Calling on bowl-turners

Well my friend, I think you will find the answers to your questions in a fairly new issue from the Taunton Press. I think its called Fine Woodturning. I believe I saw a copy at your friendly neighborhood woodstore. I believe they will let you look at it as long as you need!

-- Jeff - Bellevue,Ne.

Which friendly wood store would you be talking about? <snicker>. And what friend do I know with a riser kit on his bandsaw? I believe I’ll be calling my good buddy when I hit home! See you soon.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Well – this will not be definitve by any stretch, but…

leave the logs as long as possible at this point – as they will start to check shortly! If you have a chainsaw (do you?), you can rip the log in half -lengthwise (you will later be able to cut a round bowl blank on YOUR bandsaw). It would be more work but you could do this with a hand saw (rip saw). You’ll want to cut out the pith as best you can without wasting too much wood. Also, cut flat spots on the outsides (opposite the rip cut you made) to give you a surface about 3-4” wide. You should seal the ends with melted parrafin, latex paint or a green wood end sealer (Rockler and Woodcraft have this stuff – spendy though) if you are not going to turn this right away (and again, leave the length, which you will cut down to size later).

Now, if you are ready to throw this on the lathe: make a 9-10inch pattern (our mini lathes have a 10” max. dia. I believe) and trace it on the blank (or freehand it), or better yet, use a pair of dividers. Cut this rough circle on your bandsaw. Now, I’m assuming you can take it from there?

Another thing…if all is well so far, I would suggest rough turning the bowl/s to 1” or so, then wrap them in a brown paper bag/s to let them dry slowly for the next few weeks – months (checking and changing the bag frequently to avoid molding, etc). The rough turned bowl blanks will warp a bit. When they’re dry you can turn them to their finished thickness. OR, you could go all the way to finished thickness now and expect that your finished bowls will warp to their own unique shape (some people love this – others don’t – I like both)...

Hope this helps!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Oh, here’s some more: You can mount the blank from the outside (what will be the bottom of the bowl) or the inside of the blank, which is probably easier to do. If you first mount up from the inside of the blank, you can turn your rough outer shape and turn a recess at the bottom to chuck in to. My experience with chucking up green wood is that a recessed dovetail works better than a dovetail tenon. Chuck up the bowl in the recessed dovetail and waste the inside.

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Dorje-
Thanks. You have solved the real headscratcher for me. The long center rip and the pith removal. From there I have a smallish clue what to do. I have some Pentacryl (left from an experiment with unstabilized Buckeye Burl I tried to make into pen blanks) to paint on the roughed out blank and a little Nova G3, so I will likely mount into the bottom after faceplate turning the recess.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Perfect! Looking forward to seeing how the bowls turn out…

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

A classic quote! If you can’t cut the pith out, then don’t forget to “turn the pith out of it.” -Bill Grumbine

Here’s exactly what you need to do.

http://www.enter.net/~ultradad/logcutting.html

Ahhh, but it looks like you’re there already…disregard. :)

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

http://www.customwooddesign.com/turninggreenwood-1.html

Check out this link. I hope it helps.

Mot, I was looking for that link, thanks.

-- Jesus is Lord!

Another reason I’m a Lumberjock, the helpful sharing. I’ve been to other sites where it’s just one snarky self-serving comment after another. We share. Thank you Gentlemen!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Great links you guys! I’ll save those for future reference!

DB- Have you cut those logs open yet? Can’t wait to see what the red streaking looks like!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Dorje-
I cut them Sunday, waiting for tomorrow to have some time to work the blanks a little. The stain is pretty tight around the heartwood, although in the FWW article I read there was red throughout the sapwood as well. This made for a lot of drama with the red against the creamy white (Box-elder is of the maple family).

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Gallery/GalleryImage.aspx?id=4388

I will cut the rough blanks and post a couple of photos. The bowls or platters will be small, with little red, I fear.

I have decided to try some as roughed out to dry, and some turned thin to allow the free-form warp as they dry approach. I will keep you posted. Who knows, it may be come a new favorite pastime. The price sure is right!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Thanks for the update! That picture of the bowl on FWW is really pretty. There’s a volunteer box elder at my grandma’s (5 blocks away) that’s about 7-9 years old, 20-25 feet tall…hmmm. Only 6-7” diameter at this point. Don’t worry – I won’t hurt it. Just imagining taking it down in another 10-20 years or so. The FWW page said the red comes from stress…another thing to think about!

Can’t wait to see your pics!

Love that you’re experimenting with the different approaches!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

First photo of the box-elder logs.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Whoooo! I love that stuff! Can’t wait to see what you turn!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Very pretty.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

ooooooooooh nice!!!!

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

That’s really cool to see! Thanks for the photo!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Tight shot of wet bowl

and another

I had a catch while screwed to the face plate, and lost some height to cracking.
I wonder if using the woodworm screw might be better?

Now it’s in a paper bag to dry some more

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

There is the answer to my question in your other project post. How long will you leave it to dry?

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

Looks like you had some fun today! This process is fun to see! That box elder is really interesting.

You got quite a bit of that red in there!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

What causes the red streaking? Is it normal for the wood, or something from the soil? microbial?

