Cottonwood Serving Bowl

Dave Hoskins

Member
Messages
5,252
Location
Parker County, Texas
Now I admit there is not anything particularly spectacular about this bowl. It is what I call a "stock" bowl that I turn a bunch of. Yesterday I was doing several rough outs of similar bowls to this one, and posted one online. It's 10 1/2" in diameter, 2 3/4" high, and 2" deep. Has the usual finish of being sealed with walnut oil and several coats of walnut oil/shellac mixture. Several of my off line customers saw it and was inquiring about it and then one of my repeat online customers got interested in it. Well, one of off line customers got it. The online customer decided she wanted 8 of them but just a bit smaller. So, I sold the posted bowl in about 2 hours and got a special order for 8 more bowls. That does not happen everyday, for sure. And today I kinda wore myself and a friend out moving pecan logs to my log yard. Probably in the neighborhood of 3 tons of it.


 
Sounds like a good set of customers! Do you usually get a lot of repeat business?

Nice looking bowl. Cottonwood can be a bit of a pain, but looks like you have the knack of working with it down pat.
 
Hi Ryan! Yes, I have a lot of repeat customers all over. And, 3 international resellers as well. All keep me really going. That 's why I have to turn at least 200 pieces a year just to keep up and maintain any kind of inventory online. I sell a lot of cottonwood bowls. It took a couple of trial and errors to get the hang of how it works, but after that no real problem. Of course we all run into a piece of wood that just will not cooperate with you no matter what. Back to the customers. I have never had the customers going after one bowl like that. That was quite different.
 
Apparently its a winner, and will grant that its definitely a nice looking piece of wood with a great shape to it! :thumb:

I'm sort of at the "running out of people to give bowls to" stage so might have to start selling them at some point (I've been vigorously avoiding selling anything because it involves talking to lawyers @ work to do it on the side and there are few things I'm less fond of doing). Either that or LOML's going to end up lighting up the bonfire in the back yard ("what ARE you going to do with that stack of bowls on the table"... "I dunno, I figured I'd add them to the stack on the mantle or the stack on top of the bookshelf maybe".) The idea of repeat customers for some of this is appealing :D
 
Hi guys! Yep. Sales do speak volumes. Ryan, when you have a decent stock of bowls, try just going to craft fairs and such as that. In my area there are a lot of those around. Some are put on by churches as well. I only go to one fair because I honestly don't have the time to go to others. And, I am not interested in sitting all day roasting in the heat to sell a few items. I spent too long in the Marines to need practice in being miserable. But, some of the fair are indoors. The one I go to is. For those little fairs you usually don't have to do all the business stuff. And, you can reduce your stock and make a few extra bucks. Gonna shut up now and go get some more coffee!
 
Cottonwood! Darn pretty bowl although I wish they would eradicate the tree. In the spring around here is looks like it is snowing with all the cotton from the tree floating around. Your bowl raises my respect for the tree up a couple notches.
 
Well, Paul. I'm not sure just what to say on that. Yep, spring brings cottonwood pollen. It can clog air filters, outside screens on ac units depending on how much of it you have around. But, the wood is excellent bowl, platter, and serving dish wood. Even the settlers and cowboys in the old west saw the value in cottonwood, because if nothing else where there was cottonwood trees there was water. The settlers used it to quickly carve bowls and so on as it is pretty soft stuff. And, I sell a lot of cottonwood bowls. Pretty much as many as I can get turned. So, I love cottonwood.
 
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