Last Saturday they were taking a tree down in the back and I grabbed some logs hoping to make something interesting.  While I was chopping it up with the chainsaw I took one piece that I thought may be interesting.  It had 2 knobs that I believe were limbs that were cut off and grown over.   So I turned it mostly out on Saturday evening.  It needed a lot of sanding and was still attached to the chuck by the tenon and no thought of a base put on it, kept thick to increase stability turning the piece and sanding.
 So Tuesday was my down day and had a chance to sand out the bowl and got it pretty nice, it has distorted some, but I like it.  I saw David E. put a little rounded base on his bowl and I was going to try this.  I was parting it off so that I would put it in a jam chuck and finish the base.  As I was parting it off, it went flying toward the wall and ended up spinning in the space between the wall and base of the lathe.  A little swear word may have exited my lips but the lip had a scrape and the side of the bowl where the sap wood is.  It turns out, as you can see in the photos, my "character" in the wood has a dead spot right in the center of the base.  I currently have cut off the left over on the base and put glue in the rotted part.  I will add a photo when I finish.

Learning from the best.

Getting in the shop for a while during the snowmagedon allowed me to do some experimenting.  We had Warren Carpenter at our November meeting making us think about and showing us how to turn natural edge bowls that add some interest to the design.  I started with a crotch piece of wood.  I was told it is cherry, and it has some cherry qualities,  but I have some doubts.  I need to have it checked.    I took the log and put it on a small faceplate and used some techniques that I learned in the demo.  First I thought about keeping the "branches" as part of the design, and second I learned that when roughing the base tenon, make 2 levels, one to hold the wood and one to make the base.  This allowed me to hold the wood, turn the bowl and have a smaller base than the chuck.  

I was very happy when I finished it and put my salad bowl finish on it, not that I think that it will have salad or much food in it at all but I do like the finish and it will take some moisture without bothering it.  I have showed this off to my coworkers, top picture at my posterous page, but out meeting was canceled so I had to wait until the March MCW meeting.  Turns out that David Ellsworth was the guest demonstrator and he critiqued the show and tell table.  He walked around the table and picked up hollow forms and bowls and described many design features and places for improvement.  He walked back around the table picking up more pieces and went right around my heart bowl in the middle of the table.  He finally picked it up and called it a "sweet bowl"!  He described how the base could be curved ever so slightly because a curved piece fights against the sharp line of the base.  It may take me a couple of months to let this info soak into that thick skull of mine and find the time to put metal to wood, but I hope I can improve my design.

A little scare

As you can see from this picture from my last post I have 2 lights that illuminate the wood as I am turning, one a desk lamp and the other a magnetic base flexible light designed more for this type of environment.  Both are expecting 75W bulbs or less and they have 100W in them.  I was making a lot of chips yesterday and was doing pretty well.  I had taken Sociallady to the below ground metro to get to work and the kids were around.  While turning I had noticed a slight burning smell but didn't think too much of it, thinking maybe toast from one of the kids.  The phone rang and they came down to get me for the phone.  Grandma was worried about metro derailment on the news and we talked that all was well.  I had taken all my turning gear off, I drifted upstairs to check on things and my social networks.  When I came downstairs there was smoke in the air.  The desk lamp had collected chips, dried them out and started them smoldering..I unplugged the light, took it outside and dumped the ashes in the snow.  Some were bright orange! I turned the box fan on in the open door and the bathroom fan but it was very slow to leave.  I left for a while with the kids home and said I need one of them to turn the fan off and shut the door.  When I came back about two hours later, I learn that the door was just shut (something about you do it, no not me, you!) and the fan was slowed but not turned off.  (ah youth).  I still smelled it today when I went down to turn today.  My brain may be smelling that for months to come!

Beech Branch

I have been working on a Beech Branch that came from the Smail's in Galeton. I cut the pith out but only took 1/3 or less from the log. I have heard that the branches have stresses in them that cause breaking and distortion. . Playing the cards that I have I cut the end with the pith and I am trying to make a separate bowl out of that as well. I centered the the log on my faceplate and with the smallest removal of bark at the corner. I turned it round and determined that I didn't want to make it that big so I turned it into two pieces of about the same size, about 4 inches deep, including tenon.

I turned the first bowl about 1/4 inch thick and started to sand it. It has a long way to go but I am done turning it and going to work with the sanding the rest of the way... There is some formating that needs to be done with sandpaper but it should come out nice if the tension does not twist it in knots.

The second bowl I didn't want to get too far along. If turning first one messes it up, wanted to learn from it and not mess this one up.. I have one bowl that I just turned from the "dried" rough turned blank and I like the way it came out. It did not move much so I am hoping the same for these. The wood is medium brown with some character in the grain lines.

snowmageddon

Wow...the snow of the century, at least for the DC area... 35 inches or so in a week is not bad anywhere, just a disaster here..... This has given me some time with the wood... I pulled out the chain saw and cut up some logs using the large pile of snow in the driveway as the sawhorse. I cut up some beech from pa and see if I can get something to come out from that wood...OMG I am not doing very well with those logs... I have broken bowls all over the place lately...not sure why...working with woods I don't usually work with...may have some thing to do with it..but some is my stupidity... that comes by the bucketful ...

I inherited a second webber grill from neighbors when the moved. sitting under the deck for months, decided to try drying wood in it, not sure how it will work in the snowstorm but we will see... I put a 40 watt bulb in it and it now has 2 bowls that were rough turned, see how it goes, need to keep an eye on it though...first bowl in there seemed fine so far...oak from WVA.

snow day...good day

Today was a very good day for my turning.. I emptied the gas tank on the chainsaw, bought a new can and gas, put oil in it and the chainsaw WORKED! Wow ... that was the first it was running and stayed running for several months!

One of the logs I cut was Smail Ash, and I turned a bowl out of it.. it had the rings starting to crack in the center...I glued it up and left it pretty thick so that it would not break. It came out quite nice...ok, it is drying and may move some... I got a small profile base on it and it looks nice. See how it looks when I put finish on it. I wanted to cover the difference in ca glue and not in the heart wood so I covered the whole heartwood section with CA and it currently looks good... see how the CA and finish work together... We will see...

yesterday I turned a small glass, goblet, or egg dish, whatever you want to call it. it was fun...I will have to try more of them, maybe bigger.

early year smaller turnings

Some of my recent turnings and not sure I am really happy with them all. This first one I am most happy and disappointed with all in the same bowl. I think it had good potential and nicely thin and pretty consistent thickness. used the cole jaws and tailstock. when I took the piece of wood out from the tailstock, I tried making another cut and caught enough of it to crack it pretty badly. it did not go all the way to the rim and I super glued it and it is not horrible and usable. As the side view shows it warped even though I roughed it out and let it dry for several weeks. This is wood that I received from Brenda L. and it is from the land that she is building a house on. I did a similar move on another bowl that turned out to be very consistent thickness. I could tell this because it split into two pieces.

These three are pretty small, about 4-5 inches high. Left is Galeton Ash, turned pretty nicely. I liked how it came out. Didn't move much and nice lines. Middle one is cherry I think. Deb's wood I think and some natural edge. I like the small base and hope to try some more of that. The third is chestnut oak from Linda's WVA tree and shows (not in this shot) some of the interesting grain I found in parts of the tree.. some of this tree looked pretty bad but turned out very nice. If it is chestnut oak, it is related more toward white oak and smelled of tannins. This wood moved quite a bit in all the bowls I have done...

This is from the Mary F. Maple with the spalt and character. This moved some as well and I got pretty close in a spot at the bottom. It is not that noticeable and other than the the base not being very flat it is a pretty good bowl.