[Woodworkers] Red Oak Bowl

Sun Aug 15 07:03:40 PDT 2021

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

John,
Thanks for sharing some of your experiences with bowl turning. I've discovered that you never know what's going to happen with a piece of wood spinning on the lathe when you introduce a supposedly sharp piece of metal to it.
Thanks for your offer, but I started turning a smaller cherry blank late yesterday afternoon.
I'll let you know how that goes
Gary Williams
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Allen via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org>
To: woodworkers at sawdusters.org
Cc: Rick Allen <rla_buy at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sun, Aug 15, 2021 7:32 am
Subject: Re: [Woodworkers] Red Oak Bowl

A 28” Red Oak tree fell on the house during a hurricane many years ago.  I took the opportunity to make some bowls.  Turned them rough to about 2” thick, coated them in anchor seal and set them aside for 4 years.  They became oval as expected and I finish turned one of them.  That bowl moved more oval as I turned it.  I decided that the wood needed a little more time to dry.  2 years later I decided to try bowl 2 (6 years drying).  This time I turned the outside round and let it sit on the lathe overnight.  The bowl was no longer round.  Waited 2 more years for bowl 3 (for those of you counting that is EIGHT years of drying).  Again this bowl changed to oval overnight.  Bowl 4 was a year later and I chose to turn, sand and finish all in one sitting.  That one started off round.  But as the finished bowl sat the shape shifted and it is also oval with two sides 1” higher than the other two sides.  My conclusion,  Red Oak never stops moving.  I don’t turn Red Oak anymore.  To much good wood to waste time on wood like that.  Fast forward 10 years.  Someone gave me a 100 year old red oak beam that was used in a Pensilvania barn.  I milled and epoxied and turned that beam into a table.  The table top has axe marks in it that were made 100 years ago.  After all that time it still wants to warp!
On Aug 14, 2021, at 8:08 PM, John McCaskill via Woodworkers <woodworkers at lists.sawdusters.org> wrote:

<image0.jpeg>

The pecan bowl. I am trying some milliput, but don't have high hopes. John McCaskill
A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

On Aug 14, 2021, at 6:39 PM, John McCaskill <Jmccaskill at gmail.com> wrote:

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>_______________________________________________
I want to be one of my friends for a day so I can see how cool it is to hang out with me.
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