I’m trying to work through some old rough-outs that have been sitting around for awhile, drying.  The thing about rough-outs is you never know what you’re going to get when they’re dry enough to turn.  (Kinda like a box of chocolates, only with more testosterone and power tools.)  Sometimes, everything turns out great!  Those are the blanks you hope for.  The bad ones break down into specific categories:

• Warping – Often, the wood will warp from round to oval, so by the time you turn off the points on the ovals to make it round again, all you’re left with is a saucer sized dish.

• Cracking/Checking – If the moisture leaves the bowl too quickly, the fibers of the wood will separate to allow the wood to move.  This causes cracks to form, and once one starts, it’s always a crap shoot to see how deep and how far it will spread.  Sometimes, filling the cracks with some kind of epoxy or CA/sawdust mixture actually helps the piece and makes the turner look like an “artist”.  If the cracks are too bad, the blank will becomes unstable and the blank will explode when the centrifugal force of the lathe kicks in.  The only reason to try turning an unstable blank is to collect on life insurance.

• Knots – If there’s any kind of knot in the roughout, there’s a 99.99% chance that there’s going to be an impact.  Either the knot itself will split apart and crack, the wood surrounding the knot will split apart and crack, or the knot will not move the same direction as the rest of the blank, leaving a hard, bumpy spot that is difficult to turn.  I try to avoid blanks with knots!

It just so happens the three bowls I finished fit into one of the three categories listed be