I’m drooling.
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What’s on your lathe?
- Thread starter Rusty Nesmith
- Start date
Turned a piece of ash and put a little cap of spalted sugarberry on it. Still needs some work. Then I turned another piece of maple ambrosia—much less tearout w my 600 grit CBN wheel sharpening. Need to hollow it.
I have not. I don't know how difficult it would be to do without power equipment. I have a couple of 12" dogwoods that probably should come down. They have stopped blooming and look pretty rough.
That's a great color match.
Sad thing for big bowl/hollow form turners: I had to leave the biggest pieces on the ground. (Actually, I rolled them down the hill through the woods into a ravine to get them out of the woman’s yard.) About 36” diameter, 8’ long, too big my track hoe to pick up in one piece.
I’m not allowed to operate a chainsaw for a while so I didn’t take one, and besides, my dump trailer was full with the pieces I could easily load (12-24”). I think my friend who turns cowboy hats would have taken some but we filled his truck with other pieces, mostly crotches.
Alan, I like the form of the piece with the spalted cap - like to see a photo from the side when it has finish applied. I have a quantity of spalted hackberry (similar to sugerberry) - easy to turn and can be spectacular. Cut up and dried, it’s a favorite for ornaments and lidded boxes.
BTW, one thing I do now when we cut up logs is use a small electric pressure washer to clean off any mud and dirt after lifting them off the ground. Keeps the chainsaw sharp longer!
JKJ
Odie, I noticed that your waste block was mounted using a screw chuck instead of the more traditional (?) face plate or in the jaws of a chuck. Was curious as to your thinking of mounting your waste block this way. Was thinking with the added support of 4-8 screws through a face plate, the waste block may have held together.
Yes, you are right, Doug.
If I had it mounted on a standard faceplate using 3-4 screws, it might have held together.
=o=
Ok, I haven't posted anything from my lathe in a long while for a variety of reasons. I'm not even sure these items warrant posting, but since I've been working on them for a long while I've grown rather fond of them so I'll bother the general membership with pictures
Two lidded containers. One is laminated ash and walnut, turned off centre so the laminations are not just vertical lines. Lid is walnut with a deer antler handle. The second is a piece of spalted wood of an unknown species - maybe sycamore? Again lid is walnut with a deer antler handle - a bit more rustic piece to go with the spalted wood. I still need to add some embellishment to fix a couple of cracks near the base - if you can't hide the defects fix them so they become a decoration! If there is interest, I'll send an update when I figure out exactly how I am going to do that.
Thoughts, comments or critique?
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!
Two lidded containers. One is laminated ash and walnut, turned off centre so the laminations are not just vertical lines. Lid is walnut with a deer antler handle. The second is a piece of spalted wood of an unknown species - maybe sycamore? Again lid is walnut with a deer antler handle - a bit more rustic piece to go with the spalted wood. I still need to add some embellishment to fix a couple of cracks near the base - if you can't hide the defects fix them so they become a decoration! If there is interest, I'll send an update when I figure out exactly how I am going to do that.
Thoughts, comments or critique?
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!
Attachments
Walnut crotch w/undercut rim last night.
I got carried away with the detail grooves......might have been too many, but they were cutting extremely well, so it was hard to stop!
Still wet with D.O. at time of photo....
=o=
I got carried away with the detail grooves......might have been too many, but they were cutting extremely well, so it was hard to stop!
Still wet with D.O. at time of photo....
=o=
Nice! Maybe when done a photo of it sitting on a table? I'd love to see more of the shape from the side (and a little above!).
Just curious, what's the 2230 - serial numbers? That would be a lot of bowls!
I seldom make a bowl without undercutting the rim, at least gently, or even if just at the rim. I like the look and the feel.
JKJ
Just curious, what's the 2230 - serial numbers? That would be a lot of bowls!
I seldom make a bowl without undercutting the rim, at least gently, or even if just at the rim. I like the look and the feel.
JKJ
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Yes.....serial numbers, John.
Some bowls are given away. Some bowls are lost. Nearly all bowls go through a photo session of 10 photographs of various angles. This is because Etsy allows up to that many photographs for their online sales. If you would like to see more photos of my current bowls for sale on Etsy, as well as those that have been sold, be my guest to visit my Etsy shop.
I started making bowls in 1982, and have never stopped. I began numbering my bowls around year 2000, and started at number #500 which was my best estimate at the time for the number of total bowls I had produced. When I got to bowl number #2000, I skipped around 75 numbers because some people began thinking my inventory number was the year they were made. I probably lose about 3 to 5 bowls out of every 100 made for one reason or another, and those lost bowls also have an inventory number.
My best guess for the total number of bowls I've produced over the past 43 years is around 2000.....
=o=-
OK, I'm impressed!My best guess for the total number of bowls I've produced over the past 43 years is around 2000.....
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2021
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- 171
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- 729
- Location
- Silver Spring, MD
- Website
- www.transpirationturning.com
Now that I've started fluting it is hard to stop. Flattened the bottom of the interior and engraved a somewhat random pattern. I wanted to see how barley corns would look (not great at that size) and it would have helped if I hadn't skipped one. 
