The Blue House Bowl-Discussion and plans

Hi Everyone,

Well, I decided to begin working on a bowl that I am planing on donating to a charity called the Blue House. This charity supports an orphanage in Uganda that takes in girls and young women who have been orphaned because of AIDS. Every year the ladies at my church have an annual craft fair to raise funds to support these young women.  And your's truly donates cutting boards and other stuff for sale every year.

This year, amongst other things, I plan on donating a full-sized salad bowl to the sale and this blog posting will be the first in a series about how the bowl was made. I hope this will give people a window on how a large bowl is made and get them interested in the sale.

So, I have gotten a large 12"x3" white ash bowl blank and this is what I will be using for the bowl. The wood is unseasoned, meaning that it has a considerable amount of water in it and so we will be making a green wood turning and this adds several steps to our turning process, and certainly nothing that Selkie Wood Works can't handle! Here's what we're going to do: I'm going to mount the block on the lathe and completely turn the outside of it and partially turn the inside of it and leave the bowl about 1" thick. This is much thicker than a standard bowl and the reason I'm doing this is this will help the bowl retain it's round shape while its drying out. When we come back to the bowl in several weeks time, it should have dried out enough to allow me to finish turning and shaping it, and with any luck, it will be ready for the Blue House sale, which always takes place the first weekend in December.

So we're off for another adventure in the wood shop. So make some coffee and stop by for photos and a complete process discussion on the Blue House bowl.

Best
VW