Square bowls

These two bowls are made from cherry; the stripes are bloodwood (red) and cocobolo (brown). There are at least two ways to turn square bowls, but for now you'll just have to speculate. I gave one of these to my father for his 90th birthday.

Curly maple bowl with lid

I turned this bowl from curly maple. I then turned the lid from walnut, and cut a rabbet on the under side of the rim of the lid to fit into the base. Finally, I turned the knob from purpleheart.

Cherry boxes

Here are two cherry boxes that I turned. The bullet-shaped one was my first box. Each of these boxes is turned from a single piece of wood. Once the outside was turned, the cylinder was parted off between the top and bottom sections; each of these was then hollowed; and the join between the two turned to fit. These boxes are 4" tall. The larger is 3" in diameter; the smaller one is 2.5".

Turning a Box Elder Bowl

Here's the basic process in turning a bowl - in this case a fairly large bowl from a beautiful chunk of box elder. In the first picture the block of wood has been mounted on a faceplate, and because of its size, also supported by the tailstock.

In the second picture the blank has been turned round, but has not yet been shaped. Subsequent to taking this picture I turned the outside shape of the bowl and turned a tenon on the base so that I could reverse the blank and grab the tenon with my chuck. But I forgot to photograph this step!

Here the blank has been reversed, and is held by its base in a 4-jaw chuck. Since it hasn't been hollowed out yet it is still very heavy - so I'll bring the tail stock up again to support the blank while I start turning the inside of the bowl.

I'm now turning the inside of the bowl. When I've finished it can be re-mounted the other way around so that I can shape the outside of the bottom of the bowl.

I've finished turning the inside of the bowl. Now I'll re-mount it to turn the bottom.

The bowl has now been re-mounted with its rim held in the chuck-mounted Cole jaws (which have adjustable rubber buttons to grip the rim). I've also taped it down with duct tape so that it can't fly off the chuck. This can happen all too easily, I've discovered. Now I'll turn away the tenon and shape the base. The tailstock will be taken away after the tenon has been turned down to a small diameter.

Here is the finished bowl. Box elder often has some beautiful color, as this piece shows. This particular bowl was purchased by a neighbor.

Ash Platter

One of the advantages of belonging to a woodturners' group is that members frequently will share their "extra" wood. One of our turners brought in some ash last spring, and I obtained a slab piece about 14" across and a couple inches thick. This platter was the result.

Green Ash

Last summer the city cut down a green ash tree a couple blocks from us, and I obtained a section of the trunk. I chain-sawed it into smaller chunks and turned the pieces which appear in the pictures. As these were turned "green," they distorted as they dried. In fact, the platter with the dark brown "blaze" is radically curled at the ends - it just doesn't show well in this photo.

Cherry bowls - 7

Here's an extreme example of a cherry burl bowl with bark inclusions. In fact, there's so much bark here that there was a lot of question whether the bowl would stay together on the lathe. Fortunately, it did (mostly). This bowl is 6.5" across and 2.5" high.

Cherry bowls - 6

Here is another winged bowl, turned from a section of a branch. There's some burl on the near side in the photos, and a natural bark edge along the side. This bowl measures 8.75" across the wings, and 1.75" high.

Cherry bowls - 5

This is a "winged" bowl, with natural edges. It was turned from a "crotch" in the cherry tree, where the trunk divided into two limbs. It is 8.25" wingtip to wingtip, and 2.75" high.

Cherry bowls - 4

Sometimes nearly the entire bowl is turned from a burl. Here's a simple, small bowl that I think is very pretty. It is 6.25" across and 2.25" high.

Cherry bowls - 3

Here are two smaller cherry bowls, each about 6" in diameter and 3-4" high. They were turned from a piece of firewood that had been lying under a neighbor's deck. The grain really shows up in these (as do the worm tracks!).

Cherry bowls - 2

Here is another cherry bowl with a very different shape, also with some burl and some bark inclusions.

This bowl is about 10" across and 4" high. You can see the shaping of the rim that occurred as it dried.

Cherry bowls - 1

Since I got started turning I've tried a number of different woods, and a variety of turned shapes. In my opinion, one of the loveliest and most interesting woods to turn is cherry, and particularly cherry burl. I'll put up photos of some cherry bowls over the next few posts. This bowl is cherry burl, with bark inclusions. It's about 7" in diameter and 4" tall.

First bowl

This is the first bowl that I turned, in the Fall of 2003, during a short course I took from an experienced turner. I then decided to keep going on my own. This bowl was turned from a piece of "green" spalted maple. By "green" I mean that the wood was still wet when the bowl was turned (the tree had just been cut down a couple days before, in fact). Bowls that are turned green often dry in unusual ways.