Mutant Bowl

Greg,

Very interesting grain in the wood. Look good to me.

It's good to be able to salvage some wood. I was able to pick up several nice peices of cedar from a neighbor last friday. One of his trees had problems. I was getting home as he was putting the wood at the curb for trash pickup. I told him I was going to "steal" it form him. LOL He even helped me load it up.

John Haines Norfolk, VA

Greg G. wrote:

Thanks, John. I'm still working up the nerve to try my next big project, a segmented vase made up of 108 pieces. Never hollowed a segmented vase before, and don't want to watch it explode from the lathe from a misapplied tool into it's constituent parts.

I wish I could justify driving to Florida in the aftermath of a hurricane to salvage the wood that is surely uprooted. I've been wanting to try some palm wood. Seems such a waste to see it heaped up and buried or burned.

Greg G.

"Greg G." wrote: (clip) I thought the figure of the wood was interesting. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Allow me to compliment you on the way you placed the grain pattern within the bowl.

Thanks. It's a real Rorschach test. Every orientation reveals a new twisted personality. ;-)

Greg G.

Greg... like most of us, you vastly underrate your work...

Shape is only awkward to people that don't like it... the shape looks fine to me..

The choice of grain orientation is one of my favorites, and also one of the best sellers in my limited experience.. I guess folks think "real wood" when they see it??

Good luck on the segmented bowl... having already been involved with explosives and shrapnel, I'll pass on that excitement...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Sometimes they seem to be looking right back - and smiling....

Or it's headlights are on... ;-) Pretty cool. Is it a Y crotch from spalted river birch?

Greg G.

Thanks. When some guy chases me down and offers a cool bean for it, I'll reconsider... ;-)

Would that be the "This Side Towards Enemy" type, or the wooden type? :-o

Greg G.

Greg, If I had your bowl in my booth at the show I am doing, it may have lasted 2 days. Cherry always sells. The shape/form is very nice. The grain isn't centered in the bowl which some people think detracts from the artistic value of the bowl, but I like. How big is it? robo hippy

Beech. Branch, through and through.

George, That's cool. TomNie

Hey, I like it. I think it looks great, and I like the finish on it. Too many are now making their projects look very plastic by gobbing on the finish and Beall buffing it out.

On the other hand, I will confess that the segmented turnings look better with gloss finish to me... not sure why.

Just a thought... only that. When you make your segmented piece, don't go nuts on the wood choices. Hollowing the segments can be quite painful (especially if you haven't hollowed a lot before. Transitioning from medium soft woods like walnut, maple, etc., to the harder exotics that give the great color can give you fits. Nothing like chipping off segment #146 deep inside the piece where you cannot reach it, and therefore cannot fix it.

Back to the bowl. I like the open feel to it, and since I am a very pragmatic type of woodworker, it appeals even more as it looks like a great bowl to actually use. And if it is beech (food friendly), how nice would it be to casually bring out the holiday night's salad in that bad boy and say... "that? well, it just something I spun off the lathe the other day... glad you like it".

OK... one more thought. Don't forget to date that. If you are just getting in the mix of things, you will love to see your work and skill change and progress as you change your tastes and your skills improve.

Would this by chance be the very bowl style that required the undercutting of the rim you were asking about before? If it is, what method did you use?

Robert

Thanks. The finish is just tung oil. I like the repairability and look of oil finishes. And you can still wax over the drying oils. I've been know to put a piece back on the lathe months after turning it, just for a little change. ;-) Plain old oil allows for this.

As for me, it depends on the piece. Although I tend to avoid thick, plastic looking, glossy finishes - period.

As a child, I spent a lot of unsupervised time in a retail furniture store stocked with handmade NC/VA furniture. Even though my family had no particular interest in furniture, other than to plop their butts down on, I learned a lot about what I liked and didn't like about furniture wood, technique, and style in general - just by crawling over and under everything there.

Saw a lot of nice oiled and French polished walnut, cherry, and pecan woods, and the glossy, poly-looking finishes have always reminded me of a cheap dinette top. Easy to clean up, but ugghh...

Believe me - I have considered that phenomenon. Even Walnut and Maple cut somewhat differently than one another. I am actually surprised that I got the dish off the lathe intact. ;-)

I have been weighing the various properties of the wood before considering for use in a piece. And since I can't afford Brazilian Walnut and Teak, it isn't likely I'll be using them anytime soon.

I go for function over form. I see no more point in a vase that falls over when loaded with dried flowers that a bowl that couldn't be used for soup. Whether I actually USE them for such things is another matter entirely. ;-)

This bowl was Cherry with tung oil - not the most food friendly of substances out there. But we will probably put fruits and veggies from the garden in it anyway.

I've been thinking about that very thing. Many types of woods don't show felt-tip pen marks well, and I've looked briefly at woodburning stamps with dates, but nothing has grabbed me around the neck and screamed "USE ME". What I think I want is a woodburning logo stamp with a full date and/or sequence mark. That doesn't cost $300. I've thought about cobbling up something with a chunk of steel and a Dremel, but the selectable date part is difficult. I've also been considering a small brass disk slightly inset into the bottom, engraved with the date and such.

And my handwriting is so variable that I'm not sure I want to pen it by hand anyway - I might end up with a super nice bowl that says Cheery instead of Cherry. :-o

No, this one had a fairly mild roll at the lip. I used a gouge and scraper on it. There was a picture link attached to the other post, showing the exact profile I was after on a segmented vase. Sort of a small, 3/16" 190 degree rolled lip and a ~1/8" bead tight to the base.

FWIW,

Greg G.

Then it becomes a Feature and it is Art!

Unfortunately, the former... couple of visits to scenic Southeast Asia...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

My wife uses a wood burning pen to put "mac 2005" or whatever on the bottom of each piece, and something about the type of wood, room permitting..

Of course, if did cost me about $200 last Christmas to move her up from "wood burning" to "pyrography" with a digital setup, but I get my bowls labeled.. *g*

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Beautiful place, when it's not raining and the bugs aren't eating your flesh. But those VC buggers sure could dig in and make things miserable. Missed it myself, narrowly, but friends and family didn't.

Greg G.

OK - I see now - it is a digital temperature control, not a digital burner. LOL I wondered how they had managed to produce a digital woodburning tool for $200. (Thinking of laser engraver for wood...) This technique still depends on my lousy handwriting skills...

Thanks,

Greg G.

Thanks - I haven't tried selling any stuff... yet... As for the size of the bowl, it is 7" in diameter and 2" tall.

Greg G.