Recent turnings - critique welcome

[Thom Sturgill]

Here are three recent pieces. The natural edge bowl is, I believe, spalted elm. It is about 5 1/2" diameter and 2 1/2" tall and I think one of my best so far.Only my second NE and the other had no bark when I got the blank. The square bowl is of course zebra wood and is 7" square. The 'chalice' (or whatever you want to call it) is black walnut with a cherry foot. It started to be a 10" salad bowl, but developed large cracks before I had the inside turned so I took a chance and turned it smaller in an attempt to save the piece. It is now about 7 1/2" diameter and 5" tall. All are finished with rattle can lacquer, sanded to 8000 and buffed with Don Pencil's PL compound, then waxed with Renaissance wax.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Thom - very nice work on everything!

Nice form on the NE! Some folks like using a foot - others don't. This one continues the curve of the outside of the bowl - so, in my opinion, it works. To many times I have seen a really nice bowl and the foot looks like a tenon that was left over and not part of the design.....

Really like the square bowl! The grain of the wood accentuates the flowing curve - great effect! Really like the way you flattened the bottom of the feet and added a slight ogee! Very different - haven't seen that before and it works quite well!

The chalice looks nice from what I can see but it is had to see the pedestal and any detail work that might be there.

Really like the finish on all of the pieces! Again, very nice work! Thanks for sharing!

[Tom Giacomo]

Very, very nice work.

[Christopher Fletcher]

I really like the square bowl as well. Can you show us the bottom maybe?

[Chris Rae]

Beautiful pieces! Great finish on all of them.

[Thom Sturgill]

Thanks for the kind comments. That form on the square bowl haunted me for about three months until I found the right piece of wood. Here are two more images as suggested/requested. When setting on its feet, the bottom of the bowl is about 1/4" off the table. Now I want to do one with one foot raised, but I will have to warp it somehow to make it stable.

On the 'Chalice' you can see that the stem has a tenon that passes though the foot. The stem is a separate piece from the bowl, and also tenons into the bowl. For that reason the inside of the bowl is considerably shallower than the outside.

[Christopher Fletcher]

Great new pics. On the square bowl, did you turn it in three stages (shape underside and form tenon, reverse and hollow, then reverse with jam chuck to remove tenon)? Did you hand sand to 8000 or sand on the lathe?

[Thom Sturgill]

I hope this isn't too long winded, but:

As I said in another thread, I turned all of these using a vacuum chuck. The purchased blank for the square bowl was barely thick enough for my design. I used a jam chuck (actually just pressure against the scroll chuck) to turn a mortice for my barracuda2 with dovetail jaws. I then reversed it and turned the bottom and sanded to about 400 and sealed it with thinned Deft and sanded that again to about 400. I then reversed it again using the B2 in a MT2 adapter stuck in the tail stock to center it in the vacuum chuck.

I then turned the inside, sanded to 400 on the lathe, and sealed it. Then I hand sanded off the lathe to about 8000 after applying several coats of rattle can lacquer. Finally I buffed first with white diamond then DPs PL compound. I sand off the lathe because my shop is across the street in my Daughters garage (hot) and the LOML lets me work in the Kitchen (AC:D). I spray in the back room which is a closed in porch. I know sanding that high is overkill, but it is quick and lets me be sure that its ready for buffing, and doesn't need a re-spray.

On this particular piece, I sanded the edges on a Ridgid Osc sander with the belt adapter to get it square and remove a spot on the trailing edge that blew out. Then I angled the bed of the sander and replaced the belt with the 2" drum and sanded the edges with a slight undercut. This creates an optical illusion to make the sides appear thinner (actually it counters an illusion that makes the center of the arc appear thicker). It was a lot of work, but I think the piece is worth it, and I learn something with each piece that I do.

[Gerold Griffin]

Thom: All really wonderful pieces but I really like the walnut and cherry chalice. Great finish on all the pieces. Thanks for sharing.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Beautiful work Thom. Great looking pieces and great looking finish.

[Wayne Leach]

Lovely work and finishing on all the items. Thanks for showing them.
Wayne

[Christopher Fletcher]

Thom, not long winded and much appreciated. Thanks, Christopher