Second Large Ash Bowl

This is the second of the bowls turned rough when I maxed out my lathe, made of white ash.  It's finished with BLO under gloss lacquer.  The curl in some areas is incredible, especially on the inside.  There's also a light line near the rim for about 1/3 the circumference; looks almost like a hamon on a katana blade, but I did nothing to form it.  I recessed the bottom by a tiny bit to form a ring for the bowl to rest on.

Box Elder Bowl 2

This is another bowl from the box elder, also intended to be turned and let warp as it dried.  It worked better on this one than the last, but there's still some torn grain for the same reason as the last bowl.  Great color and curl to the wood though.  This and the last ended up being smaller than I intended as the anchorseal substitute I read about online didn't do much of anything and I had to cut away considerable splits in the log.

Having an idea, I made a discovery when making this bowl.  The ink from a Uniball Signo RT 207 micro point pen won't bleed under lacquer!  No more tracing over a pencil line 600 times to get it dark enough to see...

Box Elder Bowl

This is another box elder bowl.  I should have twice-turned it, but like the warping effect of the birch bowls and wanted something similar with this.  Unexpectedly, it warped while it was still on the lathe, so much so that I was unable to sand the end areas effectively.  In fact, it was warping as I hollowed the inside of the bowl so much that I had the tick-tick-tick like when roughing a blank to get it round!  Because of this, there is significant torn grain on both ends of the bowl.  I love the color and curl though.  Plus, there's a face in the bottom of the bowl made from small knots - two eyes and a mouth!

Finished Large Ash Bowl

I posted a while back that I maxed out my lathe when turning a couple bowls out of white ash.  This is the first of them, after finish turning.  It has an area that looks almost burl-esque and the warping combination of heartwood and sapwood is distinctive.  The wood was from where the main trunk split into three smaller trunks.  There's a spot on the inside that looks like it's split apart in a way that somebody tried pinching a piece off the wood, but it's an illusion and is as smooth as the rest of the bowl.  It's finished with 3 coats of gloss lacquer over BLO.

I got extremely lucky when finishing the bottom of this bowl.  I was turning the last nub off the bottom, trying to avoid having to carve it off when the wing of the gouge (which I really wasn't paying attention to, watching instead where the cutting was taking place) caught the waste wood.  In under a heartbeat, the nub broke and the bowl went flying up over my headstock and fell nearly 5 feet to the concrete shop floor!  (Felt like I was paralyzed and that the fall took about an hour, even though the trip off the lathe and over the headstock took 0.00000002 seconds.)  Amazingly, it didn't break and there were no dents or scratches in the bowl!!!  With walls only about 1/4" thick, I definitely consider myself very fortunate to not have a pile of pieces instead of this finished bowl.

Birch Log Bowl 4

This is another small birch bowl finished with gloss lacquer over BLO.  I put a foot on this one and really like the look.

Birch Log Bowl 3

This lightly spalted birch bowl was turned out of a small birch log that a friend gave me.  It was turned green and allowed to warp as it dried.  BLO was used to pop the grain and then gloss brushing lacquer was applied over it once dry.

Birch Log Bowl 2

Here's another small birch bowl.  There's some gray streaks from very light spalting.  You can see that I let it warp as it dried.  BLO was used to pop the grain and then gloss lacquer was brushed over it.  This is the first time I've ever buffed one of my bowls - the outside is so smooth and glossy, it's unbelievable!  The inside is satin though, since I do not have any bowl buffs to buff the inside.  Honestly, I think the buffing makes it look more like plastic than wood and I'm not sure that I like the effect; whether I buff anything else remains to be seen.

Birch Log Bowl

A friend gave me several small birch logs.  So far, one has been completely cut up and turned into bowls.  This is one of them.  It's finished in gloss brushing lacquer over boiled linseed oil (BLO) and I gave it to John as a token of appreciation for giving me the wood.  As you can see, there's some light spalting in places and the BLO really made the grain come alive.

Second Box Elder Bowl

This is the second box elder bowl, also with a gloss lacquer finish.  There's a knot with a few spalting lines around it, which I found interesting as they weren't visible at all until I got nearly done with the bowl.  It's also got some nice red coloration to parts.  When finishing this bowl, I learned that sharpie bleeds quite badly when it comes into contact with brushing lacquer...

Box Elder Bowl

I saw a pile of wood by the curb on my way home from work one day, so I stopped and talked to the guy.  He'd taken down a box elder tree that was splitting and threatening his home earlier in the day, so I loaded up my trunk.  This is one of those bowls.  It's got some curl and a large number of fantastic looking fish eyes and is almost pure white, even after being treated with BLO.  This is the first time I've used lacquer on a project and must admit that I love it - fast drying, hard, and very glossy.  Bad thing is that it REALLY stinks.

Maxed out my Lathe...

I got several pieces of freshly cut white ash the other day. I made a box with one smaller piece, but yesterday decided to tackle the biggest one. Carried it downstairs and thought I was getting weak because I struggled a bit to manipulate it around corners and open the door while holding it. Out of curiosity, I weighed it, then no longer felt all that bad - 120 pound chunk of wood. I used my newly made chainsaw stand to cut it up, then my newly restored PM143 to cut an 11.5" circle of wood.

The first bowl, I used the woodworm screw that came with my woodriver chuck, but had a bit of a problem in that the bowl would not come off the screw when it was time. I ended up removing the screw from the chuck while still in the bowl, mounting the blank, and then cutting it out as I hollowed the bowl - not too fun.

The second bowl, which came from the half of the crotch piece shown here, I used the spur drive on. Stayed on the lathe without trouble and had the added advantage of my being able to get the bowl off the lathe when done rough turning.

Both bowls basically maxed out my poor HF34706 lathe - it's got a 12" swing and the blanks were both 11.5" in diameter. The first one was round, but had a protrusion on the back that required a little 'adjustment' - basically, I chainsawed off part of the blank while it was on the lathe. Had to do a similar thing on the second, but because it hit the motor behind the headstock. (Why they designed the motor to be there is beyond me... it's always getting in the way and the cooling vent intake is right where sawdust/chips naturally go.  Next time I order from PSI, I'm going to pick up one of their extended MT2 spur drives just to get the blank away from the motor.)

Even after chainsawing the protrusion off the first bowl, it started out so wobbly that I considered scrapping it. Persevered and stayed out of the line of fire should it come off and am glad I did. The ash has some curl to it, which really came out when I put it in DNA. The second bowl is in the DNA now and has an awesome section that looks almost like some of the burls I've seen you guys post. There was a rather large chunk of the second one that was completely rotten; thankfully it was in the area hollowed out.

Can't wait for these to dry so I can finish turn them...

Half of the 120-pound chunk of wood the bowls came from:

The first bowl roughed out: