Spalted Alder from Ellie

Vaughn McMillan

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ABQ NM
This shallow bowl came from a dead alder tree that a neighbor lady had removed from her yard a few weeks ago. It's about 9 1/4" wide by 1 3/4" tall...this piece is made from scrap left over after I cut up a bunch of bowl and hollow form blanks.

This is the first piece of it I've finished, and although it has some neat bug holes and a little spalting, this piece is rather plain compared to all the others I got from the logs she gave me. The wood was fairly punky and prone to tearout, but light and careful cuts handled most of it, and it finished out nicely. I'll be getting lots of practice with shear scraping cuts before I'm done with all of this wood. I'm looking forward to it, since based on the pieces I've roughed out already, there were some very nice woodturnings hiding in that old dead alder.

The finish is my regular Formby's Tung Oil mix, buffed with tripoli and white diamond, then Renaissance Wax. It darkened a lot when the oil hit it, but I like the color. I missed the mark a bit on the form (there's a hump in the outside curve), but that's my pickiness showing through.

Bowl 021 - 04 800.jpg Bowl 021 - 01 800.jpg Bowl 021 - 06 800.jpg

This bowl is going to the neighbor lady, and I'll probably give her a small (more spalted) hollow form later.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
 
Very nice Vaughn, I love the simplicity of it.

I'm also warming to the edge treatment you give a lot of these bowls, I did not like it, at first, but you are converting me! :D
 
Thanks for the compliments guys. I took the bowl over to Ellie yesterday and she was real pleased. As it turns out she's an accomplished painter, so she invited me in to see some of her paintings. Seems like nearly everyone that lives here in the cul-de-sac is an artist in one way or another. We have the makings for our own little artist's enclave up on the hill.

I've got another alder bowl in the final steps of finishing, so I'll post pics of it in the next few days. I'm really liking this wood.
 
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