Maked a bowl without a lathe

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Crashmph

Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2008
Messages
1,515
Location
South Riding, VA
Well this guy did it differently... Not me... just a post found on IMGUR. It is easier to see on the link.

My Girlfriend wanted a bowl for Christmas and i didn't have a lathe, so this is what i did. - Imgur
My Girlfriend wanted a bowl for Christmas and i didn't have a lathe, so this is what i did.

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So my girlfriend and i decided to do home made presents this year for Christmas with a $40 limit, she also mentioned she wanted a bowl. So i went driving around one day and found some logs by the side of the road and i picked up this guy. I believe it is paperbark Birch.

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It was freshly cut, unbelievably heavy and huge, so i had to make it a bit more manageable.

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After getting it to size it was time to start chopping away.

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This is the bottom of the bowl.

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The top! Once i got to this point i was beginning to rethink my plan. There was a lot more meat to hog out than i anticipated.

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It took quite a few hours to get to this point. I continued chipping away at it until i got to about a 1/2 inch thickness around. Then i broke out the sander and started smoothing it out.

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Once i got to a point where i was semi-happy with the shape i still needed to dry out the wood. I didn't have a half a year or a kiln to quickly dry it, but i did have a microwave. I read about other people drying wood in there with mixed results so i thought i would give it a try. I began writing the weight down each time i microwaved it. It's hard to believe but when i was done this bowl lost half its weight in water. It only had about one or two hairline cracks also, which i filled with gorilla glue epoxy ( it's clear and dries very well.

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here it is after final sanding and finishing. I used Danish oil and wax to seal it.

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It's not perfect, but it's a bowl.

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Sorry these pictures aren't so great. I hastily took them.

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I don't know how many hours this took, and frankly i don't want to know, but love makes you do some strange things, even carve a bowl out of a log you found on the side of the road for your sweetheart. Anyways, next time, i'm buying a lathe...
 
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reiddog1

Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2011
Messages
564
Location
Jacksonville, FL
Wow, that's better than I can do and I HAVE A LATHE. That's it, now I gotta turn a bowl. Sometimes this forum gets me into trouble ;-)!!
 
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