Part 2 Bowl cracking

Hi Everyone,

One of the bowls I made several weeks ago has developed cracking along one side of the bowl:

Working with green, unseasoned wood is always a crap shoot because of the drying of the wood.  As the fibers lose water they shrink in size and they also pull away from each other. Coupled with stresses in the wood blank that are caused by turning it into a circle, will cause distortion and at times cracks to appear.

As this crack goes through the wall of the bowl Im going to have to do some serious first aid on it.
First of all, it will be turned down almost to its final shape. Removing wood will relive some of the stress in the walls of the bowl. Secondly, its going to need to be treated with a product called Pentacryl.

Pentacryl is a wood stabilizer that was developed by museum curators to treat and restore old pieces of furniture that will crack over time. It replaces the water in the wood fibers and reduces the amount of movement in the wood as it dries out over time. Its non-toxic and doesnt interfere with the making or finishing of the bowl. Its an excellent product and if you are a wood turner who is reading this I highly recommend it.


Here is the bowl after about 45 minutes worth of turning:

I turned both surfaces of the bowl. Here you can really see the crack. If you look very carefully you can see the crack is radiating from a small knot in the wood:

Im going to treat the bowl with Pentacryl for the next several days and then place it back in the drying bags for a week or two. Well see this bowl again. Keep your fingers crossed that this works.

VW

Categories: 2, bowl, cracking, part

Todays posting 2 A Silk Oak Bowl

Hi Again,

Its freezing cold outside today and its been raining since last night and Im frozen like a block of ice at the moment so Ill be brief.

I made a bowl out of a block of silk oak that Ive had in stock for a couple of weeks. Ive never turned this type of wood and if I had I would have remembered it--this is a most unusual looking wood. And to beat all it has a scent that smells like ketchup!

Here we go:

Here are a couple of photos showing the basic block and a faceplate and a 4 jaw chuck. Both of these devices are designed to attach a piece of wood to a lathe. Since the block is very heavy, Im going to use the faceplate first with some long heavy stainless steel screws to hold the plate on. The next photo shows the faceplate screwed onto the block and the whole thing screwed onto the lathe:

This photo shows the outline of the foot of the bowl and the tenon that Im going to create to give the 4 jaw chuck something to attach too when I flip over the bowl for hollowing.

These next several photos show the blank being roughed out and in the last photo you can see the finished exterior with a foot and some preliminary sanding. The wood is actually a pink color and you can see the wild grain patterns in the side of the bowl:

These next two photos show the exterior of the bowl with the 4 jaw chuck attached.

These last several photos show the bowl about to be hollowed, the center one shows the bowl off the lathe and you can see the pink coloring.

This last photo show the amazing grain pattern. This piece of wood has whats called a lace pattern because the wood grain is arranged rather  like lace:

This bowl goes in the drying bag for the next 6 weeks, after which well re-turn it to a more usable size.

Im soooo cold at the moment I can hardly speak so Im signing off for now.

More later,

VW

Categories: 2, a, bowl, oak, posting, silk, todays