Well, Ive been up and working since about 6 this morning on the commissioned bowl for my friends mom. I wound up making her a "calico"-type bowl of hickory, mahogany, black ash, and red birch. It has a hickory bottom for stability and a hickory layer for the rim to make it strong. Ive also made it in a tumbler style so her paint brushes will stand up right and not fall out.
This bowl was tough to make as tall bowls are. And the biggest problem proved to be keeping it attached to the lathe as it was spinning. I used a jam chuck to over come this (more about jam chucks in a later posting) but at one point I got my fingers jammed between the chuck and the tool rest and the tool-I could have broken my fingers! As it is they are pretty sore at the moment.
Here is a photo of the bowl in its roughed out state:
I still need to smooth the interior of the bowl but the basic shaping is done. Ill be putting on a finish beginning Monday.
I think a calico bowl would make a great yarn bowl. What do you think?
Vickie
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This bowl was tough to make as tall bowls are. And the biggest problem proved to be keeping it attached to the lathe as it was spinning. I used a jam chuck to over come this (more about jam chucks in a later posting) but at one point I got my fingers jammed between the chuck and the tool rest and the tool-I could have broken my fingers! As it is they are pretty sore at the moment.
Here is a photo of the bowl in its roughed out state:
I still need to smooth the interior of the bowl but the basic shaping is done. Ill be putting on a finish beginning Monday.I think a calico bowl would make a great yarn bowl. What do you think?
Vickie
As you can see this bowl has some really wild, irregular grain patterns and this plus all the water and tree sap in it has probably contributed to this crack. I am going to keep the bowl and place it back in drying box for a week and see how it does. Im going to keep working on it despite the crack.
The above two blanks are both 10 inches in diameter and 3 inches thick and will make lovely bowls. The top one is hickory and the bottom one is red elm. Even covered in wax and in a rough state, you can see the beauty of the grain in the wood.
From left to right they are honey locust, sassafras, and beech. These are hard dense woods that will turn well.
Ive reached my limit of photos for this blog posting so Im going to stop and Ill post more photos later today of this bowl.
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.
These last two photos show the bowl about 90% hollowed out:
And this is the finished side view:
I then coated it with a thick layer of wax, dropped it into the drying box and it will stay there for the next several weeks.
This is a sizable, heavy block of wood and so it is going to take some precautions to turn it safely. Im going to use big, long wood screws to hold it to the faceplate and Im also going to place it "between centers" which means Im going to use the live and dead centers of the lathe to mount it:
Now it can be turned without a lot vibration and that means it can be turned safely.
...and here is the blank after about 15 minutes of turning. You can see that there are both sapwood and heartwood in this blank.
The next posting will describe how the bowl is attached to the lathe and hollowed out.
The only bowl I have left to do is the beech bowl. Its still drying out and Ill take another look at it tomorrow.
The grain in this piece of wood was really pretty and it was fun to turn this. Im going to oil it for the next several days then finish it with a beeswax polish.
Its a lovely piece of wood. The top photo shows the remains of a dead branch in the trees trunk. Im going to try and turn past that tomorrow. The bottom photo shows a strip of sapwood that has spalted and it will look really super when its done.
Since it was rather rough on the edges, I decided to round it down and promptly broke it:
Good grief. Since the rest of it was in one piece, I decided to use it temporarily as a holder while I worked on the pvc portion of the chuck. I inserted the pipe into the slot on the birch base and placed another piece of wood on top of the pvc pipe and placed the whole thing between centers to mark and drill it:
The walls of the pipe will have slots cut into them and also a large hole-slot drilled and cut into it to allow the handle of the scoop to protrude while the piece is being turned. So I marked and drilled and cut into the sides of the pipe with a drill and a hack saw:
And here is a photo of the completed chuck with the hose clamp in place:
With that done, I removed the broken base and re-made it out of a piece of solid maple. Here is a photo of the completed chuck:
I glued the pipe and the base together and they are drying in the shop.
Hmmm...now it looks like a small lemon on a stick and the reason it does is that the x, y, z axis of the piece are not equal in length, or in other words, it isnt round yet. So back to the lathe we go for more turning, sanding and finally I cut it off:
...too soon. Its too large to fit into the pipe. So Im going to manually cut down the ends of the blank until it fits. Oh well, its a nice morning to work outside.
When this is placed back on the lathe in a couple of hours, I will shave off the top of the scoop and then hollow it out. If all goes well, I should wind up with a scoop with the handle attached. The glue really needs to dry hard so Ive removed the blank and Ive set it aside. Ill go back to it later this afternoon.
And here is a side shot:
Its been polished and its ready for delivery. Ill have to plug the holes in the base where the screws for the faceplate were drilled but that will only take a minute. Im going to go and email the happy owner.
