Wedding Bowls-the walnut bowl, continued

Hi Everyone,

Here are some photos and discussion about the walnut bowl today:

Well, I went down to the shop and took a good look at the bowl and decided it was time to turn it over and work on the rim and hollow it out so that's what I did. I was debating whether or not to embellish it some and I decided to make a bowl in what used to be called Danish Modern design. This was a school of design that dispensed with ornamentation in favor of form. So I turned a simple rim on the bowl and then started hollowing it out:

Here is a photo of the bowl at the beginning of the hollowing part of the turn. You can see a small knot  in the upper right hand part of the photograph:

 Here's a closeup of the knot. You can see the wood around the knot tearing and the knot itself, being harder than the surround wood, beginning to shatter. Not good:

So instead of cutting the wood with a chisel I'm going to gently shave it away with a turning scraper:

So I turned up the speed of the lathe and sharpened the scraper and gently turned the wood away. The wood surrounding the knot is now intact but there is a small hole where the pith of the knot was:

I continued to hollow the bowl for about 15 minutes and I decided to stop and take the bowl off the lathe and see what the bowl looks like and to also measure just how much wood is left for turning. I've place a small rock in the bowl so you can see the depth of the bowl:

Here is the bowl without the rock:

And here is the knot. It's much small but still has the hole in the center. I'm going to place the bowl back on the lathe and turn it some more:

And so I turned it for approximately another 15 minutes. I've turned the speed up to about 800 rpm and just gently shaved away at the surface with a 3/4" turning chisel and then finished the surface with the scraper:

Here is the knot at present. I've dropped a little glue into the knot and I've begun sanding the surface. Some of the sawdust will land in and around that knot and help to lessen the appearance of the hole:

And here it is at present. I'm going to stop and let the glue dry and find something for lunch. I'll come back this afternoon and sand the bowl to about 120 grit:

Here's the surface at present:

And the knot:

 

and this is a side view. You can see the rim and the side of the bowl here:

Stay tuned,
VW