With the new Nova Comet II midi lathe and Nova G3 50mm scroll chuck, I only lacked a couple of decent bowl gouges to get started turning some small bowl forms. I also added a Rikon 1/2 HP low speed grinder and Oneway Wolverine Grinding System to maintain sharp edges on my lathe tools. After watching lots of videos from accomplished wood turners like Stuart Batty and Ashley Harwood, it was time to attempt to turn some firewood into bowls. Then I made my first mistake …
I had two cherry logs from my brother, and decided to turn them into a bunch of bowl blanks for rough turning. My mistake was cutting out over twenty bowl blanks all at one time, and then almost literally watching them split and crack as I turned the first few to prepare them for drying. I should have left the logs intact, only cutting one or two blanks at a time, so I could immediately turn them to a uniform wall thickness in their green state, and set them aside for drying.
I will add to the images below as I learn, practice, and no doubt, make more (hopefully different) mistakes.
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- Cherry firewood log split in half
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- Preparing cherry log bowl blank
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- Cherry bowl blank mounted on wormscrew and supported by tailstock
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- Rough shaping a cherry bowl blank
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- Formed recess for expanding 2″ diameter scroll chuck jaws
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- Forming the finished bowl without a proper bowl gouge
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- Spray finished first bowl attempt with Deft
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- Load of fresh sawn cherry from my brother, John’s house
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- Large cherry turning stock
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- Hand sawing cherry logs into lengths for bowl blanks
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- Several lengths of cherry logs
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- Sawing debarked cherry log sections on the bandsaw with a board screwed to the side as a guide
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- Sawn cherry log sections
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- Preparing a batch of small bowl blanks from small diameter cherry logs
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- Bandsawing half log sections to bowl blank lengths
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- Big batch of cherry log bowl blanks ready for the next step. BTW, it was a huge mistake to prepare so many bowl blanks. They should be rough turned immediately after being prepared.
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- Pilot holes for mounting blanks on the wormscrew held in the scroll chuck
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- Using the wormscrew pilot hole as a pivot point to bandsaw each blank into a roughly circular shape
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- With the bandsaw table tilted, a rough outside bowl shape was produced, reducing the amount of material to be removed on the lathe
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- Side view of bandsaw table tilted, with pivot point clamped to table
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- View of bowl blank with conically bandsawn sides
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- Rough shaping the outside of a bowl blank, after acquiring my very first bowl gouge
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- Push cuts with a sharp bowl gouge produced satisfying piles of shavings
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- First blank rough turned with an actual bowl gouge
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- The goal of rough turning is a uniform wall thickness so moisture can escape relatively uniformly
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- Benjamin’s Best 5/8″ bowl gouge with a swept back wing grind
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- Not sure I’m making wooden bowls or just piles of wood shavings
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- A second round of rough turned bowl blanks
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- Outside of a rough turned bowl blank with 2″ diameter tenon for chucking
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- More rough-tuned blanks for the second batch of bowls
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- Rough-turning another bowl blank
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- Second set of blanks, rough turned from the logs that didn’t split too badly, ready for drying in the garden shed
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- Sawdust and shavings have always been a major product of Marietta Wood Works
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- First batch of rough-turned cherry bowls drying in the garden shed
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- Temperatures at the upper parts of the garden shed often reach wood-drying kiln temperatures in the summertime
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- Open wire shelving allows plenty of airflow around drying rough-turned bowl
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- After about three months of drying in the garden shed, the first batch of rough-turned bowls are ready for final turning
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- Reverse view of my work area, with bowl blanks in various stages on the workbench
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- Rough-turned and dried bowl blank chucked and ready for finish turning
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- First bowl from a dried, rough-turned blank, cut with a proper bowl gouge,, and friction finished with Aussie Oil
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- New Cole jaws mounted on the Nova G3 scroll chuck
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- Finished bowl mounted in Cole chuck for turning and finishing its bottom
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- Side view of finished bowl mounted in Cole jaws
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- Bottom tenon removed and bottom of bowl sanded and ready for friction finishing
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- Completed bowl bottom
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- First completed bowl using a more proper sequence of roughing, drying, and final turning
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- Side view of ~5″ diameter cherry bowl
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- Reverse view with various blanks and tools
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- Finish turning another cherry bowl in process
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- Ready for final cuts on the inside
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- Finished bowl chucked in Cole jaws for bottom finishing work
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- Finished cherry bowl with Aussie Oil friction finish applied
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- A lot of work and process steps go into making a finished bowl from a log destined for the fireplace!