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artful bodger
30th June 2019, 06:34 PM
A bit of a continuation from my last post, "A dozen blackwood bowls."
Decided that I had enough smaller bowls for the time being and after teeing up an appointment in the new financial year (very soon) with someone who buys for 3 galleries decided some larger bowls would be good to take along to the appointment.
These bowls are not huge however I guess you could say they are larger than average.

Bowl 1 is 440mm x 105mm. I'm not completely sold on the little round surface protectors on the foot (second picture) but they can be easily removed.
Have taken a top view, bottom view and three dimensional picture of each one.
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Bowl number 2 is 425mm x 90mm with a wall thickness of 13mm.

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Bowl number 3 is 440mm x 115mm with a wall thickness of 23mm. This bowl had a hollow birdseye in it just on the rim which is the reason it has been made with a thicker wall thickness. I felt that trying to make a thinner walled bowl would have been inviting an annoying situation as that pesky hollow birdseye may have compromised the integrity of the bowl and was not keen to reduce the height of the bowl to eliminate the problem.
You hear on this woodturning forum for one, that, "the foot of a bowl should be about a third of the diameter of the bowl" to make it suitably stable. However I have not yet heard anyone put forward a principle of, "how thick the wall of the bowl should be in relation to the bowls diameter". Perhaps there is good reason for that as really fat walled bowls can still look voluptuous if they have nice curves. Anyway 23mm is not really that "fat walled" on a 440mm dia bowl and there is still enough meat around the pesky hollow birdseye to maintain integrity. I have not filled it with anything and you can see right through it but it is so high up on the bowl that nothing will leak/fall out.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it for now.

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A close up of the wascally birdseye

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Bowl number four is 430mm x 87mm

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Lastly a bit of a "half bottomed" group shot.

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They all have been finished with 3 coats of single pac spray lacquer. The spraying has been a bit frustrating. Ideally you should get an "off the gun finish" but only 2 of these ones came close to that. I think they could/should have used 2 coats of a suitable sander/sealer first as blackwood is a pretty open grained timber. I have noticed in the past it's nasty habit of spitting back out danish oil overnight after it has been wiped clean.
hasNext time I will try the sanding sealer first. With 2 of these ones I have used fine wet and dry paper with water then super fine steel wool for the final surface and the finish is good but it has expended elbow grease that could have been done without.

smiife
30th June 2019, 07:57 PM
Hi AB , very nice looking bowls , well done , good luck with the galleries:2tsup::2tsup:

woodtryer
30th June 2019, 09:37 PM
Beautiful work AB, you should be very happy with the results.

Well done,

Peter.

NeilS
1st July 2019, 09:08 PM
The buyer should take at least three of those, one for each of the three galleries...:2tsup:

I like to have at least one larger piece among my pieces in the gallery. It draws the eye to my display area, then they see the price, decide they can't afford it, but having been drawn closer to my other pieces they then look them over and that is where most of my sales come from.

On thickness, I don't go by any thickness:diameter ratio. I turn to whatever thickness feels right, not only visually but also what feels right as weight in the hand. I tend to leave very light woods thicker and very heavy heavy wood thinner. I also like to have a thicker rim than the remainder of the profile.

Just measured the rim of a 500mm Oz Red Cedar platter I recently finished and it was close to 1.5" at the thickest part of the rim profile, yet it feels right in the hand.

My 'fattest' (but not clunky) pieces have all sold. I agree with you Artful, "really fat walled bowls can still look voluptuous if they have nice curves". But, occasionally, I have turned an ultra thin piece (light translucent thin) just for the fun of doing so and they are very slow to sell, if at all. They just don't feel right in the hand. So, turn what feels right to you and see if the market agrees with your judgement.