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.