A Princess Bowl

Chuck Ellis

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6,997
Location
Tellico Plains, Tennessee
Ft. Loudin Electric took down one of the neighbor's trees... don't think he wanted them to, but they did anyway as it was under their power line... at first they were going to just run it through their wood grinder, but he convinced them to leave it for him to use as fire wood... I made a deal with him for the bigger logs (and noticed yesterday all of the lesser logs are still laying where they fell - winter's coming so he better get busy if he's planning to heat his house)... the tree was a Royal Paulownia also know as a Princess tree or foxglove tree... in the spring it has some beautiful lavendar flowers and long heart shaped leaves...

My deal was I would make him a bowl from the wood, so guess I need to get busy... the wood is soft and tends to tear out a little, but mostly it's fuzzy when finished turning... even sheer scraping doesn't do away with the little fibers sticking up... 80 grit works well though... here is the first and second bowl I got from the wood...

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this one is 8 1/2 inches diameter, finished with walnut oil and carnuba... it sold right away at my market.

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This one is about 10 1/2 inches by 4 inches deep and finished with polyurethane... I had cut the curve off the log on the outside when I made the blank and put the face plate on the outside to start the bowl... I don't usually start a bowl in this direction, but may find myself doing it more often... I like how it turned out. I didn't get a picture of the inside but it has a nice grain pattern in the bottom of the bowl.
This one went to market last weekend and got lots of attention, but mostly lookies and some oohs and aahs... no money though.
 
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