Busy doing nothing?

At this time of year I tend to spend a lot of time doing preparatory work, but not actually getting anything finished. Lately I have been rough turning salad bowls blanks. Here I am hollowing a medium sized bowl and creating a pile of shavings on the floor.


Here I am working on a larger bowl blank. This picture gives a good idea of the long shavings that come off when turning green wood, that is wood that still has moisture in it. It is softer and more flexible than dried wood, so it is quite easy to make wide cuts and the shavings are less likely to break into small chips.


I did get to spend some time turning some smaller salad bowl blanks that have been taking up shelf space in my drying room. At the moment I seem to be in the enviable position of having nearly too much wood, and need to clear space for it all.


These bowls have since had one application of walnut oil. Tonight I plan on giving them a second coat, then when that is dry in a week or so they will be ready to go out on the gallery shelf. I might put a few for sale here, so do watch this space if you think you could use a kitchen-safe wooden bowl.

A warped bowl.

A few weeks ago I was telling you I was working with some green wood. I had finished turning a birch bowl and was leaving it to dry slowly, wrapped up in newsprint.


Today I have removed it from the paper. You can see how much it has distorted. No cracks! I will leave it to dry some more in a normal climate, then put it in the dry room to finish the process.

Tags: woodturning, bowl, birch, woodworking

Working with green wood

This past week I have been working with some 'green' yellow birch. When woodturners use the term 'green' they are referring to wood which has been recently cut and is not yet dry.

In this instance the wood was cut last summer and delivered to me as short logs. The ends had been sealed with a wax emulsion. This slows down the drying process and minimizes cracking. Even so, because it has taken me all this time to get around to doing anything with it, there were some checks in the end of each log. Fortunately they hadn't gone too deep, and there wasn't too much waste.

I have just finished turning what I call a 'green' bowl. It was turned from start to finish while the wood is still damp, and will now be left to dry slowly. By leaving the walls of the bowl thin they will distort as the wood dries, rather than crack. That's the theory anyway, but one can never be too sure. I have now wrapped the bowl up in newsprint, and will leave it to dry slowly for a few weeks before removing the paper. When finished, it will not be perfectly round, but will have gone slightly oval and the rim will not be flat. Neither will the bottom of the bowl, so I will remount it on the lathe and trim the bottom so it will sit properly on your table.

One of the beauties of working with green wood is the lovely long wide shavings that stream effortlessly off of the chisel. This picture shows some ofthe shavings I picked up from the workshop floor today. Once dry, these shavings make great kindling for the wood stove.

Tags: woodturning, green wood, bowl