[Woodworkers] Red Oak Bowl

[John McCaskill]

Oh yeah, the UFO bowl 😂 Two years ago I was turning a large (probably 14-15” dia) mesquite bowl as a wedding present for my bride to be. It came apart explosively, a piece hit me, several flew across the shop, and I’ve never even found some of them. Luckily I was wearing good PPI, including a very stout helmet. I had some bruises, but no cuts or bleeding. Once I got my senses back, my thoughts were the same: Well, shit, that didn’t work out. 

My story goes on, though. 
I also had a nice 16” pecan blank dry and ready to turn. I thought that would do well as a replacement. So, I turned it more carefully. No inclusions in this blank.  Of course, just as I took my last cut on the ID (the OD was done), I saw a little pinprick of light in the side wall about 1/4 of the way up from the bottom. Right. Too thin. I’ve been trying for 2 years to figure out if there’s any way to salvage it. It’s sitting in my shop, haunting me, as we speak. 

The rest of the story: some of my very good Woodturner “friends” made a bowl for her as a wedding present 😄She loves it, but is still merrily asking when I’ll finish “my” bowl. As the story goes, Real Soon Now 😂

But, if you really need one, I’ll happily finish one of the dozens of semi-finished bowls that I have in my shop for you! Just not quite as big or exotic. 

John McCaskill

Everything is always okay in the end, if it's not, then it's not the end.

> On Aug 14, 2021, at 5:07 PM, Gary C Williams via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> I volunteer with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity on the construction side and we have a volunteer of the year award.
> 
> Last year because of Covid we didn't have our annual farm to table dinner. So this year we are planing on awarding a gift to two people, one for last year and one for this year.
> 
> One of the long time volunteers that died a few years ago was a great bowl turner so they have named the award after him (Steve Thompson).
> 
> After his sudden death, his wife gave me the opportunity to take as many bowl blanks that I wanted, which without being greedy, I took probably 10. 
> 
> These blanks went back to 2014 -2015 so they are really, really dry and some have major cracks. 
> 
> I was turning a Spalted Red Oak bowl this afternoon, while I had finished the depth and was working on thinning out the sides, suddenly it became a UFO. .
> 
> I had thought 30 minutes before that I should probably stop and fill the cracks with epoxy and let it cure for a couple of days. But, no in my infinite wisdom, I figured I would play the odds and finish it up and then fill the cracks.
> 
> I saw a T-shirt yesterday that said my last words would be: Well shit, that didn't work out so well.
> 
> As I was picking up the pieces, I thought exactly the same thing.
> 
> Lol
> 
> Gary Williams
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .
> <Red Oak Bowl on Lathe.jpg>
> <Red Oak Bowl with Cracks.jpg>
> <UFO.jpg>
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