A month or so ago I had taken several pieces of a mulberry log and rough turned bowl blanks. They were all about equal size and thickness when I put them into the kiln to dry. They were not so equal when they came out. The first two bowls just surrendered to their fate and came out with no cracking, minimal warping, and were quickly finished. (They’re posted as mulberry bowl #4 and #5.) The last one must have come from the shady side of the tree and didn’t want to give up the fight…
When it came out of the kiln, I sized up my enemy. They had warped themselves, not so much so that the blank was unusable, but enough that it would require extra steps and time to make it able to be turned. Nice try, but I have the skills to best this trick and was clearly winning this battle. It had a more difficult trick, however, as it cracked itself along 80% of the outside of the blank. My enemy just smiled up at me as if to say it was now on top. Since there was no visible sign of the crack on the inside of the blank, I figured the crack wasn’t that deep and I’d be able to “turn it away” while making the final bowl. Just to be safe, I filled the large visible crack and some smaller cracks on the end grain with two part epoxy mixed with dye. I figured that would be strong enough to hold everything together as I finished the turning, and if any remained, it would look decorative. I was clearly back in the lead. The outside of the bowl worked perfectly! The surface was smooth, the epoxy repair looked like I had intended, and no blood was shed. When I flipped the bowl around to turn the inside, about halfway through thinning the wood down, I heard/felt a loud “POP” and the bowl suddenly didn’t look like it was round anymore. My enemy had counter attacked! I shut off the lathe and realized that as wood was removed on the inside of the bowl, stress within the wood caused the crack to expand to about 90% of the bowl and the entire inside surface was now cracked as well. The whole thing was literally being held together by an inch of epoxy on one side and faith in a kind and loving god who had decided I didn’t need to go to the emergency room on the other. I filled all the exposed parts of the crack with CA glue, set the whole thing aside to let the glue dry, and declared a cease fire. This enemy was tougher than I expected.
The next day, I took the project over to a friend of mine (Bob) and asked, “What ideas do you have for this? After a very thorough review of the crack, the epoxy and the CA glue, Bob applied his 40+ years of turning expertise into a single, direct response: “I think you should throw the whole thing away and start over”. Subtlety was not a part of his thoughts and he had clearly sided with my enemy. He wasn’t nearly as trusting as I was about the strength of the epoxy and CA glue to hold things together and painted a picture of just how much damage was going to be done when this bowl completely failed on the lathe and came flying back in my face at 2000 RPMs. There would be gaping wounds, the sudden loss of multiple teeth, and a growing puddle of blood that would need to be mopped up before it got on the tools. Then, he earnestly suggested we start a different project. I could sense the bowl was laughing at me in a way only the truly victorious would comprehend. While I understood the logical response Bob made, I was somehow saddened by how quickly he had given up the fight and seemed to support the enemy vessel. When I opened my mouth to respond, I truly was intending to surrender by saying, “Yeah, I think you’re right…”. But as the words came out I heard myself say, “Yeah, well, I think I’m gonna risk it anyway.” The war was not lost, at least not today, Satan!
I swear Bob glanced at me with a look of disapproval so clear you could actually hear it!
We turned the lathe speed down, wore appropriate safety garb, got the cell phone ready to dial 911, and made sure not to stand directly in front of the line of fire when the lathe started spinning. After 30 minutes of turning, I was back on top. The epoxy and CA glue was holding just fine, everything was round and ready for sanding. Then, the evil bowl sprung it’s last attack by using my own work against me. All those black lines creating by filling in the cracks looks really bad and out of place. It was like the bowl had purposely made itself look ugly, so no one would want it! Those lines would need to be addressed, somehow. Bob’s solution was to use the cracks to provide some kind of alignment/guide as to where the match should be placed when it was put into the chimenea to burn. I heard surrender and accept defeat at the will of the mighty mulberry bowl. My solution was to incorporate the lines into some kind of surface embellishment, i.e. never surrender! When I said that out loud, Bob gave me a look that seemed to be a cross between “why would you even want to try to do that” and “what the hell is wrong with you, boy?”.
The next day, after a couple beers and some Pooh like pondering, I settled on a plan to use the cracks placed as a barricade to my success by the bowl as the stems for ferns. A little wood burning and some India ink that was supposed to be the color of lettuce and this creation was done.
What do you think? Was it worth the effort or should I have admitted defeat, handed Bob my zippo and let fire cleanse all mistakes?
