What’s On Your Lathe?

[Gerald]

The rim detail sets it off nicely. good job.

[teesquare]

Thanks Dave!

[teesquare]

Thank you Lew, and Gerald!

 

The rim is slightly under-cut so the fingers naturally find purchase on it.

[RustyFN]

A buddy and I got turned on to some hard maple. Very hard to get around here. This bowl is around 13” in diameter and 7” deep.

[lew]

11 minutes ago, RustyFN said:

A buddy and I got turned on to some hard maple. Very hard to get around here. This bowl is around 13” in diameter and 7” deep.

 

That would make a lovely salad bowl!

[RustyFN]

1 minute ago, lew said:

 

That would make a lovely salad bowl!

The hardest part is waiting for them to dry so they can be finish turned.

 

[teesquare]

Rusty - hard Maple is one of my favorite woods to turn. There are sub-species which can be colorful - such as Sycamore-Maple for the Great Basin ( Utah, Arizona, maybe a little of Nevada ) and the wood is so tight grained it is almost hard to get end grain tear out that is significant.

This will be a beauty - and it should sry fairly evenly - allowing you more freedom of design than with some woods.

[lew]

7 minutes ago, RustyFN said:

The hardest part is waiting for them to dry so they can be finish turned.

 

As strange as it might seem, here's something I've been doing-

https://www.ronkent.com/techniques.php

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?79854-Anyone-using-liguid-dishwasher-detergent

 

I leave the pieces in the soak for about 3 days. Then place in my drying box, monitor the weight loss until it reaches equilibrium. Check for cracks and use CA to stop further opening- this usually doesn't occur.  Depending on the size they are usually dry in 7-10 days. Finish turning.  

[teesquare]

Rusty - this is Sycamore Maple I get from www.acutabovebowlco.com 

 

Lew - thanks for posting that. It is a method I had heard of and forgotten - but worth looking at - especially  for those pieces of tree species  that are really prone to distorting badly or cracking.

[lew]

55 minutes ago, teesquare said:

Rusty - this is Sycamore Maple I get from www.acutabovebowlco.com 

 

Lew - thanks for posting that. It is a method I had heard of and forgotten - but worth looking at - especially  for those pieces of tree species  that are really prone to distorting badly or cracking.

That's gorgeous!

[teesquare]

Thanks Lew. We tend to think of hard maple as a very "white" wood  without a lot of character - unless it is figure. As you can see from those pictures, Some kinds of maple  - hard maple - can be colorful and have figure. 

The thing that fascinates me about trees/wood is that it all depends on where they grow. The same species can be very different in Utah from what we have in the Southeast.

 

The French use a term- "terrior" ( pronounced her - wah ) that defines the impact of the soil, wind, water and sun on the growth and development of wine grapes.

The same is true for trees. The wood I have gotten from the Great Basin from A Cut Above Bowl Co. case been very different from wood of the same species that grows here in the Southern highlands of the Appalachian Mountains. Silver Maple here is fairly soft - and mundane, unless it is heavily infested with Ambrosia beetles.

The pictures below are silver maple from the Great Basin. Not that I can expect all Silver Maple from there to look like this - but the tight grained, hard nature of this wood is MUCH different from our native Silver Maple.

 

 

[lew]

Incredible!

 

I have a piece, similar to yours, I have been hording for just the perfect project. I needed it to do a repair for a friend. The local millworks owner was carrying it around in the back of his truck. He called it "tiger maple". My friend put the finish on the piece I made

 

 

 

The piece that's left is about 2' square and almost 3" thick.

[RustyFN]

Wow Tim that is some beautiful wood. Most of the easy wood to get around here is cherry, water maple, walnut, sycamore, hickory, all of the oaks, and Bradford pear. I don’t like to turn oak.

[RustyFN]

5 hours ago, lew said:

 

That would make a lovely salad bowl!

I am thinking of doing a decorative ring with basket illusion.

