More free wood, natural edge bowls

Here I’ve been trying to keep my wood hoarding under the radar, and Chris brings me more! The really ugly piece is walnut, the others we think are butternut.

This is the ?butternut? The person who cut the wood thought it was also walnut. The only tree I know that looks like a walnut from the leaves and nuts, but is pale inside is a butternut. Very cool wavy-gravy ring pattern. I made about a half dozen rough turned bowls from those pieces.

Now THIS is walnut. As was obvious from first photo, this log had seen better days, So I didn’t get much good out of it. but this is kinda cool! I love leaving the sap wood on it for contrast, but I don’t know if it will dry okay like this. Will the heartwood and sap wood dry differently and crack the bowl? I guess I’ll know in a few months

Two more to add to the pile drying up in the loft.

I went back to the cherry. I thought I’d try a natural edge bowl and this piece with a flat area of bark seemed perfect, but you can see it was already cracking. Here it is with it’s matching wedges from the same log. You can see the cracking.

I picked a different piece to try again anyway. Big crack here.

Enh … let’s keep going anyway. Its a learning experience. I stabilized the crack with CA glue so at least the thing won’t explode on me (I hoped).

Very pretty wood. And good for learning. But walls are too thick, it’s cracked and the profile is a little clunky.

This is a maple natural edge bowl. Much better than the cherry.

Cherry!

Cory (family down the road) had a bunch of trees taken down. Most were dead ash, but one accidental victim was a beautiful large cherry. After a brief mourning and a wake with coffee and donuts, we cut up and hauled away the portion of the tree we could get to and manage. We left the large trunk and the whole top half of the tree, that was hanging over a deep ravine.

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American Beech

I may have used all the oak from Mike’s, but I also brought home a lot of American Beech. I’m pleased with how little it has cracked, given it’s been two months since it fell. As long as I cut my blanks through the pith and along the existing cracks, I think I’ll be okay. I’ve read a lot on forums etc. about beech. One thing I’m learning is that if you read 5 posts, you’ll get 5 different opinions. As is true with anything online, it’s probably best to take it all in, but rely more on your own experience.

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