Category: Bowls

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American chestnut, whoa!

I’m not kidding! A friend took it as a challenge to find me some species that I hadn’t yet turned. He showed up with 14 logs, twelve different varieties: cherry, poplar, hard maple, soft maple, red oak, white oak, cedar, elm, butternut, ash, apple, and… American chestnut. I think he wins the “find something special” award.

The chestnut has actually been laying around for awhile, so I figured I might as well start there. And really, who wouldn’t? So, after checking in with another turning friend for any clues he might offer on handling the chestnut, I dove in.

Isn’t that gorgeous coloring? The middle piece is the thin slab I usually take out of the middle of a log and set aside for small plates or spindles. the two large chunks moved along the process to becoming bowls. The first step is marking out the bowls, where I notice the first crack. Here is my layout for one half of the log. I split it across to get one medium bowl (right), and one small bowl and two small spindles worked around the crack (left).

So, I worked around that crack on the left. I’ll get a couple chunks just the right size for two very nice whiskey stoppers. (I’m not sure why, but I think this wood goes better with whiskey.). And I’ll still get a small bowl from the right side. And a medium sized bowl from the piece on the right. The medium bowl did show a bit of cracking. I was hoping I could turn the medium bowl shallow to get below the X’ed out crack. Step two is further breaking down and trimming on the bandsaw, then drill center holes for mounting on lathe.

Definitely wasn’t going to get that second small bowl. That piece split completely on the crack when I bandsawed between the two small bowls. What didn’t really dawn on me until later, was that crack wasn’t just a crack–it was actually a separated ring… that probably didn’t happen to stop separating at the point I cut the log half in half again …. I bet you can see where I’m going, here. When I drilled the small bowl for mounting, it too split just like the piece on the right (photo further below).

So let’s put the medium bowl on the lathe. There were also longitudinal cracks in the log that I knew about. I knew I was going to have to cut deep enough into the log to get beneath them.

I kept cutting, and got to a beautiful clean surface. No more longitudinal cracks, but now I have a crack on each side that followed the separated growth ring.

I tried gluing them up, but when I flipped the bowl to hollow out the inside, another crack appeared, and kept opening. I know some turners deal with cracks as a feature, but I’m still a bit timid about having the bowl blow apart and across the room. So I stopped hollowing about 3/4″ down.

I still had a single big bowl planned for the other log half. Miraculously, that did hold together. What with the longitudinal cracks, it ended up being smaller than I had hoped. But it seems pretty solid, and even if it’s smaller than planned, it’s very pretty. And unusual.

So all I have to show for several hours of work are two blanks for whiskey stoppers (not in photo), a split apart small bowl and an almost split apart medium bowl that I’m not sure yet what to do with, and one now-medium sized bowl. I’m a bit bummed, but also still excited to hopefully have the one bowl survive the drying.

And 12 wood types + 14 logs … must have been some repeats, right?. Yup, two cherry and two chestnut. The other chestnut is a bit bigger than this one. So I get to have this whole adventure again. But now I know to look closely at that growth ring. If it looks bad, I won’t even try for bowls. I’ll cut up for spindles to be used for boxes or peppermills or such.

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Circling back

In migrating all this material from the Google Photos album to here, I noticed that I’ve made reference to items, or promised follow-up, that I haven’t actually gotten around to sharing yet. So let’s catch us up on some things!

First, I thought some of you might enjoy seeing exactly what my pile of rough turned bowls looks like. At the moment, it isn’t a single pile. I’m in the process of moving my storage area from the loft of the shop to the loft of the shed. The plan is that the shed will become my dedicated workspace. It’s a nice sized space, with a tall ceiling and three big windows. I’m looking forward to it! And then there are a few bowls waiting to be finish turned, currently stashed under my lathe. And about a dozen (no photo) tucked away in shavings for initial drying.

I think I promised a photo of the natural edge butternut once it had finish applied. Here it is, along with a black walnut natural edge that I was pretty happy with.

Then, I thought I’d share some photos of some of the other completed items I’ve accumulated (and not yet parted with).

Here is a collection of oak bowls

and some beech bowls. On a couple of them, I tried my hand at dyeing the outside (blue and an olive green)

Spalted maple

and, finally, some silver maple. This is the same wood that split terribly on two big bowls (“I’m still at it” in March). These didn’t split… and they dried amazingly fast. So I’m still not sure what’s up with that wood. But these came out ok.

Not photographed are the quick, fun items I’ve been turning in between using up scraps–things like wine stoppers, square plates, vases, more ornaments. Maybe next time!

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Green turnings

Here are a few interesting things I’ve turned in the last couple months from wet wood. Two are complete, a couple are just rough turns.

Let’s start with the cherry that was cut down last October. Fortunately, we cut the logs longer than necessary. So although I have to take off quite a few inches from either end because they’ve cracked over the months, I do still get to good wood for more rough turned cherry bowls and platters. But what to do with the little bits left after I fussy cut for the big stuff?

Here’s one thing I tried. (Sorry I have limited photos of the process.) I had a slice of log about 2-3 inches thick. So I decided to try my hand at a cross grain tube, something I’ve seen Richard Raffan make. It’s actually quite a fun little project. I cut a spindle blank from just to the side of the pith. This gets mounted just like you’d mount a stick to turn a rolling pin, or ornaments.

