Holly's Bowl-Pt 3: more shaping

Good Morning Everyone,

Well I got up early and went down to the shop and worked a while on the bowl. A lot of the cracking has shrunk and two cracks have largely disappeared. But the two large visible cracks are still there.

I decided to continue the shaping in spite of the cracking so here are more process photographs from today's work session. We'll just have to see what happens with the cracking.


Ok here we go:

The exterior shape of the bowl is my focus today. As I'm not planning on adding any exterior adornment to the bowl, the shape of the bowl absolutely has to be spot on for it to look good. I also want the shape to emphasize the grain patterns in the wood as well and also to serve as a "canvas" for the wood colors. So I did just a little cutting today and then I stopped so I could look at it and think about it more.

Here are the photos:

Here is the bowl from yesterday. It has a good overall shape and I've cut away the pith of the tree. But you can see on the second photo the large cracks that I'm concerned about:

Here I've placed the bowl between centers. This helps to stabilize the bowl and dampens any vibration that occurs from it spinning:

I've also drawn two concentric circles on the top of the bowl. These prompt me to stop turning at certain points and to take a critical look at the shape periodically:

This is the bowl after about 5 minutes of turning. Note that the top is narrower at this point than it was to begin with:

That damn crack is still visible:

I've just about reached the first circle in the bowl:

I've decided to stop working on the exterior of the bowl and hollow it out a little bit. This might help the  cracking some by releasing the wood fibers and allowing them to spring out a little and thus close some of the larger cracks. It also helps me to imagine what the bowl might wind up looking like. And it has to be hollowed out eventually!

Since I've now moved into the interior of the bowl, the tools that I will be using will be the same general shape as the roughing gouge but much narrower. Spinning the wood sets up a lot of centrifugal force in the bowl blank and hollowing it can interrupt this and cause the bowl to come off the lathe suddenly. A large tool like a roughing gouge will very often cause this. A narrow tool, much less so.
In the photograph is my 3/8 inch Sorby bowl gouge and I use this a lot too:

 This photo shows how the hollowing is progressing. I cut from the periphery to the center and at an angle and you can see this in the center of the bowl:

Here is the bowl after about 10 minutes of turning. You can see roughly what the bowl will look like. I've also begun beveling the edge a little to enhance the profile of the bowl:

Here is the bowl at present. I'm not sure if this should be the final shape or not. I'll think about this during the day today and possibly do more turning and posting this evening:

While I'm mulling all this over, my new Mora knife has arrived and I think I'll try roughing out a spoon with it later today. Here is a photo of the knife and some potential spoon wood below:

And lastly, my cats are maniacs!!

See you later,

VW