Japanese cherry bowl

Drew Watson

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Location
Salt Spring Island, BC Canada
I finally got inspired after our monthly guild meeting to turn one of the larger chunks of that Japanese cherry that I recived. Stu I agree I love this wood as the colors and grain are stunning. Ok I tried something different in the design and look but this is what the bowl said to me ( if that makes any sence). I am not too sure that i should listen to the wood but I do. I am still not happy with the bases yet and when I get ( or make) a jumbo jaw set then I am hoping to re turn that foot off and finish it off. I just wanted to turn something before it dried out too much and cracked. I already lost one bowl that I rough turned to that already. This morning I see that it has already started to change shape so re-turning may not be an option again. Comments and opinions are always welcome as I don't learn nutin from silence. :rolleyes: :D
 
Wonderful piece of wood Drew, stunning!

The shape is not one that I like to turn, but that being said, I know that others enjoy it, and the finish looks good :thumb:

Keep them coming! :wave:
 
Wonderful piece of wood Drew, stunning!

The shape is not one that I like to turn, but that being said, I know that others enjoy it, and the finish looks good :thumb:

Keep them coming! :wave:

The finish is sanded to 600 grit wet & dry and then I used the buffer and wax finish from the bealle system. One of the fellows at the meeting suggested that I crank up the speed a bit on the buffer as I have been doing it at 1725 rpm as the system suggested I tries cranking it up to 2500-3500 rpm. Any advice or suggestions on that from those with more experience?
 
real purty wood drew,, that would make some nice flat stuff if it hangs onto the red in it:) the bowl shape looks fine for a bowl ,, the finish appears to ideal..me not being a turner i assume you are talking about the pointed part as the foot that needs work yet..could do that by hand couldnt you then buff that part again???
 
That's a sweet piece of wood Drew, and you did a great job on it. I'm kinda like Stu...the ogee profile on the sides and relatively flat bottom are not my favorites for bowl forms, but that's just a personal opinion. The shape you made, you made well. :thumb: I agree with you that the foot could either go away or be reduced to nearly nothing. BTW, I'd suggest a donut chuck instead of jumbo jaws. The donut is more versatile for different shapes and also less likely to launch a bowl across the shop.

On the buffing question, the higher speeds might help on wood with no membrane finish (I don't know for certain), but in my experience I've seen tripoli or white diamond compound strip away varnish or lacquer finishes in a heartbeat when the wheels were running too fast. On the carnauba wheel, I think the faster speeds might help melt the wax into the wood a bit more, but here again, I'd be leery of doing it that fast over a membrane finish.
 
Well I left the bowl all day while I cleaned and organized the shop ( added my old stereo system ) when I came in at the end of the day I was shocked to find that the bowl had done a bit of moving. I had not expected this much and am looking forward to seeing just how much it will change. I have had some bowls that i have done with Arbutus( madrona) change like this while drying but I had not expected it from this wood. I don't think I will be re-turning this bowl now.

Prior to doing the bowl and part of my motivation to get a jump on this was wood was due to the first bowl that I had rough turned had cracked lots. I turned it right away and I was able to salvage a small dish out of it. I left it leaning upside down on some books and forgot about it and was shocked to find this.:eek:
 

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Drew, did that wood have shoes on it? It sure did a lot of traveling. Seeing how prone it is to move, I can see why the earlier attempts cracked. (I'm guessing the bowl you mentioned had thicker walls.)
 
Drew, did that wood have shoes on it? It sure did a lot of traveling. Seeing how prone it is to move, I can see why the earlier attempts cracked. (I'm guessing the bowl you mentioned had thicker walls.)

It did have thicker walls Vaughn. It was just rough turned as I have with so many other bowls leaving thicker walls. I sealed it and brown bagged it stuffed it in a cool dark spot of the garage and it has been really cool here at night and it still cracked. I have never seen this wood turned before so I jumped at the chance to give it a try. Stu has more experience with this type of wood so I hope that he can pass on some of his experiences with it.
 
Wow, that did move a ton!

I think you should try the DNA method and see if that helps, also when you rough turn a bowl, you must leave it 10% of diameter, so a 10" bowl is 1" thick at the rim, make sure things are smooth, no sharp corners and also make the bottom of the bowl slightly thinner than the rim is. Too often we leave the bottom of the bowl say 1 1/2" thick and the rim 1" thick, well the bottom will move more than the rim, because there is more wood there, resulting in a crack, if the rim is thicker, then the bottom can move around a bit but still be held in place by the rim. BTW, when I say leave the bottom slightly thinner than the rim, I'm not counting the thickness of the tenon.

Cheers!
 
Stu, I'm betting as much as that stuff is moving, leaving it 10% thick would end up cracking pretty much no matter what a person did. (That's what happened to Drew's earlier bowl.) The DNA bath seems to speed up the drying time, but I've not seen any appreciable reduction in movement when the piece does dry.

My vote would be to turn it as thin as practical, sand to 400+ grit, then just let it do its thing. A light hand sanding after it's dry, then hit it with the finish of choice. Or he could apply an oil finish while it's still wet, which might possibly reduce the movement. (I think Bernie has done some wet pieces like that.)
 
Actually Stu I did the rough turning exactly as you have discribed and it still cracked. That is why I turned the second piece to the finish thickness to see what would happen with interesting results. I buffed and waxed it right away after turning and I will try an oil finish on it next time Vaughn. This is all interesting as to seeing how this wood changes. The good thing was that after over night it seems to have stopped. I wonder if dropping the temp during the drying process would have any effect on it? Maybe stick in in the fridge for a day or two. Any ideas on that and what it might do?
 
Great bowl and that is some beautiful wood. Some woods are going to move no matter what. I think DNA would probably help but like was said rough out wall thickness needs to be around 10%. As Stu said don't leave the lip of the bowl with square edges. Round the rim.
 
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Great bowl and that is some beautiful wood. Some woods are going to move no matter what. I think DNA would probably help but like was said rough out wall thickness needs to be around 10%. As Stu said don't leave the lip of the bowl with square edges. Round the rim.

I did leave the bowl edge square but I did that with a couple of other rough turning blanks of the same wood and neither of those have done the same thing with cracking. Hmmmm I will try the rounding over though and give it a try. One of the fellows at the turning guild mentioned that turning them thin right from the get go will stop the cracking, This is when I opened up the bag and found the first blank with huge cracks in it but the other two that had been sitting right beside the bagged bowl in a box had not cracked. The last one is still not cracked yet. Maybe it has something to do with the size of the blank with this wood. I guess it is going to be trial and error with this wood and playing around with different preperations till I get it right. The neighbor is talking about bringing down his japanese cherry tree this year or maybe next and i have told him I will take the entire tree.
 
Just to add a bit more to the cracking vs. warping discussion, here are my examples. Both were turned from wet madrone burl and are about the same size. One was turned to about 10% wall thickness, the other was turned to finished thickness. Both were DNA soaked, wrapped in newspaper, and dried about a month. See if you can guess which is which. ;)

HF4aT 800.jpg HF026 - 09 800.jpg

Some wood just wants to move. :p
 
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