This bowl is Cypress from Florida that a friend gave me. I turned it vertical, which was easier as it is a softer wood. I finished the inside very smooth and glossy, however I left the exterior a bit less finished and used a satin varnish. The contrast worked nicely.
This was a vertically turned piece. This introduced me into what it is like to turned hard woods vertically, and that is difficult.
I call this one “Cherry Cherry” as I dyed the cherry Red. This bowl now resides in Central California.
Here is a perfect example as to how radical the Cherry Wood can warp during drying. The trick is to keep if from splitting in the process!
My neighbor across the street removed this dying Cherry and gave me the wood. In fact for the wood I gave them this bowl in return. This was the first Cherry Wood I turned. What amazed me as how the bowl would warp during the drying process and especially made the edges of these bowls very special. Still today this is one of my favorite woods to work with.
I had attempted to make this a natural edge bowl, one that had bark on the rim. However, often the bowl wood and the bark will dry and shrink at much different rates causing the bark to separate from the bowl wood.
That is what happened here so I dyed the bowl where the bark had been and it turned out sort of neat. Sometimes you just get lucky.
This is what is called a segmented bowl. You make allot of small blocks of wood, in this case using Walnut, Purple Heart and Paduck. You then glue them into rings and then stack the rings and then finally turning the bowl.
I purchased a kit of pre-made rings from Woodcraft and then glued, turned and finished this bowl.
Building segmented bowls is pretty intense and if your really interested I would suggest you go to WoodTurns website for more info.
As mentioned in Bowl # 78, this one is dyed on both sides leaving the top edge natural.
The Hickory wood for this series ob bowls came from the front yard of Allison’s Parents in Chattanooga. Some are Dyed on the inside, some the outside and some on both sides with just the top of the rim the natural color. Green Hickory is just a wonderful wood to turn and just peels off.
This bowl could have easily been fed to the Fire Dawgs as survived. I guess it survived as it was so close to finishing turning that I had too much invested to just throw a bowl this size into the fire. You see the red plug. I turned through th bottom of the bowl and caused a hole. So I fiured out how to turn a plug and turn a fitting for the plug in the bottom of the bow.
Also the darkish area on the back side of the bowl…well this is cross grain which is very difficult to sand out. At the time I did not have the proper sanding equipment to deal with it. Before I sold this bowl I completely resanded and refinished.
I am just glad the Fire Dawgs went a bit hungry that day!