Monday, February 18, 2019

A Cherry Bowl

I'm still not a wood turner. I can make things round, I can add a bit of a profile and I can use a Jacobs chuck to make holes in vases. The next step in my evolution is bowl making. I attempted to learn by Youtube but soon became convinced that this would be a good opportunity to take a class.  Lee Valley hosts a number of classes and one came up for turning a simple wooden bowl. The goal of the class is to make a bowl from scratch which meant we would be turning from dry wood. I've turned green wood before and it's obvious why turning green is ideal. The trouble with that is that you can only go so far before you have to wait for the wood to dry.
We started by a 6x6x3 chunk of cherry that had already been cut round. We then drilled a hole to attach the screw chuck and turned the outside of the bowl with a foot that could be turned around and attached with a four jaw chuck. We then turned the inside and created a jam chuck with a piece of poplar that we could use to turn off the foot and add a concave bottom. I managed to do all of the turning in the class and took the piece home for some hand sanding. It was a lot slower than sanding and finishing on the lathe but I wanted to make sure I got all my swirl marks out. I added a simple wipe on poly and was finish and now I have a place for my keys by the door.

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