The Purple Heart Bowl project

 Hello All,

Well, this summer is turning into a very busy time. I'm working on a bathroom remodel, painting the interior of my home, and starting up my art and woodworking activities again. And I have a very special project to do: a large wooden bowl out of solid purple heart.

Here's the background:
My internist is retiring. She has been taking care of me and my husband for over 20 years now and after many years of medical practice is moving on. Her last day is August 4.

I've known about her upcoming retirement for a while and I've planning this project for several months. I considered another laminated bowl, and you've seen me make those in past postings, but I decided on a bowl blank out of solid wood. And I got lucky-I found a solid, kiln-dried bowl blank out of purple heart so that's what the bowl will be made out of.*

Plans:
This is a huge bowl blank-it's17" wide x 3" thick and it's pretty heavy. It's kiln-dried and came coated in wax, including the edges. So cracks or splitting and ready to go. I'm going to turn a shallow, wide bowl, and finish it with General Finishes salad bowl varnish so she can use it for serving food. And I'm going to sand the daylights out of the surface.

Here are a couple of preliminary photos to start with:

You can see this has great color and no sap wood: 

After examining it, I located the center of the block so as to get the faceplate centered: 

And I got the lathe ready to go:

And given that the blank is so wide, I'm going to use my largest faceplate for this: 

And this is what it's going to look like when I screw it down tomorrow: 

I'll check all my turning chisels tomorrow and fix anything that needs fixing. The first step will be mounting this on the lathe and even up the sides and face of the blank.

Ok, I'm back in the saddle again. Let's get going!

Stay tuned,
VW

*The wood blank came from Got Wood at https://www.turningblanks.net/collections/kiln-dried-woods

Coat Hook Rack-finish photos

 Hi Everyone,

I've finally gotten some spare time today after a very busy week to finish the coat hook racks. Here's the photos and explanation:

The construction of the rack is pretty simple and finishing it was as well. I used General Finishes gel finish in Candlelight and it looks good. It's gives the pine a rustic look. I used a clear spray finish over the stain, and I used some very simple metal coat hooks from the local big box store:

And that was it.

The rack is long enough to mount through the sheet rock and into the wooden studs underneath. The studs here locally are 18" apart. As the racks are 51 inches long, there is enough room for several screws. 

I think we can stick a fork in it and call it done.

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The next project is a very simple coffee cup cabinet with narrow shelves for my daughter-in-laws pottery cups and I'll show that one to you too.

After this come the first turning project of the year-a fruit bowl made on the lathe.

See you all soon,
VW