Green Wood Bowl

This is the sequence of log to finished bowl steps.

This is the other half of the same log. Sometimes things just don't go as planned. But it is still a good learning experience. I was glad I had my full face shield on when this bowl blew apart, twice. After the first chunk broke out I used a parting tool and cut the broken area off to make a smaller bowl. But as you can see that bowl then blew up too. These were caused by small catches as I tried to start the cut at the rim with a bowl gouge. I am going to try turning the gouge more sideways like a scraper and cut from 1/4" inside of the bowl back out to the rim. After that starter cut I think I can use the bowl gouge to finish the cut into the bottom of the bowl.

And then the ends of the log I cut into small blocks to make more boxes with. I place these in a heavy plastic sack so they don't dry out too fast. I may round out 3 blocks and then turn them into boxes right away, but normally take one block at a time and bake a box from it. These smaller blocks dry and crack fast it seems like if they are left out in the open. Once they have been turned into boxes they don't seem to crack any. I have had some lids that are tight after about 3-4 days but some sandpaper wrapped around a finger and ran around the inside of the box rim seems to get then right back to the good fit.

How much can you really get from one log. Here is the crabapple log.

Some pictures of the crotches on the lath.

And the first day of turning. Still had half the log left.

And the 2nd day of turning using the rest of the log. I cored the small bowls with the Machnaught Tool.

I have one bowl blank left to turn also. There will not be a core bowl from it. And one core bowl had a bad bark or crack so I did not use it.

More green wood turnings. Here are about 50 bowls with only 3 cracks. All turned green to finished at one time. They just have one coat of Arm-R-Seal or Salad Oil on them after the sanding on the lathe. As you can see many have the pith left in the bowl, all done green. The one with the beads on the outside is a thick walled bowl from end grain. Had a short section of log left and just figured I would turn it for the heck of it. But it did not crack from the pith in the bottom of the bowl.