Another attempt at some cleaning up

[powderpost]

Well it happened again today, another attempt at cleaning up and another distraction. Another maple bowl 250 diameter x 95 mm deep. This one has some very confused grain that really tested me. Ended up with lots of honing and shear sraping and finished up with the 80# gouge down to the 600# gouge to finally produce an acceptable finish with a good enough surface on some very wild grain.

Jim

396880396881

[Dalboy]

That is one beauty of a bowl.

You will never get that workshop tidy at this rate so to help you out every time you find a blank like this put it into a box and send it to me out of temptations way:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Keith_1]

I like the colour :2tsup:
Very nice bowl

Keith

[Allan at Wallan]

What a fantastic distraction.

You make it all look so easy Jim.

Allan

[hughie]

Actually this is one of the best aspects of cleaning up even if eventually the clean up fails :U

[John.G]

We all support your efforts mate, so just keep on cleaning. And taking pictures for us to drool over as you go.

[Mobyturns]

Well it happened again today, another attempt at cleaning up and another distraction.

Best intentions huh! I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets distracted so easily. Very nice blank and beautiful bowl.

Oh, and a big kudos on the 80# gouge admission, it takes guts to fess up. :D

[John.G]

Came back to drool over it again - because that is a hell of a good lump of maple - and got to thinking.

See, the problem with your clean up is that you're going to unearth about another thousand (I've seen your shed) bits of timber like this, and do something with them, and post pictures of them. And I'm good with that, I really am. Your shed is the result of a lifetimes accumulation of bits of carefully selected timber and a man should do something with that rather then let it sit there gathering dust. Particularly when the man is as gifted as you are and has the toys and the skills to bring each one to life.

But I gotta say, you're going to ruin the market. Because people see pictures like this and think thats how all maple (or whatever other treasure you fall over next) should look, and not understand that theres been years of collecting pieces here and there to put this all into one shed. I had a yarn with a guy the other week and he wanted figured maple by the pack. And I had to explain that maybe one log in 50 will cut consistently figured boards and that the other 49 will have patches of figure here and there interspersed with plainer timber.

Anyway, keep on cleaning, go find more. Its nice to see some good colored maple for a change, instead of that yellowy snot off the Tablelands Basalt.

[Mobyturns]

Came back to drool over it again - because that is a hell of a good lump of maple - and got to thinking.

See, the problem with your clean up is that you're going to unearth about another thousand (I've seen your shed) bits of timber like this, and do something with them, and post pictures of them. And I'm good with that, I really am. Your shed is the result of a lifetimes accumulation of bits of carefully selected timber and a man should do something with that rather then let it sit there gathering dust. Particularly when the man is as gifted as you are and has the toys and the skills to bring each one to life.

But I gotta say, you're going to ruin the market. Because people see pictures like this and think thats how all maple (or whatever other treasure you fall over next) should look, and not understand that theres been years of collecting pieces here and there to put this all into one shed. I had a yarn with a guy the other week and he wanted figured maple by the pack. And I had to explain that maybe one log in 50 will cut consistently figured boards and that the other 49 will have patches of figure here and there interspersed with plainer timber.

Anyway, keep on cleaning, go find more. Its nice to see some good colored maple for a change, instead of that yellowy snot off the Tablelands Basalt.

Good point, about the lifetime of accumulation, and how it skews impressions of what timber is about, and how it should look. The one thing you missed though that the logs that a lot of Jim's blanks came from are simply not available any more. A bit like some people asking for large sections of Conkerberry, or Hairy Oak without cracks.