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Still have your first bowl?

Mark Fairchild

Mark Fairchild

Joined
Jan 19, 2024
Messages
175
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1,062
Location
Hattiesburg MS.
Just curiosity. I’m sure those that have been turning for decades might not. My wife has kept a lot of my first work. I’ve been turning for a little over 3 years now. Mostly self taught at the beginning. If memory is correct my first bowl took me between 3 and four hours to complete. Most of that time trying to figure out what tool and how to use it. A lot of “Nope! That doesn’t work!”
I’m glad she kept it and as you can see, it is useful if nothing else.
I have to say that joining the AAW and attending my first symposium 2 years ago was a game changer. It really opened my eyes. Finally getting active on this forum was another game changer. A tip of my hat to all that make it happen.
All one has to do is look back at No.1 and see how much they have progressed and how far they need to go. Fits for my case anyway.

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No date on mine, but I'd guess it's about 47 years old. It's from my shop class in 7th grade (Palmer Sharpless' daughter was a great shop teacher) It had some tool marks and was sort of poorly sanded, so I freshened it up a few years ago. It had been in our kitchen as decoration. We hosted 20 college kids for a weekend stay (they'd come up north for an annual small farms conference) and we ran out of bowls for the oatmeal. I didn't notice until this one kid was about half done, that he had used this one.
 

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I still have it, just haven’t finished it yet. I roughed it out in 2008. It was wet and weighed 10.4 oz. Measured today and it is down to 8.4 oz. I think it is dry now and will try to finish it soon. Walnut about 4-5” in diameter.

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Not my first, but one of the earliest I still have. A lot of the early small bowls have gone... somewhere.
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I do remember it taking forever to turn (I had no clue about sharpening), and probably longer to sand out the tool marks.
Bowl is dated 1992, photo (OMG WTF) from 2002. Mesquite, about 6.5" diameter.

We do also still have some of these box elder tea light holders around somewhere, from the late '90s

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Mark Fairchild said:
Just curiosity. I’m sure those that have been turning for decades might not. My wife has kept a lot of my first work. I’ve been turning for a little over 3 years now. Mostly self taught at the beginning. If memory is correct my first bowl took me between 3 and four hours to complete. Most of that time trying to figure out what tool and how to use it. A lot of “Nope! That doesn’t work!”
I’m glad she kept it and as you can see, it is useful if nothing else.
I have to say that joining the AAW and attending my first symposium 2 years ago was a game changer. It really opened my eyes. Finally getting active on this forum was another game changer. A tip of my hat to all that make it happen.
All one has to do is look back at No.1 and see how much they have progressed and how far they need to go. Fits for my case anyway.

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I still have some of my early bowls, but the real celebration began when I completed my first bowl without it flying off the lathe and getting a crack or dent from the bed or floor.

Pictured is my first segmented bowl. It’s junk wood from the scrap bin that I was using to test the wedgie-sled I had just made. Pine, cherry, maple, mystery wood. I learned from the experience (as I do from every bowl). Particularly, I learned that centering each ring in the press is important.

I look forward to experimenting more with segmented bowls.

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The very first bowl I made was long before I owned a lathe. It was a gift for my wife many years ago. (The height is the same all the way around, but the angle of the picture makes it look a bit uneven.)
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I saw one of my very first lathe-made bowls last weekend when I visited my mom for Mother's Day. I had made her a new bowl, and when I spotted the clunky old one sitting on a counter, I took a quick picture for comparison.

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Thanks all for sharing their “first”, tool marks and all.
Darryl, I have toyed with redoing my first but decided to leave it in all its faded glory.
 
I had a similar beginning. I watched a video of someone turning a bowl and figured I should join the local turning club before buying in. I'm glad I made the decision. I still remember the trepidation I felt as I started my first bowl...thrusting tool steel into a spinning piece of sycamore. I have learned much and I know I have much more to learn. But the results are worth the effort.
 

