• September 2025 Turning Challenge: Cindy Drozda Finial Box! (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Dave Potts, People's Choice in the August 2025 Turning Challenge (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Paul May for "Slipstream" being selected as Turning of the Week for September 8, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Bowl from customer supplied wood

J

Jim McLain

Artist
Joined
Apr 7, 2011
Messages
280
Likes
2,145
Location
Socorro, New Mexico
Website
www.lucadecor.com
A first for me. I have a customer that would like me to turn a functional bowl out of a customer supplied dry redwood burl. Knowing redwood the finishing will take as long as the turning. Not sure to charge for such a process. Have any of you run into this? Usually functional bowl don’t have a lot of time in them but my time is worth something.
 
Generally a good problem. I would think of how I price a similar item I make and start with that price and add some for the inconvenience of having to work on that piece or take some off depending on how good of a customer the person was or any personal relationship.
 
Jim McLain said:
A first for me. I have a customer that would like me to turn a functional bowl out of a customer supplied dry redwood burl. Knowing redwood the finishing will take as long as the turning. Not sure to charge for such a process. Have any of you run into this? Usually functional bowl don’t have a lot of time in them but my time is worth something.
Click to expand...

I have zero experience with redwood burls, have never seen one. But they are anything like burls from some other species such as cherry, it's not unusual to find unpleasant surprises inside. There may be unexpected voids which might make a nice art piece but could prevent completing a "functional" bowl, whatever that means. (Bowl for soup, for apples and oranges, mail?)

If the wood has already been cut so you can see the inside it might be easier to estimate. For example, this one from maple looks perfect inside after being cut through the middle - I have confidence I could complete a useful bowl from it.

burl_found.jpg

I don't charge to make things but if I did, and the wood inside the burl was unknown, I might estimate the time to do the first part - the time needed to prep, mount, and shape the piece enough to evaluate the wood inside . Then show them what you discovered and if it looks reasonable, estimate the time to complete the bowl. Maybe they would be agreeable to that.

Perhaps someone with experience in redwood burls might have useful advice.

JKJ
 
Just be sure to tell them ahead of time that there might be nothing useable inside the burl. You don't want them to think you ruined it if it turns out to be useless.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top