Calico Bowl Project: Getting the block on the lathe

 Hi Everyone,

Well, it's been a hot, humid, trying, hand wringing day today getting the salad bowl blanks onto the lathe but I got it and it's turning. Here's today's photos and comments:

Here's where I started out today. The square block was ready to be cut into a circular shaped block for turning. The new band saw (which has been one problem after another) blade had to be changed to a wider, coarser blade to cut big pieces of wood like this. I wound up spending most of yesterday afternoon mounting a 3/4" wide blade onto the saw. 

I took a look at the saw bearings today to make sure that they were properly adjusted and one of the bearings under the saw table was out of adjustment so I spent a while fiddling with that. There was another problem, which I won't go into, but eventually the band saw was properly adjusted. Since the block is so thick  I decided not to press my luck by trying to cut it into a circle so I just cut off the corners. 

Here in this photo you can see the blank on the lathe. I screwed a face plate onto it with some very long heavy wood screws and placed it between centers to help manage the weight of the piece a little better. 

Time to turn on the lathe and begin truing up the sides. I was worried about the weight of this blank bogging down the motor on the lathe but it turns quietly and without effort. Finding this out was the high point of the day. Here you can see the marks from the gouge on the side:

Now my friend requested a bowl with straight, parallel sides so this will need a wide foot so it will be stable when it's used. In the following two photos you can see the inner circle with marks the foot and the outer circle with marks the outer edge of the bowl. Also I did some turning across the face of the blank as it's easier to do that working on the side of the blank. Once you remove the glue, dirt, and other crud from the surface, you can see kind of what it will look like and I think this is going to be a very pretty bowl when it's done:

Now given the depth of the bowl, it's going to take a week or two to true up the sides, shape the bottom, and flip it over and hollow it out. I'll be posting here and there so you can see how this takes shape.

Stay tuned,

VW