Thread: American Rock Maple

Ern, were's a pic of the bowl?

Originally Posted by Pat

Ern, were's a pic of the bowl?

Ditto!

Um, why do you want a pic?

Originally Posted by rsser

Um, why do you want a pic?

I've never seen a pic of Rock Maple expertly turned by a person such as yourself.

Well, I'm just down the road from you Scott (in Reservoir) so feel free to drop in and look at the finish. PM me if you want to accept the invitation.

It would take skilled photography to capture the finish. That's not my field. Eyes and fingers tell me enough.

Originally Posted by rsser

Well, I'm just down the road from you Scott (in Reservoir) so feel free to drop in and look at the finish. PM me if you want to accept the invitation.

It would take skilled photography to capture the finish. That's not my field. Eyes and fingers tell me enough.

An invitation I cannot refuse.

Sorted. Look forward to meeting you Scott.

K, some pics.

This is the first bowl I'd let out of the shed without sanding.

Outside is fine. Inside is a bit iffy re toolmarks. I need to kit up with scrapers with a range of radiuses to do better without resorting to the 60g tool. With this job the Munro tear-drop scraper was the main tool inside and a straightish edge scraper outside, but reading Raffan's piece in the latest AWT mag re insides it may be that older is gooder ;-)

I only got onto this no-sand jag cos the wood was so good and NeilS showed me a fine bowl off the tool a while ago and it pricked my interest. Neil's was much bigger though; this is only 19cm diam.

Looking good

Really cant tell you didnt sand it great job.

Cheers happy turning

Same Ern, see you then.

Lovely piece of timber Ern. To think I hand on a piece of Rock Maple the other day and opted for a piece of spalted Sycamore. I think you're heading in the right direction with this though, can't wait to touch it. Do you intended to apply a finish?

As a matter of interest what angle is the scraper against the work? I've been attempting this sort of thing with a Sorby scraper with varying degrees of success.

Having been lucky enough to get my hands on a slab of Rock maple big enough for a couple of fruit bowl on stands (sold as wedding gifts) I can say his description of the woods properties is correct.

However never tried to consider my work done straight off of a scraper - maybe I'll have a play sometime.

Scott, the Munro was run at a shear angle. I played with a shear angle with the conventional scraper on the inside but found it too hard to get a good result up towards the rim. It cut more cleanly but left ripples. I took those out with the scraper flat on the tool rest with the lightest touch possible since the rim is a danger zone normally.

The bowl in the pics had been finished; n/c sanding sealer and wax.

Scott's coming down for a shed session on Wed. afternoon. I'm in Reservoir.

PM me if you want to join us.

We'll have a play with scraper presentations and edge treatments.

Looks good Ern
cheers,
Jim

Thanks Jim.

Tomorrow (open arvo) we'll do some more rock maple and try combinations of scraper presentation and edge treatment. Scott, bring down your Sorby if you like. I have one too and we can do a controlled 'speriment ;-)

One interesting outcome of this work is that there is minor rippling in the bowl inside (btwn growth rings) and I'd always taken that as an unwanted side effect of sanding. Sanding makes it worse probably. Live and learn.