My friend and mentor, Bob, took down a birch tree at his house. Not a huge tree, but big enough to yield some small bowl blanks. We put one of the bowl blanks on his lathe to do the rough turning, while we talked and solved the great problems of the world. Often times, there’s more talk than there is actual turning, but either way, it’s a great way to spend the evening. When we were done, he gave me the roughed out bowl to take home and finish after it had dried. I stumbled across the blank earlier this week and after checking the moisture content, realized it could be finished at any point in time. I also saw that it had spalted during the drying process, meaning the wood now had those black lines running through it, which I think makes it look twice as pretty!
Chucking it up, I instantly remembered the roughing process. The blank had a “weird” initial shape to it. Being taken from the crotch of the tree, there was one side that would present a problem if we made it into a traditional bowl. I remembered we considered making it a traditional natural edged bowl, but again, the funky place in the blank would have made even a natural edged bowl turn into a tiny bread plate. To solve the issue, we had to mount the bowl at a weird angle, meaning the grain wasn’t horizontal or perpendicular on the lathe, it was off at a pretty extreme angle. Not to get too technical, but this orientation of the wood dramatically changes where the end grain on the bowl will be, how the growth rings will look, and how the tools will react while it’s being turned. It will also make one side of the bowl significantly taller than the other.
I also recalled thinking “I wonder if I can make the tall side of this curve in on itself” as I started forming the outside shape of the bowl. Turning a natural edged bowl can quickly feel like trying to sharpen a lawnmower blade while it’s still spinning. Turning a natural edged bowl where the top curves in on itself is like sharpening the blades while the lawnmower is running – AND – you’re wearing mittens and a blindfold. It’s hard enough to see the one piece of wood that’s sticking out as it whizzes past, it is a whole different level of danger when the piece is curving in, yet you still have to get a tool through the spinning death to make cuts on the under side of the curve. The wood didn’t cut cleanly, so I had to spend several hours of hand sanding to get the torn out grain and shoddy tool marks to disappear. The answer to the question I asked myself is obviously yes, I possess the skills to make this bowl. The next question becomes, “Why! Why in the name of god and all things holy would you ever want to attempt something that dangerous again?”
Below is the final result. While it’s not typical of what I’ve been doing lately, I do like the finished product. But I don’t think I like it enough to risk severed fingers to do another one.
