Black Walnut Natural Edge

Mark Cothren

Member
Messages
271
Location
Pickles Gap, Arkansas
And yet another one... 19" wide at the tips... antique oil finish...

BlackWalnutNE01-1.jpg


BlackWalnutNE02-1.jpg
 
Mark,

I wish I could turn just one NE as well as you do on all of yours! Another beautiful piece. Do you ever run out of walnut?
 
Wow, that looks like some of that rare Black Cedarnut wood. :p Another fine one Mark. At 19", that's a biggun, too.
 
Mark,

How do you sand these? And don't tell me they come off the tool that nice (no need for sanding). That would kill me. I actually have hopes of making mine look like yours some day.
 
Mark,

How do you sand these? And don't tell me they come off the tool that nice (no need for sanding). That would kill me. I actually have hopes of making mine look like yours some day.
Mark probably just touches them up by hand starting with 220 grit, but on the few natural edge bowls I've done, I used a 2" Grex pneumatic random orbital sander. With the lathe turned off. :p
 
Chris, I've not seen a problem with swirls using the random orbital sander. I call it my "scratch eraser". If I use a straight, non-random orbital sander (like a sanding pad on a drill motor), the swirls are much more apparent. I always like to do my medium to fine grit sanding with the random orbital sander, and with the lathe turned off. For me, sanding with the lathe running almost guarantees I'll get horizontal sanding scratches on the piece.
 
Mark,

How do you sand these? And don't tell me they come off the tool that nice (no need for sanding). That would kill me. I actually have hopes of making mine look like yours some day.


Sorry Chris, just now saw this... like Vaughn, I sand the wings with the lathe turned off. I rotate the piece by hand while using 3" discs on a soft backing pad with an angle drill. I sand below the wings just like I do anything else - power sanding with the lathe spinning.

The thing that gets me about Walnut is that it is hard to sand a NE without staining the sapwood with the heartwood dust and bark dust - especially on the wings. I recently roughed a Walnut NE and then removed the bark. I'm going to experiement and see if it will sand any "cleaner" than with the bark on.
 
Vaughn,

Thanks for the info. As always you've been very helpful even to a new guy.

Mark,

Thanks for describing your method. I have tried your method before and I too had issues with staining the sap wood. Let us know how it goes with your experiment.

edit: Oops, I forgot to tell you that this is a beautiful bowl. Well done as usual.
 
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