Preparing stock to learn bowl turning.

Let me begin by saying that in hindsight I think I went about this the wrong way, but we will see if I am left with useable blanks, or firewood.

University holidays are here and my daughter is very keen to learn to turn bowls, so we will venture this journey together. Wanting to be able to make mistakes and keep at it, I decided to prepare a volume of blanks for us to play with over the next three weeks.

So this morning I visited my brother's block and cut a log up into segments, then straight down through the pith of each. The log was roughly 40 cm diameter.

Are there any secrets to ripping with a chainsaw? Lots of wood spaghetti later I had the trailer loaded.

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Then home where I painter the end of each piece and covered with a tarp. Just in time as I finished in the mounting drizzle.

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In hindsight I feel that I should have rather cut the log into the longest lengths I could have easily moved, and only cut into blanks when we were ready to use them over the coming weeks. It would certainly have necessitated a lot less painting!

So my question to you experienced turners, what should I have done to have stock at hand in this instance?

Hi Lance
The weather being as it is here atm, you are unlikely to suffer any splitting of your blanks for a while so all good there.
A sturdy pair of dividers will help you mark out the largest circle you can on each flat face after which you could roughly cut out each circle with a small chainsaw. Then there should be no stopping you. Timber turns really easily when it is still wet.

Depends how long you are going to leave them covered but I wouldn't cover them up so tightly with the tarp as they might go mouldy.

Loose cover so a bit of air can get in. Or cover with some sheets of something like corro.

That is pretty much bang on what you’ve done, but as Bob said, let some air in the stack.

A general guideline for blanks, is to cut the log to twice the diameter, so a 400mm dia log should be cut to 800mm and then spilt into two halves to get the pith out to stop the log from splitting itself apart. And as you’ve have done, seal as soon as possible on the ends and back a little from the cut ends on the other cut surfaces.

Seeing as the pieces are fairly short could you have used an axe or wedges and sledgehammer instead of ripping with the chainsaw? The grain looks pretty straight so they may have split reasonably straight. The photos must be deceptive as they don't as big as 40cm.
What species of wood is it?

Thanks all for the responses, that’s encouraging.

Treecycle, I did consider splitting, but to be honest, this is all so new to me, at this point I’m just blindly following what I see others doing so as to minimise the variables. That way if something doesn’t turn out, the process of elimination as to what went wrong is simpler to identify and hopefully rectify the next time.

Had I seen others splitting, or references to splitting I would have happily given it a go.

The timber is a Eucalypt of some sort. And you were correct, it is between 25 to 30 cm. It was raining by the time I was done yesterday, and I was cold and wet, with little interest in going back outside to measure.

I have now moved the timber to our undercover firewood storage. The only downside is that the chickens will no doubt climb and poo all over it. I guess we can’t win them all.

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All is looking good so far...

...although I do recommend turning the blanks over so split side is down, the same as one would with a firewood pile. Water is more likely to run smoothly off the curved bark section (even if none is left) than off the opened, split grain. Just sayin'. ;)

Assuming the timber is green, you should be in for a wonderful time. If it is dry, you will still have a wonderful time but the timber will not peel off so easily.

One of the the little things that makes life easier for me, is having an air chisel. Nothing fancy, nothing that a normal air cheap compressor cannot handle in the bursts you will need. This little unit, with the widest blade, is brilliant at removing the bark.

Ozito 10.2mm Shank Air Chisel | Bunnings Warehouse

I have an Aldi version, but a friend who has since seen mine in action, picked up the Ozito one and it does exactly the same job.

If your blanks are wet, I'm assuming you will use a face plate and screws to do the initial holding to allow you to make a spigot for your chuck jaws to hold when you reverse it. If you make the spigot, make it just a little bit larger if the timber is really green (wet). Once you start turning, after a short time, check the jaws are still holding the spigot (tenon) firmly. With green timber it can happen that the compression of the chuck jaws need checking and maybe tensioning a bit more as you progress.

Listen to the lathe, if a small rattle like sound, or different sound is heard, stop and check everything. It is reasonably normal for re-tightening of chuck jaws with very wet timber. Happens as well with dry timber, but with wet stuff it's more prevalent.

This is how I started doing bowls.

Mick.



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Well my pile of blanks is getting smaller and smaller. Another three done this afternoon.

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I had been using a face plate, but decided that today was the day to try making a screw chuck (well try again, the last two attempts failed miserably). This one was a resounding success, and oh so much simpler than the face plate.

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My pile of bowls waiting to dry is growing, and so is my confidence along with my, dare I say it, skills. But boy is the learning process fun!

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Yippee!

You've several nicely shaped bowls in that pile Lance. Make sure that you keep a few pieces of your early work so later on you can look back and see how you have improved

Lance, you are doing well. Separate the bowls so they do not mold or mildew. It is best to leave the bowl thickness 10 to 20 % of the bowl diameter. The bowls will dry oval, when you remount to finish you will cut off the end grain on the outside and the the flat grain on the inside. The spigot that is on the bottom will be oval. Make yourself a round to fit in your chuck about 1/3 the diameter of the bowl you are about to finish with a 1/4 inch radius on the edge to keep from marking the bowl. Measure across the long and short of the spigot and mark the center, poke an awl or nail in the mark, put the inside of the bowl against the round in the chuck and run a cup with point tail center up against the bottom, putting point in the hole. Get the rim to run as evenly as possible. Snug up tight and run slowly to recut the spigot to grab with chuck. Remount in chuck and finish.

Richard Raffans's book Making Bowls is wonderful. He completes a bowl green then lets it move wherever it wants, oils it and finish. Bowls | Richard Raffan

Richard is one of my bowl turning heroes.

Rule of thumb is about one year of drying time for an inch of bowl thickness. I have roughed out a bowl, in a month or two cut a bit off, a month or two a bit more off. You have enough blanks to try several things. I have hurried the drying by wrapping in a cloth and microwaving, take out and let set a day or two, repeat. Also have used several layers of newspaper.

Do a search "Drying roughed out green bowls". There is a guy who advocates roughing soppy wet green bowls, then boiling in water for 2 hours. He claims they do not crack. There are many ways that are supposed to keep bowls from cracking, but as Richard Raffan says, "Some crack, and some don't".

This is the round bottomed salad bowl RR made in 1978, finished green and let move whereever it wanted: Ash salad bowl, in use since 1978 | Richard Raffan

Well done Lance!!
Now I can see the wood, I reckon that is Messmate also called Messamate stringybark (Euc. obliqua)
Don't forget to name and date your work and species

It's all about the wood, great looking bowls there and they aint even finished :2tsup:

just had a second look at them........awesome :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Euge

Well done Lance!!
Now I can see the wood, I reckon that is Messmate also called Messamate stringybark (Euc. obliqua)
Don't forget to name and date your work and species

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Thanks Euge,

Artful Badger suggested it may be Stringy Bark too, so with your confirmation, that’s what I’ll take it to be.

Yes, I’ve named and dated each piece (some are my wife’s and daughter’s), but never considered adding the species. Will do that too.

If the bowl's are not properly dry I weigh and write the weight on them. Reweigh every couple of weeks and when the weight stabilised they are dry.