Roughing a Big Ash Bowl

Vaughn McMillan

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Things have been a bit slow around the forum, so I figured I'd dig through some of my shop photos and see if I could find anything interesting to post. (Since my shop's 800 miles west of me, looking at pics has to substitute for real shop time.) :rolleyes:

This is an ash bowl I roughed out a couple of years ago. It appears I only got photos of prepping the blank and roughing the outside (well, and the finished shots), but I think it's still an interesting series of photos. I showed a few of these back then, but not the whole sequence.

This is one of several large blanks I slabbed with a chainsaw out of some wood I got for free at the nearby firewood lot that was closing. They just opened the gates and put up a "Free Wood" sign. I ended up with some nice large sections of nearly-dry ash. None of the other people grabbing wood wanted them because they were too big to load. It was one of those times the lift gate on my truck came in very handy. :)

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In the process of cutting it with the chainsaw, I did discover a bit of a problem:

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My Stihl metal detector had struck gold. Or steel. Whatever. :bang: Somewhere along the line, the tree had grown around a wire fence and also picked up a nail or two. A mining expedition was in order:

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After a bit of digging, I was able to get out all the metal. And before anyone jumps too hard on me for using a chisel to dig out wire and nails, let me say that is one of my beater chisels. The goods ones were safely in the drawer. Good thing, too, because the chisel needed a trip to the Tormek after I was done:

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After that was done, I used my real metal detector to make sure I had found all the metal. It came up clean.

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Next step was to mark out a circle. I don't bother trying to get real accurate when I mark the circle. The lathe will make everything round in the end, so why bother worrying about it now? I used a compass to scratch a line in the wood, then sketched over the line with a lumber crayon.

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A quick trip to the bandsaw, and here's the result. As you can see, I only used the blue line as a suggestion, not an order. When I'm wrestling a 75 pound blank on my bandsaw, I'm not shooting for laser accuracy. (I'm also guessing my blade was getting dull, because normally I would have followed the line a bit closer.)

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Next up, the faceplate, impact driver, and some hex head sheet metal screws (2 1/4" or so, as I recall). No pilot holes...just drive them puppies in. I used the steel faceplate that came with my lathe. I use aluminum faceplates more than I use the steel one, since they don't rust when in contact with wet wood, but this blank was pretty heavy and wanted a bit more beef. Plus, as dry as this wood was, I wasn't too worried about rust. There was a discussion here recently about faceplate sizes. For the record, this is a 3" faceplate on a 24" or so blank.

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The blank ended up big enough that I had to slide the headstock on my lathe to the end of the bed and use the dropped extension bed for the banjo and toolrest.

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Slowly but surely getting things round. Good action shot of the remote On/Off switch too. I would hate to use a big lathe without one:

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This bark inclusion on the side of the blank will ultimately get turned away by the time I get the form I'm looking for:

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More roundy-roundy...starting to take shape and getting the tenon formed on the bottom:

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The figure in this blank is looking promising:

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Unfortunately, there's a checked knot that I decide I don't want on the side of the bowl, so it looks like the bowl will lose a fair bit of depth and diameter when I turn the inside:

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Nonetheless, I'm making a fun mess:

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But pretty soon, I noticed a tick-tick-tick sound as I was cutting the wood. This can't be good. :rolleyes: There's a shiny spot in one of the traces of the bark inclusion:

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What the Little Wizard metal detector had missed, the Thompson Tools detector had found with no problem. :rolleyes: Another nail:

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Yup, it's a nail alright:

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It came out more easily than the wire did, though:

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At that point, I apparently stopped taking progress photos. I finished turning the outside of the bowl including the tenon, mounted it in the chuck and hollowed the inside. I also turned away the checked knot that I showed above, which made the bowl quite a bit smaller. (Nothing in the rule book says the bowl has to be the same size as the blank you start with. I like turning wood with natural flaws, but if there're in a spot that I don't think will look good, I get rid of them if possible.) ;) By the time I got the bowl finish turned, there were a couple of inclusions and holes that I decided to fill with black epoxy. I wasn't real happy with the way that looked when it was done, so I went ahead and dyed the whole thing black and finished it with Formby's Tung Oil Blend. Then I used liming wax to highlight the grain, followed by a coat of Renaissance wax. Since this wood was already fairly dry, I turned it to finished dimensions with no additional drying. It did warp a bit on me in the end, but I was OK with that. Here are some pics of the finished piece (which have also been posted here in the past):

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I hope you enjoyed the show. Thanks for watching. :wave:
 
Not being much of a turner, I'm fascinated by the whole process. I reckon theres a lot of clean up associated with turning...

