Wood Shop

Hollys Walnut Bowl Pt 2 Preliminary shaping

Good Morning All,

Ive been looking at the turning blank since Tuesday and Ive decided to shape it into a calabash bowl. Calabash bowls have a narrow opening at the top that is smaller in diameter than the widest part of the bowl. Ive never made one before and I think this shape will fit the shape of the turning blank. So off we go.

Shaping the bottom
Since the blank is still attached to the faceplate I decided to shape the bottom of the bowl first.  So I took the whole thing back to the wood shop and re-attached it to the lathe and the first thing I noticed was an ominous looking series of cracks in the surface of the blank. The bottom needed to be trued up and the bark was still attached to the blank too. These are all problematic features and have to be dealt with first:

I like to take a straight edge to check the flatness of the bottom of bowls and platters. It can be difficult to see small subtleties and its important for the bottom of the bowl to be flat so it wont spin on a flat surface:


Ive gently shaved the bottom flat and Ive also located the center of the foot and marked off a 2 inch diameter circle and a 3 inch diameter circle. Im not sure yet just how Im going to mount the bottom of the bowl onto the lathe and so these two circles will let me either center a small faceplate or create a recess for my Nova chuck. Those can stay there for the time being:


 In this photo you can see the flattened bottom clearly. Ive roughly marked the widest part of the bowl in white pencil. Approximately 1/3 of the bowl will sit below this mark and 2/3 will sit above this mark:


Time to begin shaping the blank. There is a lot of wood to be removed before we get to our final shape:



Here is the bowl several minutes later:

And about 10 minutes later:
 Time to take the blank off the lathe and stand it up to see clearly what the shape looks like. I think the general shape of the bowl is good. My next step is to shape the bottom a little more, cut a recess in the bottom for my Nova Chuck and smooth the wood. I like to get the bottom of any bowl nearly finished before I flip it over and re mount it. Its much easier to do this now rather than later:


Here Im cutting a recess in the foot of the bowl with my tailstock removed and a drill chuck inserted into its place. You can see the big Forstner bit Im using for this:


Here is the finished recess:

This photo shows how Ive cleaned up the bottom and sanded it smooth. The bark is still there but its firmly attached and very smooth now so I think Ill just leave it:


Ive taken the bowl off the lathe and removed the faceplate. In this photo you can see the chuck being screwed into the recess in the bottom of the bowl:


And Ive flipped the bowl over and remounted it on the lathe. In the photo you can also see cracking radiating out from the center of the bowl. The pith of the tree is causing this and it has to be removed so Im next going to remove about the top 1/2 layer of wood and you can see how Ive marked that off in the photo:


Heres another problem that has just shown itself-a branch. You can see it at the top of the bowl. This will cause problems as well so Ive begun removing it as well. Ive also cut another recess in the bowl to help the wood fibers relax a little:


Here is the blank with the top 1/2 inch of wood removed and Ive gotten more of the branch removed as well:


 Here is a side view of the photo. Im hoping that the radial cracking will ease up now that Ive removed the pith.
The top of the bowl needs to be narrowed and the diameter of the bowl needs to be narrowed too and so tomorrow thats what well work on.


Im going to leave this out in the workshop and stop here for the day.

See you tomorrow,
VW