Walnut bowl blanks from firewood

[Lyle Jamieson]

Hi Lyle,
Thanks for great your input. When I turned the "once turned" green bowl, I did not do a shearing cut to clean it up, not sure why but he was helping another student so he either did not want me to or he got distracted and forgot. Now the bowl in the picture is pretty rough due to that and when I cut the tenon off he said to wait until dry to sand it. The other thing about turning green wood is all the sanding and finishing has to be done off the lathe??
How much of a finished product are you talking about?
1. Do you sand it on the lathe?
2. Do you do a shear cut while green?
3. If you don't mind can you post a couple of pics of your bowls that were turned once?

Hi Greg, Looks like you've come a long way in a short time.
EVERYTHING I turn is green wood to finished piece.
I do all my sanding on the lathe. By the time I turn the green wood to a thin/uniform wall the wood starts drying while I'm turning. I can frequently sand immediately after shaping. Worst case scenario I wait a few hours, go to lunch. Once the surface has dried, I begin sanding so I don't have a problem with clogging the sandpaper. This is done in stages, while still on the lathe. Sand the outside first, sand the inside, reverse mount b/w centers to clean up the foot. Wait again until that dries.....sand the bottom, on the lathe.

The moisture content of the wood does not matter when doing a proper shear cut or shear scrape.....

The bowl will distort when drying, I usually do natural edge bowls that makes it more difficult to notice that it is not round.
Sanding needs to be done at slow speed with sharp sandpaper because of the wobble.

We need to do three things to turn green wood without cracking.
1. No cracks in the blank - that's why I chose to turn green wood
2. NO pith!
3. Uniform wall thickness
If you follow these three rules - you will not have to worry about your final piece cracking.......

 

[Greg Carles]

(I expect you did this to finish the bowl bottoms - except you want something not-pointy in the tailstock).

Yes and thank you.
I used a "bun" I think he called it, with a piece of shelf liner between it and the bowl. Then we slid up the oneway tail stock without the point for support to cut off the tenon, this left a nub which he had us remove with a reciprocating saw type deal.
Thank for you valuable information!
Us newbies have tons of questions that can't all be covered in class simply due to the time alotted, and other turners that are being tended to by the instructor- you don't always get time to ask all the questions.

 

[Greg Carles]

Hi Greg, Looks like you've come a long way in a short time.
EVERYTHING I turn is green wood to finished piece.
I do all my sanding on the lathe. By the time I turn the green wood to a thin/uniform wall the wood starts drying while I'm turning. I can frequently sand immediately after shaping. Worst case scenario I wait a few hours, go to lunch. Once the surface has dried, I begin sanding so I don't have a problem with clogging the sandpaper. This is done in stages, while still on the lathe. Sand the outside first, sand the inside, reverse mount b/w centers to clean up the foot. Wait again until that dries.....sand the bottom, on the lathe.

The moisture content of the wood does not matter when doing a proper shear cut or shear scrape.....

The bowl will distort when drying, I usually do natural edge bowls that makes it more difficult to notice that it is not round.
Sanding needs to be done at slow speed with sharp sandpaper because of the wobble.

We need to do three things to turn green wood without cracking.
1. No cracks in the blank - that's why I chose to turn green wood
2. NO pith!
3. Uniform wall thickness
If you follow these three rules - you will not have to worry about your final piece cracking.......

Oh my gosh, Thank you that is a wealth of information that I am still learning!
You did a fantastic job answering my questions, I cannot tell you how I appreciate it.


Now for instance if you have cut the tenon off ( like I did) and now need to sand I will need to then sand by hand? or with a drill mandrel mounted sanding disc?

 

[Marc Banka]

That’s a nice haul! I just came upon a bunch of free Sweetgum, but I’d much rather it be Walnut haha.

Regarding your two bowls, since you offered them up for critique. The larger wider bowl is fantastic! I see a couple of sanding marks left to work out, but the form is really nice. I’m not a big fan of the other bowl though. I would have preferred if you continued the concave curve to the lip, ogee style, instead of bringing it back. As it is, it looks more like a hybrid of two bowls. Just my two cents.

