Does pine make good bowls

[JimB]

A friend of mine just cut down a pine tree and I can get some logs from him so I'm wondering if pine makes good bowls. I've searched the forum but just came across a few post on pine for pens. I've only turned a few bowls at this point so I don't have the experience to know what works well.

Thanks.

 

[bobskio2003]

I've turned a couple bowls out of pine and they can turn out quite nice (depending). Okay what does "depending" mean? You need sharp tools (as always) to get a nice clean bowl without a lot of tear out. The other big "depending" item is what you finish it with. Pine absorbs any liquid like no get out so you really need to put a finish that seals the wood, if you want to use it for any types of food. Hope that helps, Bob I.

 

[holmqer]

I have tried out some white pine bowls as an experiment. They were not from bowl blanks from recently felled trees, but just laminated up some construction studs.

Out of all the bowls I made, for some odd reason the folks at work like these a lot. I just do this to practice a design with $1 worth of kiln dried wood.

You definatly need sharp tools and patience, tear out is pretty bad. I forgot what book I read it in, but I thought a great comment I once read was "If you can turn a bowl out of Pine you can turn a bowl out of anything"

 

[Tom McMillan]

Norfolk Island Pine makes some of the most beautiful bowls I've seen.

Also, there's a good article in the Winter 2003 American Woodturner magazine. The article is about turning Ponderosa Pine bowls. These were made translucent and looked very similar to the Norfolk Pine work done. Some of his pieces had beautiful blue streaks adding to the interest.

 

[MarkHix]

I've used it as practice wood to learn to make segmented bowls. It was easy to turn and finish and the best part...very cheap.

 

[JimB]

Thanks everyone. I don't know what kind of pine it is. I'm in upstate NY so it's whatever typically grows here. I have roughed out 2 bowls so far. One went fairly easily. The second is taking a bit more work on the bottom and i haven't done the inside yet.

The second one has some darker wood that is soft. Is this what is called "spalted"? Will it harden as it dries?

I have about 15 pieces so I will be making several of these in the coming weeks... uh, I mean months.

Thanks.