Tag: Bowl Turning
Film Friday – Ugly Trees
The Ugly Trees from moments.org on Vimeo.
Free Wood is the Best Wood!
Prospects for Fall wood-turning are looking up! I am 98% done with the Chinese lathe build-up into a proper tool. I am waiting on the arrival (had to resort amazon.uk.co as there are not turning shops in a 100 mile radius?!) of two huge bowl gouges and I will be set up to make shavings all winter. I was also given a free electric oil-filled heater for the garage, which should keep things toasty! On the raw material front: I am taking an old apricot tree out of a small orchard for some friends a few villages away tomorrow (National Holiday) and I am really excited to turn some bowls and jar tops out of it. A few weeks ago, I mentioned the project to a friend of my wife’s and a couple of hours later she called and said that her husband was cutting an old ornamental cherry down and would I like the wood? Like the Pope wants Jesus, I did!! I went over with the chainsaw and helped him take it down and to cut a few larger limbs and the trunk into sections. Some of the images below are what it looked like inside the tree just after my chainsaw went through. We were stunned. Not just the center was beautiful – a fire purple, but there are bright reds and oranges in the outer wood as well. The tree had over 70 rings and grew next to a couple of big cedars so the rings are real tight and as I had to sharpen my chain twice during the cutting, the wood is VERY hard and dense.
It took two loads in the car to get it all home. I sealed the ends right away and stacked everything in the GROP near the lathe. They had cut a plum down earlier this week and I scored two 12” rounds from that as well – the ones with the flame purple center in the pictures below. I told the couple that I would make them a vessel or large bowl out of a hunk of the tree in trade for the lumber.
Fast forward to this past Saturday: I rough turned 6 bowls (one not pictured) in about 2.5 hours from the large limbs. The trunk sections will be cut into starting next weekend. I will let the small pieces dry for 4-6 months and then finish turning them. The larger bowls from the trunk will take a year to dry.
Am feeling reasonably optimistic about upcoming projects 
Update 11-9-14:
Well, the apricot tree wood harvesting didn’t quite go as planned. I had chainsaw issues right away – needed to tear it down before the first cut and unclog the chain oil hole. Holy crap the wood was hard. It had 65+ growth rings that were stacked in tight. It was slow going with a couple stops to sharpen my chain. The clincher though was that there were two twisting veins of rot that went from crown to root ball with lots of bug damage spidering out from the rot as well. Dammit! There was was maybe 12” of trunk that I can spin a bowl out of. Per my agreement with the owner, I cut up the other trunk & big limb sections to a length that will fit in a fireplace and stacked it up for them. You win some you lose some. If not for this tree I wouldn’t have the amazing wood from the ornamental cherry and plum tree and maybe karma will smile on me the next time I lug my saw into a field.
Another Cherry Bowl
I started it out thinking it was going to be a different shape, but due to some spongy fruit-wood, it became more of a vertically sided bowl with a deep finger groove on the bottom. Like the last bowl (and most of my bowls and lids), I turned a little detail in the bottom of the bowl because I think that curiosity should be rewarded. The bowl is again finished off with my own mix of beeswax and walnut oil. I am going to let it dry for a few months and reapply.
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From tree to bowl with a LOT of sweat in between
I have a colleague that was making over a large section of his property out in the French country-side and he needed a dying cherry tree taken down. It was a big old tree with what looked like lots of good hard wood in the trunk base, so I gave him a hand. I thought I could tun the wood into some nice bowels, mallet heads, honey dippers, etc… and he agreed to let me have some of the wood that was destined for his fire place. Holy Crap it was work – not at all helped by his tiny electric chainsaw. It made me long for my 30″ bar, 2-stroke beast back in my Seattle garage shop.
After cutting 2 good rounds and trimming up the root ball, I split the rounds in two, then put 200 pounds of wood in the back of my tiny Suzuki Swift and hauled it home. Into the garage it went and the wife and I were off to the Saturday Market. I came back to one of the rounds on the next night and decided to prep it for turning. With my Japanese hatchet and hand saw, I worked it into an octagon-ish shape. There was a lot of rot in the outer rings and the sections did not make as large of bowls as I had hopped, but the root ball will make an AMAZING centerpiece on the table for holding bread or fruit at parties. I am getting ahead of my self a little…
Anyway, the first section was a beast! It took me 3 hours to go from the half-round to the round bowl-blank. I almost threw the hunk down and took it over to my neighbors wood pile while just roughing it into shape with the axe. The wood was SO FREAKING HARD! It got worse when I started spinning the thing! My roughing gouge was super sharp when I started and I had to sharpen it twice again during the initial turn. There was a break in the turning where I built a jig for my turning chisels so that the sharpening angle was perfect every time, but that is a different tale…
I have never gone from tree to bowl before and I wanted to see if I could do it well. Usually, I either glue up hardwood scraps or buy a rough elm or maple blank from my hardwood dealer in Seattle (With the coin I drop at his place, he is most assuredly a DEALER! His crack just has figured grain and tight growth rings…) Anyway, I might should have picked a tree with softer wood for my first time, but how many turners back in the US can say that they cut down a old cherry tree in France and made cool stuff with it?!
I finished up the bowl four nights after I started turning the rough shape. I had to work around some rot and cracks, but the final shape turned out really nice. When someone handles the bowl and flips it over, they will find my makers mark and I turned a little detail in the bottom of the bowl because I think that curiosity should be rewarded. The bowl is finished off with my own mix of beeswax and walnut oil. After two coats, it colored up beautifully. There are a couple of spots where it may split along the rim, but that is just the nature of the wood and that specific piece – it will add character to the bowl. This one was done for the guy who gave me the wood and I will turn a couple later for our house.
I was really proud of how it all turned out and the final product made all the sweat and cussing worth it.
