Next, you'll want to form a tenon - that's a round protrusion that allows the chuck jaws to grip the wood when we flip it around. There's no science to this - just create a curve that's pleasing to your eye and looks appropriate for the outside of a bowl. Now it's safe to increase the lathe speed (I went to 1200 RPM) and begin shaping the outside. Continue until you have something resembling a cylinder on the outside edge of the wood. Don't get too aggressive at this point, as it's easy to catch the tool on the rough spots of the blank. Take light cuts, knocking down the high spots. The minimum speed on my lathe is 430 RPM, which is a good starting point.īring up your tool rest so it's close to the wood without bumping into it and so your tool's cutting edge will be near the vertical center of the wood. Since the wood isn't quite round yet, we will run the lathe at a lower speed for now. That means we need to work on the outside first. We now have the wood on the lathe! The place where we've mounted the faceplate or worm screw will become the inside of our bowl. If using a worm screw, drill a hole and thread it in. If using a faceplate, make sure to clear away enough of the bark that the plate sits flat on the wood. This is done using either a faceplate (shown here) or a worm screw. With the blank now rounded off, you'll mount the wood with the bark facing the headstock of the lathe. When in doubt, remove less wood - if you cut too close in one section, it reduces the diameter of the entire bowl. If you have a circle cutting jig for your bandsaw, it helps. Instead, we can take the blank over to the bandsaw and remove the corners, shaping it into a rough circle (or at least an octagon). You can start turning this as-is, but it's a lot of extra work that isn't particularly fun. Now you have two halves of a formerly cylindrical log section. If you try this and it works, let me know in the comments. You could use a chainsaw or, if the wood appears relatively straight grained, a hatchet or splitting wedge to part the wood down the middle. Again, I did this with a handsaw, which I would not recommend. Once you have your log section, you need to split it in half. I'd recommend using a handsaw designed for tree pruning or, if available, a chainsaw. I made this cut using a woodworking handsaw and it took forever. This will give you bowl blanks that are more or less square. Measure the diameter of your log at the widest point, then measure up the log by that distance and make your cut. You can also see how the bowl is oriented within that blank, which should give you a clearer idea of the steps to follow. In the drawing above, you can see exactly how a tree trunk becomes a log, and how that log is then cut to form a blank. To get this effect, you need to do some stock preparation first. The difference between a live-edge bowl and a more conventional bowl is the strip of bark around the rim. There may be some slight warping, but on a live-edge bowl with a lot of natural character, the warping can increase the appeal. This reduces the speed at which water can escape, lowering the chances that the bowl will crack. Instead, I turn the walls as thin and as uniformly as I can, then use a finish that forms a moisture barrier. This is a great method if you have storage space and patience. turned to a round, thick, semi-bowl-like state), then stored in a sealed bag with the shavings for several months until the wood has a chance to dry slowly. When woodturning, a lot of people say that green wood should be "rough turned" (i.e. As moisture leaves the wood, it causes changes in dimensions (warps, splits, cracks, et cetera). Lacquer is another popular option.Ī note about using green wood: "Green" wood is wood that has not been dried and still has a very high moisture content. I use "shine juice," which is a mix of shellac and linseed oil. Log section or bowl blank with bark intact.Appropriate PPE (face shield, safety glasses, dust mask).Turning tools (I used carbide scrapers).In this tutorial, I'll teach you how to make a live-edge bowl (that is, a bowl that retains the bark around the rim) from a freshly cut tree using a wood lathe and various other tools.
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