Love the dye job. :thumb:
 
I would say you "nailed" that one.. but someone apparently already did :rofl:

Seriously thanks for the ride along, I like the nice open form would make a really great "displaying something" bowl. Not usually a fan of dye jobs but with the grain highlighted its pretty cool; always have to check those prejudices at the door.
 
... I reckon theres a lot of clean up associated with turning...

True that. :yes: You know it's time to sweep up the shavings when you have to bend over to reach the lathe. :D And the shavings go everywhere. You'll notice the shower curtain in the "shavings" photo. That's to help keep my sharpening stuff from getting buried in curlies.
 
That was a great demo there Vaughn... and I really liked the shower curtain idea... may have to adapt that to my shop and maybe keep some of the debris from going everywhere.... I did a similar series of pictures on a big box elder bowl I did a couple of years back, but my finished product didn't look near as good as your bowl...
 
Great series of photos Vaughn. Thanks for posting.

Some sadistic animal thought it would be fun to put all those nails into that poor tree. :p
 
It's a beauty. Do you remember what the finished size turned out to be....and did it sell, or stay at home. I remember some discussions about larger bowls not being very good sellers.
 
Very cool thanks for the education Vaughn. I like the look and finish of the final product. Funny thing is when i saw the pics and you got to the first nail i thought mmmm wonder if there is one in there is there more to come. Sure enough few pics later boom. Oh well there is only so much one can do to detect these things.

Got me thinking i wonder if anyone has ever gone to one of these security machines at the airport or other venues and asked for a quick free scan of a log. Wonder if they would show up a nail like this. :rofl:
 
Thanks for the comments, guys. I've got a few other similar series that I'll try to get posted.

Looks great...quote "Then I used liming wax to highlight the grain" <<< more info please :dunno:

Liming wax is a white paste wax that dries quickly. You wipe it on, then wipe it off pretty much immediately.

The liming on the outside of this bowl is more pronounced than on the inside, partly because the inside was sanded and finished twice. The first attempt showed me exactly how much liming wax highlights every sanding flaw in a piece. Doh! So I put it in the vacuum chuck and started back with the 80 grit. I eventually removed virtually all the dye from the inside, sanded back through 400 grit, re-dyed, re-finished, and re-waxed. In the process of doing that, I closed up the grain more on the inside than the outside, so it held less of the liming wax than the outside.

It's a beauty. Do you remember what the finished size turned out to be....and did it sell, or stay at home. I remember some discussions about larger bowls not being very good sellers.

This one ended up at 17 1/2" in diameter and about 3 3/4" tall. It did sell pretty quickly. I've got a couple of elm bowls in the 20" range that are still unsold, though.

...Got me thinking i wonder if anyone has ever gone to one of these security machines at the airport or other venues and asked for a quick free scan of a log. Wonder if they would show up a nail like this. :rofl:

Not with a log, but I did once ask the guards at a courthouse to give me a thorough scan with the metal detectors to see if they could find the hardware in my back. (It was midday, and they were standing around at a seldom-used entrance with nothing to do.) Apparently, it's titanium, since it didn't register on the meters. I suspect the guys at an airport would not be helpful at all if you asked them to scan a log. :rolleyes:
 
Having seen the McMillan Galleria of Fine Turning Stuff in person...the examples are really sweet! The big rainbow'ish one is huge and amazing!
 
Thanks for the comments, guys. I've got a few other similar series that I'll try to get posted.

Not with a log, but I did once ask the guards at a courthouse to give me a thorough scan with the metal detectors to see if they could find the hardware in my back. (It was midday, and they were standing around at a seldom-used entrance with nothing to do.) Apparently, it's titanium, since it didn't register on the meters. I suspect the guys at an airport would not be helpful at all if you asked them to scan a log. :rolleyes:

Nah, they'd be very helpful, then confiscate you log as contraband....:rofl::rofl:
 
Great job, Vaughn. I'll refrain from saying "you nailed it", but I will say, great save! I like the looks of the dye and liming wax. I've had success using WOP to seal the dye. Just a few light coats. I used white shoe polish instead of liming wax, probably the same thing though.
 
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