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

It’s stress induced, from any source, I think (I wish Jon Arno was still living, he used to lurk around FWW forums, and knew more about commercially important wood species than anyone).

Say, fellows; is that roughness at the end grain a function of the wet wood, or am I doing something wrong?
I’m not sure what tools to use on the outside of the bowl (and if I type bowel one more time today [former nurse], I’m cutting off my left index finger).

And it was Dick Cain http://lumberjocks.com/topics/show/559
that had the piece about making a scraper from an old file. Thanks Dick! It works like a champ (and totally within my tight budget this summer).

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Here’s the dinky finished bowl. Couldn’t live with the warp.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

this would be in my “favourites” of bowls. It is SO cute!! I can see it serving a variety of functions, beyond just being a beautiful piece to look at!

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Thanks Debbie!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Hello Douglas,

I’m a production bowl turner, so I may be of some help here… I’m not sure what tool you used, or how you turned your bowl, so I will offer several possibilities. The tear out on the end grain is probably caused by cutting the wood in and unsupported direction, or by using the wrong tool to profile the exterior of your bowl form. If turning side grain bowls (where the pith is near the rim and the bark is near the foot), you should be cutting from the foot to the rim on the exterior for the best cut. Cutting in this direction produces a supported fiber cut, where the wood fibers help to support the cut as it is being made.

If you cut in the opposite direction (rim to foot on a side grain bowl) you are cutting in an unsupported direction and the wood does not like being cut this way and the wood fibers tend to lay down and tear out when cut. This produces the fuzzy surface evidenced in your photo. The best tool to turn bowls with is a bowl gouge, but if you only have a few tools and you’re working on the exterior of your profile, a spindle gouge could be used, but not on the interior sweep of the bowl.

If you used a scraper on the exterior, it could well have torn the grain if used in the traditional (flat on the tool rest) manner. Scrapers can be successfully used on the exterior of bowl profiles (as well as on the interior with proper presentation), but the presentation of the tool to the wood should be oriented to produce a shear cutting action. This is easily accomplished by lifting one side of the gouge to about 45 – 50 degrees and sweeping from the foot to the rim.

You can also use your bowl gouge to shear scrape, if you have an Irish grind on the profile. The gouge can be turned upside down (only one cutting edge on the wing touches the wood, the other is held about 1/16” off the surface of the wood) and swept back with the angle of the wing at 45 – 50 degrees. Yet another way to sweeten the exterior is to perform a bevel rubbing pulling cut, whereby the bevel of the wing (not the mouth bevel) is rubbed on the wood and gently pulled towards the rim. This produces a very fine and delicate cut that is mirror smooth, although it is somewhat of an advanced technique.

Please accept my apologies for the long post… I have a tendency to go into detail when many folks just want a five cent answer. There are numerous articles on my website on woodturning related topics (look under the main library button), including turning bowls and drying green wood that you may wish to peruse. If I can help you in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me. Take care and best wishes in all of your woodturning endeavors!

I may be able to get a short video together on shear scraping, or the bevel rubbing pull cut if this would assist you. I’m new to the forum, so I do not know if this is permissible or not.

Steve Russell
EWW, WVP
The Woodlands, Texas

-- Better Woodturning and Finishing Through Chemistry... http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com

Hello again Douglas,

Here is a link to some information on what causes the red stain in Box Elders… In a production bowl turning studio like mine, the red stain is called “Oro Rojo, or Red Gold” because it’s money in the bank! Ka Ching!!! Here is the link…

http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/pub/php/research/redstain/

Steve Russell
EWW, WVP
The Woodlands, Texas

-- Better Woodturning and Finishing Through Chemistry... http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com

Steve,
Thanks for the fifty-dollar answer, just the sort of complete info I like. Most of the folks here know I am from the long-winded tribe (with plenty of goofy parenthetical asides), so you have fallen in with like-minded company here.

We would love to see any kind of video tutoring, it’s very popular and most appreciated. Check the formatting bar above the composition box for the “picture & video friendly” link for help with this, and/or start your own blog topic. Martin, the sysop/mastermind of Lumberjocks can help, as can any of the other poster of video. You can search the tagline “video” on the search function at the top of the page to learn who else is at it with the camera.

Again, thank you for sharing the richness of your experience with me, and the rest of us that belong to this wonderful community. I will be adding this post to my favorites for instant retrieval, and will start turning with some new skills later this week as a result. Beats paying for a five day symposium with Dale Nish and the Utah five (although that is a dream of mine, as well as meeting my Box-Gods, Doug Stowe, Bill McDowell and Phillip Weber, noted box-makers and teachers).

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

I agree with Douglas here that the long version is what we’re after!

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Hello Douglas,

Thanks for your kind words… I’ve produced three DVD videos on woodturning, but I’m not familiar with the interface here on LJ’s, so I’ll have to investigate further. I sunk about $15,000.00 into my video setup, including the NLE workstation, so I should have everything I need except the uploading protocols, size limits, preferred formats, frame rates etc. I’ll try a test video and see what happens…

If I can ever help you with your woodturning, please do not hesitate to contact me. I’m more than happy to help in any way I can… Take care and all the best to you and yours!

Steve Russell
EWW, WVP
The Woodlands, Texas

-- Better Woodturning and Finishing Through Chemistry... http://www.woodturningvideosplus.com