EDIT: just overlooked that these are some of your first bowls. Excellent job!! Color me impressed!

Michael, regarding your batch of Sweetgum. I’m in the middle of a bunch of it that I got a few years ago. I once turned a few pieces, but the majority was to be twice turned.
I advise only the twice turned method. Big reason is that green Sweetgum has very little color. It seems the color has to develop, which I saw after I had turned some, very wet, fresh wood, coated with anchor seal and set in the shelf. I’m just a few days a black ‘bloom’ spread across the surface, looking a bit scary. Well, that’s the stuff that makes the color!

I hope this isn’t old news. Sweetgum has become one of my favorites.

Sweetgum, aka Velvet Walnut

 

[Marc Banka]

More pics

I’m blown away by all that you‘ve learned so quickly. I think you’re on to something here!

 

[robo hippy]

I do like the shape of the second bowl best. As for green once turned bowls, that is how I do all of mine. I do use a shear scrape for the finish cuts, and prefer a burnished burr on a scraper for that cut. The problem with a finish cut with a gouge is that no matter how light your touch is, you slightly burnish the surface. The burnishing has to be sanded out. Also, most of the time, my shear scraping leaves a smoother/less bumpy surface than my gouge work does.

As for sanding my green bowls, I sand on the lathe. I prefer to let them dry, which takes a maximum of a week even in our wet winters here. I do use a recess, and even though the recess goes oval, I can mount it on extended pin jaws. I do have to wiggle it around a bit to get all 4 jaws on the wood. You do not need the grip for sanding that you need for turning. Also, you need lathe speeds of 15 or so rpm or less for sanding warped bowls. Otherwise you can't keep the abrasives on the wood. I did make an articulated arm for sanding and it allows me to hold the angle drill with one hand since my arm is resting on the padded arm, and spin the bowl with the other hand. This is great for a long day of sanding....

I do cover all of this in my bowl turning videos.

robo hippy

 

[Michael Anderson]

Michael, regarding your batch of Sweetgum. I’m in the middle of a bunch of it that I got a few years ago. I once turned a few pieces, but the majority was to be twice turned.
I advise only the twice turned method. Big reason is that green Sweetgum has very little color. It seems the color has to develop, which I saw after I had turned some, very wet, fresh wood, coated with anchor seal and set in the shelf. I’m just a few days a black ‘bloom’ spread across the surface, looking a bit scary. Well, that’s the stuff that makes the color!

I hope this isn’t old news. Sweetgum has become one of my favorites.

Sweetgum, aka Velvet Walnut

Thanks for the information Marc. That's a beautiful bowl with amazing color! Aside from the "chaos heartwood characteristic" (if that makes sense), I would have never pegged it was Sweetgum.

To be honest, this is my first experience with it, and like you said it doesn't really have much color. I HAVE noticed the extremely faint brown/gray streaks in the creamy sapwood--I guess those darken tremendously? At this point, I've just been turning thin and painting, but I have a batch set aside for twice turned bowls. After reading your comments, I'm much more excited to leave them naturally colored! A bit giddy, almost.

Velvet walnut is a great nickname haha.

 

[Michael Anderson]

I hope this isn’t old news. Sweetgum has become one of my favorites.

Sweetgum, aka Velvet Walnut

Oh, and definitely not old news--all new to me. I will say that it turns quite well! It also shrinks/warps more more than most woods I have experience with. One of my thin bowls ended up like a football after drying haha

 

[hockenbery]

Do you sand it on the lathe?

An after thought

If I have a detail on the once turned piece - a bead or a groove or some detail at the foot
I sand the details to 320 on the lathe.
When I sand the dry piece I use Velcro discs on an 90 degree drill keeping the contact edge of the disc in line with the grain.
I then lightly sand the detail by hand with 320 .