW

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Black ash plate continued

Good Morning All,
Well, I took the plate downstairs this morning and cut it a little deeper than it was in my last posting and I think it looks and feels much better. Here it is after its been cut down and sanded:

Now for the finish: I make a lot of kitchenware for food preparation and those items always get a food safe varnish or mineral oil and beeswax but for other items, like this plate which is not going to be used for food preparation, I like to use Danish oil. This oil really brings out the grain patterns in wood so a dull looking piece of lumber can often times be spectacular when its oiled and Ive gone ahead and applied a preliminary coat of oil to the top of the plate:

This will take approximately 7-10 hours to dry and then Ill flip it over and oil the backside and then let the whole plate dry for 48 hours. This allows the oil to dry completely and harden. Then Ill place it back on the lathe and polish it and give it a very light coat of beeswax and buff it.
Ill post more pictures when its done. This is basically how dishes are made on a lathe. There are other techniques for producing plates and when I come back Ill talk about an English pole turner who produces plates, bowls, and other turned items the way they were produced in the Middle Ages.
Thanks for stopping by,
Vickie

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Black ash and Brazilian cherry bowl finished and the next set of bowls

Hi Everyone,
Well, I guess summer is going out with a bang here in the northern mid west and weve got fall colors all over the place. I love autumn--its my favorite time of the year.
Ok, back to business. I took the black ash bowl from last time down to the workshop and began hollowing it out. Here you can see the Brazilian cherry layer begin cut down:

And here you can see how Ive cut through the red colored wood and down into the black ash layer:

This bowl turned out remarkably well. I completely hollowed it out and I left the walls a little thicker than usual. I think the bowl works well with thicker bowls both from an esthetic point of view and for practical reasons too. I think a heavier bowl with a broad foot is more stable to work with if the bowl will be used for cooking or displaying food. And after all thats what were here for--kitchenware.

Here is the bowl hollowed out and sanded smooth:

This only took about an hour to smooth and you can see how polished it looks. That piece of ash wood was amazing and it produced several bowls and plates and all of them came out beautifully.

Here are a couple more pictures:

And finally here it is with its first layer of finish:

This is going to be a really nice piece of work. Ill post more photos when its done. 

Now back to the walnut bowl....

I have several large bowls from solid blocks of wood coming up that have to be turned and are going to require more work than the more shallow bowls and platters Ive been working on of late. On Saturday Im going to begin working on a salad bowl from a solid block of cherry and next week, Ill start another bowl out of white ash and mahogany. Since the cherry bowl is a secret Christmas present for a dear friend, Im not going to post those photos until Christmas day. But the ash bowl photos I will be posting  and commenting on so stay tuned and be sure and join me for more adventures in the wood shop.

As always thanks for dropping by and have a good rest of the day.

Best

VW

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Black ash bowl with Brazilian Cherry rim

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