I plan to attend a Christmas Fair on the weekend, but was short of bowls, so I've had a couple of sessions at the lathe making a very varied batch with the idea that even if we don't sell any, we'll at least be getting seen and known locally. All the bowls are finished with a brush coat of melamine which I then wipe off after a few minutes with tissue paper liberally wetted with thinners, then a couple of coats of micro-crystaline wax.
This first one is 24cm diameter (9.5") x 4cm deep (1.6") and has an ogee curve and a 5cm (2") foot that is just about as high as a match stick.....just enough to give the impression that the convex part of the curve sweeps all the way under the bowl. It had been cut from a complex crotch area of small branches and is riddled with hairline cracks and knots, so lots of ca adhesive went into it. The brass plinth is not a part of the bowl, it's just there for the sake of the photo.
Next is a simple little natural-edged piece of bone-dry spalted ash. I wasn't planning to sweep the wings up quite so much, but the piths of all three of the branches radiating out of this had bad star shakes which took a lot of filling. I think that I had two choices, either to end the bowl fairly flat, below the piths, or to sweep it up as I did and include the piths. Not sure I got it right!
Next comes a really nice piece of oak that I had forgotten I had in stock. it's a little over 18cm x 10cm (7" x 4") and is in the style of a calabash, based on the partial sphere of the bottle gourd. It has one dead knot which had partially fallen away, so needed a lot of packing with shavings/dust/ca glue. Perhaps I'll refer to it as its 'Beauty spot'!
Then something about as different as you can get to the oak, a piece of poplar with a fair bit of burr in it. I've left all the defects in knots open on the outside of the bowl, but filled all the imperfections on the inside. The red lines are stained with Chestnut red stain, applied quite thinly, so that the grain and an occasional bit of chatoyance show through.
...and finally comes a piece of elm that owes me, big style!. Apart from being fairly expensive these days (understandably), this had a little bit of worm visible on the surface, but when I cut into it, it was riddled. Nothing prepared me for the amount of time that was then going to be spent rough turning, filling, finish turning, filling, sanding, filling and more sanding. I'll never get my money back on it and I've just got to hope that the filling doesn't put too many people off. Someone will like it (hopefully).
C&C always welcome...Les
