Cottonwood Serving Bowl

Dave Hoskins

Member
Messages
5,252
Location
Parker County, Texas
I've been doing a fair amount of roughing out bowl to fill the kiln up and this one was through so I finished it up today. It has some of the typical burring in cottonwood but adds to the rustic affect that most of my customers love. The bowl is 12 1/4" in diameter, 5" high, and has a depth of 4". As I always do the wood was sealed with walnut oil and then it received several coats of the walnut oil/shellac mixture while spinning that I use. I kept my usual broad foot on it. Guess there ain't much else to say about it.

 
Thanks, guys. There is a secret, sort of. Cottonwood is funny stuff to work with. When you turn it real, real green you tend to take a bath from it from all the water it's holding. After I had this one roughed out, like all of my roughs, I weighed it before it went into the kiln. I weighed 9 lbs. When I took it out after 4 days it weighed about 6. To get the best color from cottonwood is I found is don't rough it out totally green. Let the log age a bit. You lose a little from checking but it usually is worth it. Also, Ryan is right. Part of it is using the walnut oil to seal the wood. It brings out the color more. When I first started turning I used urethane and lacquer for my finishes. After some research I came to know walnut oil and have been using ever since and that's about 7 years. It also allows you to see flaws in the wood that you might not see otherwise and the walnut oil allows you to correct those flaws a lot easier. Then as you know I finish them with a mixture of walnut oil and shellac. In my opinion it's the only way to go. But, as I said it's my opinion.
 
Great looking bowl, I've only had one half a log of cottonwood and got two small bowls from it... I like how it worked and handled... it's a lot like the royal paulownia I have... tendency to tear out, some grain lines and very light weight. Also similar to white cedar.
 
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