Maple Wood Bowl

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Here's a Maple wood bowl I turned this week end. It measures 6.5 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches high. As are most of the bowls I turn, the wood for this came from trees in my own back yard. This wood was from a Silver Maple tree. The bowl was wet sanded with mineral oil and then finished with a high-speed wax for a gloss finish. I'm not a big fan of high gloss finishes on my bowls, but I wanted to see what this would look like on this Maple. Not bad. Some cracking developed as I turned the walls thinner and thinner. I managed to keep the cracks from spreading by using CA glue (Super Glue) to secure them.

Pear Wood Canister 3

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Here's a Pear wood canister I made a few days ago. This one is 3 inches in diameter and 4 inches tall, with an amber colored glass marble topping off the knob on the lid. There's a walnut wood liner on the inside of the lid, put there to make the lid fit tighter. I finished the outside of the canister with fluted rings for a decorative effect. This canister was wet sanded with mineral oil and burnished with its own wood shavings.

Mulberry Burl Bowl Update

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As I said in the initial post for this piece, I turned it while the wood was still green which made for a lot of warping of the wood. Dramatically so, as you can see in these photos. I did further work on the Mulberry bowl by filling in the voids and cracks with pigmented epoxy. I mixed gold powder (powdered gold colored mica) and poured it into the voids and cracks, over-filling the spaces so I could file it down to the level of the wood surface. I'm a little surprised at how well it worked . I also sanded and polished the wood which looks pretty good, considering.

Pear Wood Canister 2

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Eucalyptus Wood Bowl

Here's a Eucalyptus wood bowl I made yesterday. It measures 6 inches in diameter and 2.75 inches high. This is wood from a tree in my backyard. It was cut from a fallen branch a year ago and left to dry. When dry this wood is very hard. I had to sharpen my chisels 4 times while turning this bowl (usually once will do). It's beautiful wood and finishes nice though. There are a couple of small "checks" (cracks) in the wood from drying. I'm thinking of filling them with a gold colored fill . . . maybe. This was wet sanded with mineral oil, which I've been doing on a regular basis now because it eliminates a great deal of super-fine wood dust. I followed that with a coat of boiled linseed oil, then burnished it at a high speed with its own wood shavings.