A few months ago I posted a pic of a n/e bowl in olive ash. It came from a trunk that had fallen in a storm at Christmas time and I had kept most of it as firewood. Amongst that batch was a log of about 16" diameter and 4ft long, but it had split quite badly at both ends. A couple of days ago I started cutting it up for firewood and reached the middle of the length of the log when I realised that there were no splits in that part, so I quickly stuck a lump on the lathe and set about making another bowl out of it. By all rights it had dried a bit too much to be real green-wood-turning, and it started to move within less than a half hour of completing it.
It turned really well, not as soft and easy as it had been 4 months ago, but still a dream to work with compared with dry wood.
If anything, cutting the 'peaks' of the rim of the bowl was a little easier, because when I made the original bowl the peaks were very flexible and kept bending away from the gouge when I got them down to about 5mm, but this time, being a little drier, they stayed more upright and I found it much easier to get a finish off the gouge.
Anyway, here's the finished piece, still bare wood, so let's see what happens to it over the next few days before I decide what finish to use. It's now sat in a garden shed to avoid drying it too quickly.
What is strange is the speed with which it is moving. I remember reading of a trick to test the quality of a curve, a method that one of the critique team used, and it relies on using a hot-melt glue-stick pressed against the body of the bowl to follow the curve. Any high-points or low-points will immediately be obvious! Anyway, this bowl was as close as I could get it to passing that test - or at least it was when I turned it. By the time I took the photos, a few hours later, it had developed a wobble at the point where the heartwood connects with the sapwood. In the photo above the wobble can be seen quite clearly and in the photo below we can see that it seems to be shrinkage in the sapwood that's causing it.
Hopefully the curve will smooth-out again when it's fully dried.
By the way, it's about 10" diameter and 8" tall.
Les