This one’s a bit on the wild side. A cedar crotch turned into a natural edge vase.
Nice-I can smell it from here! Love cedar!
I can't be in the same room when cedar is turned due to severe sensitivity
I get that too-When I turn it it fills my shop with dust no matter what I do, much like padauk. This 13-inch natural edge square cedar tray I turned recently was a doozy even with dust collection and air filtration on full blast-I'm still vacuming up red dust all over!
Attachments
That is a very nice looking piece of work. Great job so far!
Nice looking, are you using cnc for the engravings?
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2021
- Messages
- 171
- Likes
- 729
- Location
- Silver Spring, MD
- Website
- www.transpirationturning.com
Thanks. The flutes and the engraving are done on the LatheEngraver, a cnc designed to work on the lathe.
I turned these over the last two days. They are all learning experiences. The woods are cottonwood, alder, hemlock, and cedar. The largest bowl is the largest thing I have ever turned, the two other bowls are the first things I've ever cored, the two larger hollow forms are the largest hollow forms I have made, and the others are probably garbage. It all would have been smoother if I used appropriate tools to do each task.
Turned a couple of pieces from the growth impersonating a burl today. The heartwood is turning a dark gray to black. In the time it took me to turn the large bowl the natural edge had turned black on the inside and the larger bowl was turning gray on the outside while turning the inside. Never had this happen bofore.
Wow, that is some wild-looking wood! If anyone can reveal its beauty, you can-I can't wait to see some finished pieces!
Thank you, but if it all turns black not sure what the finished piece will look like
. The second turning of the bowl may remove the gray/black to expose the grain once it’s dry. Not sure about the natural edge yet.
Crazy idea here, but if you're unhappy with the black stain, consider what one of those might look like ebonized? I've seen some turners do mind-blowing work with ebonizing the more tannic woods. Offhand I don't remember what species this one is-just a thought. And I'm not talking about going to extremes with india ink, I'm talking about the old white vinegar and steel-wool solution.Thank you, but if it all turns black not sure what the finished piece will look like
I’ve done that with red oak and white oak. This wood is maple and the wood was supplied by the customer so not sure they want ebonized, however they may not get a choice
.I got ahold of a piece of maple that had a greenish gray heartwood once but it wasn't that dark. The grain pattern on the natural edge is interesting. I will be interested in seeing the finished product.
Another from the "turn someday" pile. Sugarberry crotch.
White oak, about 8" diameter. Inspired by Bill Luce. First new piece after a winter long convalescence from a shop injury.
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A natural edge Catalpa bowl, turned twice with 4 feet carved.
That is some strangely beautiful wood, James! A nearby small town has the main street lined with huge old catalpas. Many are dying/dead and being cut down. I might have to stop by with a chain-saw one day.
I've had a project stewing in my mind's eye for months that will incorporate many of the skills I have learned/honed in our Carolina Mountain Woodturners Turning and Learning Center in the last couple of years: Mike Sorge's Winged Trillium bowl class, Pat Carroll's lidded bowl class and others got me thinking to combine those elements with my love for turning square stuff and make an exotic wood winged square tray that rises gently up into a lidded bowl with a finial. This 11+-inch canary wood bottom part is just wild with red streaks. Here it is sanded to 180 and burnished with 0000-steel wool soaked in mineral spirits. I hope to finish the bottom tomorrow, flip it, and do a shallow bowl that rises up from a gentle swoop coming down and around from the wing. I plan to make the lid from a nice piece of padauk (maybe 4-4.5" in diameter, gently domed), and top it with a finial (I'm leaning towards a dark reddish-streaked spindle of gaboon ebony to complement the other reds, though of course african blackwood is both classic and kind of neutral in that color scheme, I suppose). I'll probably also tone down that bead around my medallion recess, as it looks a bit too prominent in retrospect.
Anyway, if I don't eff this up and it comes out like I imagine it, it has the potential to be a real statement, hopefully in time for a big spring show I'm doing next Saturday. I welcome any constructive criticism, ideas on a finial, what madness is this, etc. If it helps, I'm going for sort of an amalgam of Arabic and Japanese design elements in the details. TIA for any feedback!
Anyway, if I don't eff this up and it comes out like I imagine it, it has the potential to be a real statement, hopefully in time for a big spring show I'm doing next Saturday. I welcome any constructive criticism, ideas on a finial, what madness is this, etc. If it helps, I'm going for sort of an amalgam of Arabic and Japanese design elements in the details. TIA for any feedback!
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curly maple last night....
was that taken out by simply breaking off the side grain at the bottom?
I just coated it with pc wood hardener, after sanding with 80 and 120 grit paper.
Ok, my attempt at repairing the tension cracks at the base of the spalted piece were a dismal failure - the wood was too fragile to drill for plugs. Hindsight suggests I should have used tinted epoxy or some other filler. Since I had developed a certain fondness for the deer antler lid, I turned a bowl for it. Spalted maple bowl, black walnut lid with deer antler handle as above. Not a save, but not a bad remake/salvage job!
Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta ,Canada eh!
