Spalted Horse Chestnut Dish

[W.Y.]

Looked up on a shelf this afternoon and spotted three spalted horse chestnut blanks that were too punky to turn last summer so I soaked them for a week in a 50/50 polyurethane mixture and then set them up there to dry. Forgot all about them until spotting them there today behind some other stuff .
Put one piece on the lathe that looked like this. It was shallow on one side so I knew it was going to be a dish rather than a bowl.

Turned the bottom and added a tenon

Reverse chucked and hollowed out inside and sanded to 600 grit.

Put on vacuum chuck to turn the foot.

Foot turned and sanded bottom to 600 grit.

.

At this point I began thinking about a finish for this one. But seeing as it had earlier been saturated with urethane I figured it might just come up nice with nothing but buffing.
Went through tripoli, then white diamond and then wax and it came up with a sheen that not only looks pretty good but it feels like velvet to the touch.
The entire project took a little over an hour from start to finish.

 

[jaeger]

Very Nice and Inspiring!

You are a true craftsman to make a piece of art like this in ONE hour!!

Thanks for sharing along with a nice set of pictures.

 

[mickr]

pretty wood..but a whole hour??? It took a whole hour? What were you doing??? HA HA

 

[markgum]

Very nice.

 

[W.Y.]

Thanks for the comments.
I don't think I ever turned a bowl so easy as that one.. It was dry wood but it turned just as easy as roughing out juicy green wood (but without the shower . . lol) . It didn't even heat up the tools like dry wood normally does. .
I can only imagine that the one week soak in polyurethane last year had a lot to do with that . I think it added lubrication to the wood and made it cut so much nicer. .

The person that gave me the wood over a year ago said it was 5 years old at that time.

 

[Fred]

Very, very nice turning. Ya did a great job!

 

[nava1uni]

I really like your dish. The finish is really nice. I love using wooden dishes as they feel so nice. This one has a very nice grain and I really like the rim.

 

[Glenn McCullough]

stunning bowl and good information on soaking wood.

 

[TellicoTurning]

There's a definite WOW factor in that one.

I envy your your vacuum set up... need to get one of those some day...

 

[W.Y.]

There's a definite WOW factor in that one.

I envy your your vacuum set up... need to get one of those some day...

Thanks.
That is a handy little vacuum chuck system. Can put it on or take it off in a couple minutes. I made several different size chucks for it after getting the initial one with it. .
If you are not aware of price etc here is one of the many places it can be purchased.

http://woodnwhimsies.com/turn.html