Chuck Ellis
Member
- Messages
- 6,997
- Location
- Tellico Plains, Tennessee
Vaughn posted the process of turning his big ash bowl and I found it very interesting to watch the process... I like to see how others work their magic on their lathe. I learn a great deal by just watching other turners. My stuff is not near so sophisticated as what Vaughn showed, but thought I would start or follow his thread with one of my bowls progressions and ask that others show some of their turning pictures...
I don't have a metal detector so didn't scan the wood... probably the man upstairs is watching out for me... I've never run into any metal in my woods and most of them are gimme's from other people and off farms around the area... no telling what could wind up on some of the trees.
A couple of years back I picked up a log... it was about 14 feet long that the TN DOT has pushed off the side of the road and into a huge brush pile in preparation of replacing a bridge over a small creek on one of the back roads that I take on my way to the bigger towns around where I live... initially when I saw the log, I thought it was a maple and because the end had browned a little thought it to be a maple with some ambrosia in it.... we stopped and I looked it over, then went to town and bought a new chainsaw to cut the log... not realizing how much of the log was actually in the brush pile... my step son when back with me to help with the loading...he wouldn't touch the chainsaw, just took pictures while I cut …. which may become another thread... by the time I had the log cut into manageable pieces, we had such a load on my little Ranger, it's a wonder I didn't break a spring or something... the front end was up enough that steering was touchy getting back home... if Ed hadn't been with me, might not have been able to get the front end down enough to steer. At any rate this is my process of doing a bowl..
I split the log and nibbled the edges into a more or less roundish form... I usually start bowls this way, rarely cut actually blanks. The log is mounted on a 3” steel face plate with 1 ½ inch hex head sheet metal screws, much like Vaughn did. I have 5 face plates that I use, all are steel, 2 are 3”, 1 is 4” and stainless steel, 1 is 6” that came with my first lathe and rarely use and the last is a 2” plate that is near useless....
You can see the face plate and where I scribe a circle on the face of the log... you can also see some of the flame I had through this piece of wood.
Starting to round the blank into shape...
I've cut most of the bark away and started my tenon to reverse the bowl.
Turned and mounted on the chuck.
Starting the hollowing process.
Almost finished with the hollowing process... I've lost some of the flame that was in the bowl, but still had a number of streaks.
This wood was so wet that I actually had a line of water from the lathe about 6 inches wide
and about 6 feet across the shop. My left sleeve was also wet from the water being slung out of
the bowl. I used a lot of mineral spirits on the inside of this bowl to try and dry it through some
before I took it any further.... I let it spin on the lathe at about 1500 rpms for better part of an
hour before I went any further....
About ready to sand out and get it ready to finish... you can still see a little of the mineral spirits still flashing off in the bottom.
This is the finished bowl from the side... I still see a little end grain that I didn't get quite as smooth as I would have liked and you can see a little of the inner bark on the left... I'll leave that on bowls sometimes for effects... customers seem to like it.
Final picture, finished with wipe on polyurethane. The bowl came out at 9 ½ inches diameter and about 5 inches deep. I took it all the way from wet blank to finished bowl in one process, taking time along the way to photograph and used the mineral oil to try and dry the wood some... may have also used the microwave, don't remember at this stage, but I had very little warp on the final piece...
There was actually 24 pictures, but some were a little repetitious, so only showed these few...
Now how about some of you other turners posting your process... we (or at least I) can learn from the various techniques we use.
Thanks for looking.
I don't have a metal detector so didn't scan the wood... probably the man upstairs is watching out for me... I've never run into any metal in my woods and most of them are gimme's from other people and off farms around the area... no telling what could wind up on some of the trees.
A couple of years back I picked up a log... it was about 14 feet long that the TN DOT has pushed off the side of the road and into a huge brush pile in preparation of replacing a bridge over a small creek on one of the back roads that I take on my way to the bigger towns around where I live... initially when I saw the log, I thought it was a maple and because the end had browned a little thought it to be a maple with some ambrosia in it.... we stopped and I looked it over, then went to town and bought a new chainsaw to cut the log... not realizing how much of the log was actually in the brush pile... my step son when back with me to help with the loading...he wouldn't touch the chainsaw, just took pictures while I cut …. which may become another thread... by the time I had the log cut into manageable pieces, we had such a load on my little Ranger, it's a wonder I didn't break a spring or something... the front end was up enough that steering was touchy getting back home... if Ed hadn't been with me, might not have been able to get the front end down enough to steer. At any rate this is my process of doing a bowl..
I split the log and nibbled the edges into a more or less roundish form... I usually start bowls this way, rarely cut actually blanks. The log is mounted on a 3” steel face plate with 1 ½ inch hex head sheet metal screws, much like Vaughn did. I have 5 face plates that I use, all are steel, 2 are 3”, 1 is 4” and stainless steel, 1 is 6” that came with my first lathe and rarely use and the last is a 2” plate that is near useless....
You can see the face plate and where I scribe a circle on the face of the log... you can also see some of the flame I had through this piece of wood.
Starting to round the blank into shape...
I've cut most of the bark away and started my tenon to reverse the bowl.
Turned and mounted on the chuck.
Starting the hollowing process.
Almost finished with the hollowing process... I've lost some of the flame that was in the bowl, but still had a number of streaks.
This wood was so wet that I actually had a line of water from the lathe about 6 inches wide
and about 6 feet across the shop. My left sleeve was also wet from the water being slung out of
the bowl. I used a lot of mineral spirits on the inside of this bowl to try and dry it through some
before I took it any further.... I let it spin on the lathe at about 1500 rpms for better part of an
hour before I went any further....
About ready to sand out and get it ready to finish... you can still see a little of the mineral spirits still flashing off in the bottom.
This is the finished bowl from the side... I still see a little end grain that I didn't get quite as smooth as I would have liked and you can see a little of the inner bark on the left... I'll leave that on bowls sometimes for effects... customers seem to like it.
Final picture, finished with wipe on polyurethane. The bowl came out at 9 ½ inches diameter and about 5 inches deep. I took it all the way from wet blank to finished bowl in one process, taking time along the way to photograph and used the mineral oil to try and dry the wood some... may have also used the microwave, don't remember at this stage, but I had very little warp on the final piece...
There was actually 24 pictures, but some were a little repetitious, so only showed these few...
Now how about some of you other turners posting your process... we (or at least I) can learn from the various techniques we use.
Thanks for looking.
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