First Natural Edge Bowl

[Seventh Wood]

Hi again,

I have finished my first natural edge bowl at last. By at last I mean that I did the outside intitially and admired the form for about a month, then did my first cut on the inside, but it was still to thick and heavy in the base. So after another month, I thinned down the sides and the edge and refinished the lot. It still could be thinner but I am happy with the result. It is about 150 mm high and 150 mm diameter at the rim.

I found doing the inside of the edges particulary scary, and it took a few attempts to get a nice continuous surface from the edges down. I filled the cracks with CA prior to the final turning and I was sort of amazed that it did not part company as the edge thinned down.

I picked up the timber in the local town when I heard the sound of a chainsaw and I saved it from the burnoff pile. It had been dead for over two years and reasonably seasoned in the meanwhile. Wish I had got more.

My kids say that it is the biggest bra cup they have ever seen - double G.

Cheers from 7th Wood

[Stevenp]

G.day 7th, If thats your first , then how good are they gunna be after you do a few dozen more? Great job.
Cheers Steven:2tsup:

[Cliff Rogers]

I like the shape,:2tsup:shame about the cracks, what is the timber?

Have you put any finish on it, it looks a bit dry/dull.

[rsser]

Well done.

Yeah, the tips are heart in the mouth stuff as a beginner.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

I like the shape but think that this is one case where a visible foot is too much. Personally I'd turn it away, leaving just the nice, sleek side of the bowl visible.

Nice job of keeping the bark on, too! I always seem to pick the logs that want to shed their bark when I do natural edged forms. :sigh:

All in all, ya should be proud of that 'un! :D

[Seventh Wood]

I like the shape,:2tsup:shame about the cracks, what is the timber?

Have you put any finish on it, it looks a bit dry/dull.

You are right, Cliff, it is a bit dull. The wood seems to soak up the finish (either oil and beeswax or Shellawax cream - I can't remember which). I need a good finish that gives me a semi-gloss - any suggestions? I have refinished soem bowls and buffed them up on the fluffy wheel and get a better gloss, but am still learning.

The timber was alleged to be poplar, but it is quite heavy and firm to work - more like elm or ash (no bark on so hard to identify). The cracks I left as another natural feature but I am about to try rough turning some natural edge bowls and will hopefully avoid the cracks.

Cheers, 7th Wood

[rsser]

A few coats of white shellac might stop the oil or wax from soaking away.

Doesn't like like either Elm or English Ash to me, but if the grain is very open then the Ubeaut Waxstik is an excellent stand-alone finish.

Skew, superglue is your friend for keeping bark on. Only drawback is that it darkens where it soaks in so you need a darkening finish to obscure the line.

[artme]

Great bowl!!:2tsup::2tsup::2tsup:

They can only get better!

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Skew, superglue is your friend for keeping bark on. Only drawback is that it darkens where it soaks in so you need a darkening finish to obscure the line.

Yeah, I know. But it still works best on thin, tightly adhering barks. I like the look of naturally edged Black Wattle forms, but I've yet to successfully turn one. If it's not the bark giving me grief, it's the "natural features..."

[jefferson]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but Skew, how do you turn the base off a natural edge bowl? I wouldn't know how to chuck it!

Jeff

[rsser]

You can use a friction drive with tailstock support Jeff, or a vac chuck with a PVC tube face of 3 or 4".

Best option is to work so that you don't need to come back to the foot.

PS, as posted elsewhere, Raffan has a piece on natural edge bowl turning in the current Australian Wood Review. He uses a friction drive but withdraws the tailstock and steadies the bowl by hand to turn away the nub. Small bowls he's talking about.

[jefferson]

Sounds very technical Ern. We'll make that lesson no 39 in the New Year (please).

As an aside, I think the Moderators need to catalogue some of these tips, somehow. The wealth of information out there needs to be captured somehow.

Jeff

[Big Shed]

Sounds very technical Ern. We'll make that lesson no 39 in the New Year (please).

As an aside, I think the Moderators need to catalogue some of these tips, somehow. The wealth of information out there needs to be captured somehow.

Jeff

Are you volunteering Jeff?:U

Seriously, what I do with this sort of material is click on Thread Tools, Show Printable Version and the print it to a pdf file and file it on the computer under the relevant folder.

Of course "Search" will also find it again, but that relies on your memory!