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Darryl Fective said:
No date on mine, but I'd guess it's about 47 years old. It's from my shop class in 7th grade (Palmer Sharpless' daughter was a great shop teacher) It had some tool marks and was sort of poorly sanded, so I freshened it up a few years ago. It had been in our kitchen as decoration. We hosted 20 college kids for a weekend stay (they'd come up north for an annual small farms conference) and we ran out of bowls for the oatmeal. I didn't notice until this one kid was about half done, that he had used this one.
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Do you remember if you turned it with scrapers, or had bowl gouges been introduced by then? Either way, a very nice first bowl.
 
My first bowl was made in junior high wood shop in 1967. Stack laminated mahogany turned between centers. I burned it a few years ago in a bonfire as it had delaminated while stored in my parents basement. 49 years later, I acquired a stock and mint, 1951 Delta Milwaukee 12 inch lathe and turned my second bowl.
 
Wow....some of these "first bowls" are great! :)

Since my first bowls were made 42 years ago, and on a ShopSmith.....long before I had a PC and any digital files.....those bowls are gone to who knows where? I think I may have a few processed film photos during those times......somewhere......but, I don't even know where to look to find them!

This Myrtle bowl looks to be the earliest digital photo I have of a bowl I turned, and it might not be any older than about 20 years ago. At the time it was snapped, I had already been turning for 20 years, or so. As with most of the other posters in this thread........"You've come a long way, baby!"

-o-

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A little hickory bowl from a backyard tree. It’s got at least 4 gouges from catches, it’s heavy, and I missed a spot in finishing but it’s surprisingly smooth to the touch.

I haven’t been at it that long and have a long way to go but it’s nice to see where I started.
 

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William Rogers said:
I still have it, just haven’t finished it yet. I roughed it out in 2008. It was wet and weighed 10.4 oz. Measured today and it is down to 8.4 oz. I think it is dry now and will try to finish it soon. Walnut about 4-5” in diameter.

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Our club challenge this month was Procrastination. Needless to say I won, but there was no prize. I did finish the bowl after 15+ years. However when it was being passed around someone dropped it and chipped the edge. I could have waited another 15 years to repair, but I wanted it done.

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No don't have it. I bought my lathe from an old turner that due to health having to stop turning. He had two other turners help him move things on and all 3 of them really really helped me get started and "threw in" a number of things I needed but did not know I needed yet. I took one of my first of not my first over to visit the old turner after getting things set up at my shop and making a number of things that ended in the burn pile and we talked around the kitchen table and he really praised what I had done. I gave it to him when I left. I enjoyed for a number of years taking turnings over to him and getting them reviewed. He was very kind and extremely helpful. Not sure where it ended up when he passed.
 
Interesting, and perhaps telling, that the question concerns "first bowl" rather than 'first' something else. I do still have the first bowls I turned 15 years ago tucked away, including the couple that I made during my first (daylong) turning lesson. Mediocre, as might be expected. I've turned at least several hundred since, although fewer in recent years. Likewise hollow forms. My interests have changed, mostly toward various types of multiaxis turning. Those are what I more frequently demonstrate or teach.
 
I don't know for sure if this is my absolute first bowl but definitely one of the first. Made in 1992 as a sophomore in high school and in use daily as a catch all since then with plenty of battle scars to show for it. 30+ years, wow it goes quick. I wonder how it would have held up with a better finish, I think this was lacquer, sprayed on, the only choice we had in shop class. Even on pieces I made that weren't handled the finish the school supplied just peeled off.
I've been waiting to get back into turning ever since and only have been back at it, relearning, for just over a year.
 

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Here is my first bowl and box. The bowl was turned with my mentor Bev, it was the first bowl I ever turned sometime in October of 2019 and my first box was made in a private one on one class with @John Shannon sometime in early 2022. Not great but it started all the fun I'm having now!IMG_20240606_143837.jpg
 
One of the first bowls I turned, if not the very first, was this maple dog bowl. My son and I took a class at our local Rockler and both of us made bowls. I'm not sure why the instructor let me get away with turning such a straight edge bowl. lol We've been using it as a key catch-all for several years now.

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My first bowl was when I was at camp ... in 1966!! It was a very progressive camp (Buck's Rock Work Camp in case there are any alumni out there) and you got to independently try all sorts of things. Here's my first bowl (bottom woodburning done by a talented counselor). I fell in love with woodturning but alas, it was 40 years later that stumbled on a woodturning class given locally by AAW members.
 

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