Hi Everyone,
Well, I decided to begin working on a bowl that I am planing on donating to a charity called the Blue House. This charity supports an orphanage in Uganda that takes in girls and young women who have been orphaned because of AIDS. Every year the ladies at my church have an annual craft fair to raise funds to support these young women. And yours truly donates cutting boards and other stuff for sale every year.
This year, amongst other things, I plan on donating a full-sized salad bowl to the sale and this blog posting will be the first in a series about how the bowl was made. I hope this will give people a window on how a large bowl is made and get them interested in the sale.
So, I have gotten a large 12"x3" white ash bowl blank and this is what I will be using for the bowl. The wood is unseasoned, meaning that it has a considerable amount of water in it and so we will be making a green wood turning and this adds several steps to our turning process, and certainly nothing that Selkie Wood Works cant handle! Heres what were going to do: Im going to mount the block on the lathe and completely turn the outside of it and partially turn the inside of it and leave the bowl about 1" thick. This is much thicker than a standard bowl and the reason Im doing this is this will help the bowl retain its round shape while its drying out. When we come back to the bowl in several weeks time, it should have dried out enough to allow me to finish turning and shaping it, and with any luck, it will be ready for the Blue House sale, which always takes place the first weekend in December.
So were off for another adventure in the wood shop. So make some coffee and stop by for photos and a complete process discussion on the Blue House bowl.
Best
VW
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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 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 beech bowl from earlier in the week had dried out quite a bit and twisted itself out of shape--its no longer round. It has a large dead knot in the center of the bowl and this is twisting the bowl out of shape as it dries. So it took it in hand and placed it on the lathe and turned the daylights out of it on both its outside and inside surfaces. Its thinner than it was and deeper but it is round again. Here is a current photo:
The dead knot turned some but I cant turn it away completely. This fellow still needs to dry some and well come back to it.
It also need more drying but I think this guy is going to do very well and I can hardly wait to get the finish on it. I bet that grain will pop.
I dont think this guy is going to make it.
You can see the foot, the tenon, and the heat and sap wood areas of the blank.
At this point the bowl is ready to flip over and hollow out. Moment of truth-once the bowl is flipped over and I begin hollowing it out, the bowl cant be flipped back if there is a problem. Here we go...
In the above photo, Ive flipped it over and placed it between centers again. Until the bowl is substantially hollowed out, Ill turn it between centers. When its been hollowed, and its lighter in weight, Ill remove the dead center and the center post in the bowl.
Above is the bowl after about an hours worth of turning. The sides are about 1 inch thick and Ive left the center post in the bowl. This will help keep the bowl in its round shape and keep it from cracking. Now Im going to cover it in paste wax and place it in a large box of wood shavings and let it dry for several weeks. In about three weeks time, Ill take it out and see hows its going so keep you fingers crossed that the bowl is ok and it dries well.
It hollowed out very well.