Category: Natural edge

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

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!

Posted on

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.