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.