But what’s different is that the grain is running in the same direction it would if it were a bowl. The grain is running the short way across the stick, not the length of the stick like it would be for a rolling pin. So you’re cutting a spindle, but because of the direction of the grain (across the piece, thus “cross grain tube”), you use bowl gouges. I didn’t find it technically challenging–it just reinforced in me that the wood determines the tool just as much as the shape.

Here it is just after it was turned, before it dried and warped and before I put any finish on it. (Keep reading for a photo of the final product.)

The next day, I took this scrap

…and turned this. I was REALLY happy with this. Finally figuring out how to do this was such a great feeling.

Here are the pair, all dried and warped and finished and beautiful

Before I close this post, I wanted to share some last bit of rough turned maple. Another crotch from the maple from July 2023

I made what I hope will be a matched pair of bowl and platter

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Holey cracks, Batman!

(sorry …. 🙂 )

Let’s see some success stories with blemishes! First holes and otherwise gnarly wood. These two are both maple. I knew going in that they might be a challenge. I think I just wanted to see what was up with them. Could I make something out of these less than wonderful lumps?

This one is pretty big. If I remember, it’s 8-9 inches diameter. It had a rotten spot where a branch was

Other than the hole, it was stable, so I kept going.

It’s drying in the loft.

The second one is smaller.

I followed Richard Raffan’s rule. First, remove what you can’t use and see what’s left. Only then should you decide what shape you make. This is the approximate shape I was left with when I finally removed the tunnel.

Here’s the final product. Remember that it was (semi) wet maple, so it distorted as it dried. I didn’t get it quite thin enough, but I like this shape. I want to try again sometime.

On to the cracks. First an ash bowl. It had a big crack that I started getting nervous about when I put it in my jumbo jaws to clean up the foot. So I took it back out without finishing the foot. It was a decent bowl, and it was the first bowl I rough turned. I held onto it like you see it here for awhile, with crack and ugly tenon.

Then I finally decided I owe it to myself to finish it. So I made a jam chuck (which is basically a rounded piece of wood that I jammed the bowl onto), held it in place on the jam chuck with the tail stock, and cleaned up the foot. It ain’t a beauty, but it’s kind of my first. So I even signed it.

I also finish turned a stack of beech. One of them had a crack. But the rest came out nice. I didn’t think to take a photo of the uncracked ones, and I think I’ve already given them away.

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I’m still at it!

The first part of this year has been a bit hectic, but I’ve managed to squeeze in a bit of lathe time in between other stuff. So here’s a recap of the last couple months…

This is some black walnut that I got from a friend of my mom (I’ll take free wood from anyone!). The darkness of the wood really surprised me. I guess I thought it only got that dark when it had finish applied. It’s beautiful wood, but actually gives you an unpleasant taste. Guess I need better face protection!

Here’s the same walnut bowl in different light and maybe slightly drier. I actually got three rough turned bowls from the bit of walnut I had (the other two are posted below). Despite trying to dry them slowly, they have started cracking. I’m trying to stabilize them with CA glue, but TBD if this will work 🙁

Some more of the bowls I turned in the spring (the oak I got from my brother’s yard) are ready for finish turning. You can see that one had a crack that blew apart when I was turning. If I had been able to find the piece, I perhaps could have glued it back, or done something creative …

… but this is what the workspace looks like after a bit of turning. I wasn’t going to find that chip.

I’ve been doing a bunch of live edge bowls, with varying success. Here are the best ones, with a still wet coat of oil on them. From the bottom: butternut, walnut, maple, cherry, maple. The unfinished on off to the side is also cherry

Two more walnut. These are probably about 9′ diameter. The lighter colored stack are more oak from spring ready to be finished. You’ll see the middle one in just a minute.

This is some silver maple I got from a tree that fell on the barn, RV and house across the street. Silver maple is softer than sugar maple (the other kind of maple I’ve turned). Again, I had it drying in wet shavings like usual, but wow! This was not salvageable. They’re sitting next to the fire pit as I type. I don’t know if the cracks are typical of silver maple, or if the tree was stressed from falling. Its a shame, too. These were nice big bowls–at least 10″ diameter.

This is the finished oak I mentioned a couple photos ago. i am really, really proud of this one–the shape, the thinness of the walls…

…the trickery to have no foot.

More free wood. Maple from our friend, John. I think this might be silver maple again. I cut this limb up into 6″ sections (you can see my chalk marks). I cut each segment in half for 12 blanks.

Here are the 12 rough turned bowls. For this project, I was trying to make them all as similar as I could. I’d love to try to get some “matched” sets out of them. The rough are all 140-150mm diameter and 45mm tall. Now lets hope I have better luck with drying this maple than the last.

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Finish turning, last of the butternut, ornaments

I have started bringing some of the smaller ones down to finish turn. The one farthest away is oak from my brother that I turned in the spring. The other four are maple from our backyard. They look good in the photo, but they have issues. I give them all a B- to B+.

Finish turned six of these guys. the American Beech also from my brother’s yard.

The last piece of butternut. I turned one in the usual way (top of bowl in the center of the log) and one as natural edge. I’m happy with this natural edge! Definitely getting there. It still needs to be sanded and sealed. I’ll try to remember to post a photo when that is done. We’ll see what the feather running down the middle looks like.

Some ornaments from scraps. Woods are (in no particular order), beech, ash, cherry, silver maple, sugar maple, lilac.

Left to right: lilac with bark left, butternut, cherry x 2, spalted maple. Merry Christmas!

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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.

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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.

Continue reading “Cherry!”