[rsser]

Good tip Fred. Thanks.

Another option is for folk to make a wiki entry here.

'Search' is a bit hit and miss on this forum. I prefer to use Google - Advanced Search, limit the search to the forum's URL.

Neil used to have a Google search box showing on each page ... dunno what happened to it.

And of course, a related way in is with the list of similar threads shown at the bottom of each thread page.

Sorry to hijack your thread 7th Wood.

[Gil Jones]

7th Wood,
Very well done natural edge bowl:2tsup:
The wood does not appear to be Poplar, but maybe your version of it is different than ours(?).

[rsser]

FWIW the only poplar I've turned isn't like 7th Wood's bowl; it was pale cream, with a faint iridescence and little diff btwn the growth rings.

[robutacion]

Sounds very technical Ern. We'll make that lesson no 39 in the New Year (please).

As an aside, I think the Moderators need to catalogue some of these tips, somehow. The wealth of information out there needs to be captured somehow.

Jeff

I also agree with you on this one! I don't know how it could be done, but hopefully someone some day will find the solution. There has been hundreds & hundreds of unique, unusual but effective, clues/hints/secrets, that have been thrown in, among all sorts of subjects, and posts, not to ever being seen again, and nearly impossible to trace down!
As I said, I don't know the answer, nor I'm suggesting that would be easy, but is really a shame not being able to used them as some sort of reference, located where it could be easily found, bugger...!:no:

In relation to the timber, I can see a possibility of it being the same type of Poplar I got a few months ago, but not sure...!:?:D

Cheers:2tsup:
RBTCO

[rsser]

To return to one of Jeff's points, frankly a lot of turning stuff can't be learned from websites. And I'd add, from DVDs or books.

Learning happens best in real time, with the student having a tool in hand - with this partic. wood, this lathe and this project.

After this kind of learning at the side of teachers, I've gone back to books and vids etc and picked up stuff to refine or modify my techniques.

[DJ’s Timber]

Looks very similar to some Claret Ash that I have here, doesn't take a shine well unless you put some effort into it

[joe greiner]

To add a tuppence or so, the Best of the Best thread is a catalogue of sorts.

Also, I recently made a jam chuck from a newsprint core (heavy cardboard) mounted in expansion mode on my scroll chuck. I turned its end to mate with the NE bowl's internal slope at the appropriate diameter. Unfortunately, I hadn't left enough bottom thickness, and ended up with a funnel. Just to complete the project, I'm turning a new foot element from the same timber. Pics in the not-too-distant future, I hope.

BTW, very nice results on your first, Seventh.:2tsup:

Joe

[ubeaut]

Definitely not poplar which is cream in colour and only one of the 7 or so species is usable from what I've been told. Had a heap of the usable stuff and it wasn't too bad to turn.

As for cataloguing tips the mods and ad min have a lot more to do than calalogue tips etc. There are almost 80,000 threads and 812,000 posts. If someone wants to put their hand up then their welcome to have a go.

Search on these forums is only as hit and miss as you make it. If you use the search link under the User Info column to the left it will bring up many more relevant bits of info than the Google Search ever did, that's why it was taken off the site.

There was an announcement on about the new search engine for about 4 mth after the change.

There is also a very under utalised Best of the Best Forum (http://www.woodworkforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=64) which is a repository for some of the best, most informative and usefull threads in the forums. This can be added to at any time by any member but asI said is pretty well under used.

It's mostly all here, somewhere, if you look.

[ubeaut]

I gotta learn to type faster. You beat me to the jump Joe as I was typing. Well done.

[Seventh Wood]

HI, all

Thanks for the replies and for all the other comment on the wonder bra cup. I am still unsure of the timber but we have a lot of claret ash trees here in SA, so it could be a candidate. I will experiment further with finishes but as per a comment above, some timbers soak up the finish.

Regarding reverse chucking - both the Raffan Bowl Turning book and Robert Chapman's Woodturning - A Fresh Approach have advice on how reverse chuck natural edge bowls. Chapman uses timber blanks with stiff foam pads glued on, and he uses tailstock support to keep teh bowl in place. I have used a friction pad in the jaws and tailstock support to do a lid that I forgot to finish, but one of my other attempts at reverse chucking ended in a cracked bowl, so I am still learning.

Cheers,

7th Wood