[teesquare]

2 hours ago, lew said:

Incredible!

 

I have a piece, similar to yours, I have been hording for just the perfect project. I needed it to do a repair for a friend. The local millworks owner was carrying it around in the back of his truck. He called it "tiger maple". My friend put the finish on the piece I made

 

 

 

The piece that's left is about 2' square and almost 3" thick.

Looks like wood from the same Tre Lew! Yep...I would call that Tiger Maple too.

[teesquare]

44 minutes ago, RustyFN said:

Wow Tim that is some beautiful wood. Most of the easy wood to get around here is cherry, water maple, walnut, sycamore, hickory, all of the oaks, and Bradford pear. I don’t like to turn oak.

Thanks Rusty.

If you can find - or cut white oak - quarter sawn, it can be gorgeous. You have a colder climate in WVA than I do ( SW of Asheville about 30 minutes). That colder climate also makes for better wood density, as the "growing season" is shorter, and the really nice cold winters are the best time to cut wood for turning. Especially if you want the bark to stay on.

[forty_caliber]

A pair for the kiln.  Rough turned 14x4 pecan crotch (not Hays county) and a 7x3. 

 

 

 

.40

 

[Fred W. Hargis Jr]

This is hardly something to show, but it's proof I've been screwing around on the lathe. These 2 bowls are practice pieces I started last week. I was working the larger bowl some time back when a chunk broke out of the bottom. I glued it back in and then forgot about it. After a recent rearrangement of the shop to put my lathe in a different spot I decided to try it again. It's been a nightmare, the wood is extremely dry and I was using carbide tools on it (remember, this was a learning experience). The dust was so bad I had to start wearing a respirator, and under the face shield and glasses the glasses fogged up...so I had to quit wearing them. Then another 2" chunk broke off on the rim. I could only find about 1/2 of it so i couldn't glue it back together...instead I cut about 1" off the top edge of the bowl and went back to turning. I had  at last 3 catches that caused the bowl to fly off the chuck, no doubt this was my fault but this piece has some squirrelly grain. After I reworked it to be round, the crack pointed out goes clear through so I was waiting for it to break off...I finally quit where it's at and it's heading to the burn pile. I chucked the smaller one up in the middle of all this mess to try and use some bowl gouges I had resharpened...I wanted to see how they cut as well as practice the sharpening stuff again. Abyway, no pics didn't happen so here they are:

 

[lew]

3 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

This is hardly something to show, but it's proof I've been screwing around on the lathe. These 2 bowls are practice pieces I started last week. I was working the larger bowl some time back when a chunk broke out of the bottom. I glued it back in and then forgot about it. After a recent rearrangement of the shop to put my lathe in a different spot I decided to try it again. It's been a nightmare, the wood is extremely dry and I was using carbide tools on it (remember, this was a learning experience). The dust was so bad I had to start wearing a respirator, and under the face shield and glasses the glasses fogged up...so I had to quit wearing them. Then another 2" chunk broke off on the rim. I could only find about 1/2 of it so i couldn't glue it back together...instead I cut about 1" off the top edge of the bowl and went back to turning. I had  at last 3 catches that caused the bowl to fly off the chuck, no doubt this was my fault but this piece has some squirrelly grain. After I reworked it to be round, the crack pointed out goes clear through so I was waiting for it to break off...I finally quit where it's at and it's heading to the burn pile. I chucked the smaller one up in the middle of all this mess to try and use some bowl gouges I had resharpened...I wanted to see how they cut as well as practice the sharpening stuff again. Abyway, no pics didn't happen so here they are:

 

End grain hollowing is, IMHO, more difficult than other directions. Very difficult to get clean cuts. If you are using the EWT "finisher" that makes it even more difficult because it will tend to catch. The smaller cutter, on their hollower, is much less prone to catches.

 

In any case, I'd say you done good!

[Gerald]

Working on new top designs. Hope to paint parts of them tomorrow.