bowls from lumber

[David Howe]

I have a lot of lumber from when I use to do woodworking. If I glued it up to make bowls how should I Mount the piece. End grain towards the head stock or side grain towards the head stock? Kiln dried wood

 

[odie]

I actually made quite a few bowls from KD lumber from a local lumber yard, when I was first learning. It was plentiful and fairly inexpensive wood. This makes a good combination for those just starting out. You will want side grain towards the headstock.

A pretty nice looking large bowl can be made by sandwiching two 8/4 squares between some veneer. From the end grain view, put the grain in a rainbow orientation at the top of the bowl. The bottom of the bowl should be a horseshoe grain orientation. If you use light colored 8/4 lumber, use a dark colored veneer for the middle, and vise versa.

Since you will probably want to use a waste block to preserve the proportions, it can be set up to either be held by a chuck, or a faceplate, but it will be turned round while holding the bowl at the top with a faceplate. Back then, I used newspaper to separate the waste block from the bowl itself. This helps to remove the waste block using a chisel.....not sure how much accessories you have, but I'd prefer to part the waste block from the finished bowl, but this requires using a turned jam chuck, or a chuck with jumbo jaws having rubber grippers.

These are easy bowls to make up, and you can do a marathon of practice bowls without ever having to deal with unseasoned wood, or spending a lot of money with prepared seasoned bowl blanks, or twice turned bowls......a good learning experience.

-----odie-----

 

[Doug Freeman]

I started with kd lumber and making segmented projects. Lots of info available for segmenting, or go the simpler route Odie described.

 

[Brian Gustin]

one of my popular sellers for some reason are bowls made from scraps.. anything from 1/4 inch thick to 1-1/2 thick pieces that I'd plane or cut to make up a board (A La cutting board of sorts) , glue up several of those then flatten them and glue the 2 or 3 "boards" together into a sort of square-ish bowl blank and then turn a bowl from it.. makes a multi-colored (assuming you use many different species) bowl - sort of a poor-man's segmented bowl without having to cut individual angled segments.. if you arrange your boards with some thought you can make some pretty nice patterns.

 

[hockenbery]

There are lots of options for glue ups.

Most bowls are hollowed through the face grain. The side walls are stronger and you see pretty wood in the bottom of the bowl.
Furniture makers have been hiding endgrain for a many centuries because it is rarely attractive.

A few options you can Pursue
Glue up a Face grain stack and turn a bowl
bowl from a board glue up a wide board or use a wide board. Cut rings at an angle with a parting tool so they stack for gluing.
The stacked rings form the rough bowl walls. Articles on this are easy to follow
Segmented construction rings are glued from tiny wedges(segments). This is and area you can spend a lifetime in.

There are stave construction for bowls, birdhouses…

If you have 1.5 or thicker boards you can make seed jars - sort of glue two bowls together at the rim

Turning a seed jar - split hollow form

I turned one of these for after dinner entertainment at SWAT-2017 along with Trent Bosch. Trent turned a traditional hollow form in an informal race and finished first. A fun time. Since then I have done several of these in club demos and also did a club workshop where students turned them...

www.aawforum.org

 

[Dean Center]

Don't overlook using the wood, as is, for small projects. Baby rattles, weed pots, honey dippers, spoons, tops, kitchen ware, etc, etc. Nick Cook makes a living doing just that.

You can also make plates, platters, tortilla warmers, saturn bowls, and nut bowls from 4/4-8/4 lumber, if you plan ahead. (glue blocks are your friend)

 

[hockenbery]

While it is fun to experiment with lumber - it is not well suited for bowls in general
I find that Turning bowls from logs is much more rewarding on many levels.

Turning green wood is way less dusty and more enjoyable from a tactile sense.

As others have pointed out lumber has many suitable uses for turning.

Make some stools - every shop needs them.

 

[robo hippy]

Well, you can get scraps of hardwoods, some times just for the cost of picking them up. They can be suitable for turning. The lumber used in construction can work, but they are not hard woods, and generally don't turn very well, but it can be done. If you can find any one with a portable bandsaw mill, they have lots of off cuts that are perfect for making bowls. If you are considering glue ups, for flat grain, you pretty much need the surfaces to be dead flat. Otherwise you get gaps in your glue joints which can be part of a bowl blowing up as you are turning it.

robo hippy

 

[David Howe]

thanks for the info I also have lots of green wood available I think it might be easier to start out with that. I have two timbers that I can get all the green wood I want I have the kiln dry wood when a tornado hit one timber. had that lumber cut up and dried. then another tornado hit and I have a lot of 30" + logs on the ground

 

[David Howe]

The reason I was wondering about the grain direction is because I was wondering if the tendons on dry wood would snap off on the side grain. Dry wood seems a lot easier to split then green wood

 

[hockenbery]

because I was wondering if the tendons on dry wood would snap off on the side grain. Dry wood seems a lot easier to split then green wood

A tenon should be shorter than the jaw depth so that it does not bottom out in the Chuck.
A 1/4-1/2” flat around the tenon makes a place for tops of the jaws to make solid contact. This jaw contact area prevents the object being held from rocking.
This rocking action can split a tenon or cause it to pull out of the Chuck partly.

The tenon should match the jaw profile.

Severe catches can on occasion break a good tenon with a flat contact area for the tops of the jaws.
A severe catch will frequently break a poor tenon that has a space at the tops of the jaws.

If a growth ring is almost flat and straight across where the tenon attaches to the blank it can make for weak tenon in easily split woods.
Woods with interlocking grain it won’t be as weak.

 

[Mike Johnson]

You can read some articles on segmented wood turning which should answer any questions you have.
Segments can vary in size for various projects and the concept is very similar in gluing KD lumber into turning blanks.
Mounting the wood blanks for various types of segmented projects is discussed in most of these articles and books.

 

[Rusty Nesmith]

I would Chuck the side grain.