End Grain Maple Calabash Bowl

[Steve Schlumpf]

This Maple bowl is 10 ½” diameter x 5 ¼” high with walls at 1/16” thick. The bottom of the bowl is ¼” or slightly thicker to give the bowl some weight. Sanded to 320 and has the first of several coats of Minwax Gloss Wipe-On Poly.
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The bowl was quite a challenge to get clean undercuts. I did hollow this in stages and that helped keep the bowl stable.

As always, your comments, critiques and opinions are welcome.

Thanks for looking!

[Richard Madison]

Looks good Steve. Beautifully smooth inside as well as out. If thinner rears its ugly head, can piercing be far behind?

[David Christopher]

Steve, beautiful bowl and looks like you have been busy at the lathe lately

[Joe Pfeifer]

Awesome bowl! Did you rough this one out and finish it when it was dry or did you do the whole thing green?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Joe - roughed it out in Nov '08, soaked it in DNA, wrapped and stored on a shelf in my shop until yesterday.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Boy Steve, you're really pushing it at 1/16"! Wow! Beautiful shape and love the wood. Did you use any scrapers when you were down to 1/16"? What tooling did you use?

[Steve Schlumpf]

Alan - used my Monster captured hollowing system. It was the only way I knew to not go through the side when hollowing.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Makes sense. Was the wood a lot lighter before applying finish? Reason I asked was that I have a very light colored HF that I was thinking of using water based poly on. That finish will keep the light color as opposed to oil based wipe on varnish etc. For this piece I really want to keep it from getting any yellow coloring. Ever tried that?

[Norm Zax]

Very elegant. Congrats on a job well done!

[alex carey]

Beautiful as usual. Great job.

[Jeff Nicol]

Steve, The bowl has a very appealing and traditional shape. It will always stay elegant and worthy of its creation! Keeps us all going forward with new turnings.

Thanks for sharing,

Jeff

[Alan Trout]

Steve, I really like the shape and how it compliments the wood. Well Done:)

Alan

[Rob Cunningham]

Another nice one Steve. Beautiful job on the shape.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Alan - went down to the shop this morning to check and see if the bowl was dry enough for a second coat. It was but in the process of handling it I thought it was WAY too heavy for a 1/4" bottom. I mean, Maple can be heavy, especially after a couple of saturation coats of oil or poly - but this was way more than I expected.

Grabbed my measuring stick and checked the bowl and was honestly shocked to find that the bottom of the bowl was not the 1/4" as reported but it was 7/8"! What the? How in the world did that happen? Well that sure accounts for the weight!

Got to thinking about it and when using a laser point system you have to watch the dot on the wood while turning. When the dot falls off the wood - you have reached your preset distance. I had the distance loosely set for 1/4" as I knew I would lose a little wood from sanding inside the bowl as well as when I removed and sanded the tenon area. What I didn't pay attention to was my viewing angle!

With the diameter of the turning, the steep angle of the bottom of the bowl - combined with my height - I was viewing everything from a skewed angle and I stopped when I thought it was about 5/16" thick instead of having the laser dot fall off the turning. I should have stopped turning and just used the laser to take a static measure of remaining depth - which I normally do on hollow forms! Nope - I knew what I was doing! Yeah.... right! :o

So - now I either accept that I have a heavier than anticipated bowl or figure a way to get it centered on the vac chuck and turn it down to where it should be! Ah........ the pressure!

Anyway, Alan - I have used water based poly in the past and did not like the mess. I had a problem with the can rusting right away and the poly raising the grain of the work which resulted in lots more time sanding. It did not discolor the wood like an oil based product - so if that is your main concern - this product will work. For clear finishes there is also lacquer but that can be messy depending on the size of the turning.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great looking bowl Steve. Really nice form and finish.

[David E Keller]

Beautiful... Love the calabash form/shape. Taking it thin seems odd to me because I think of that shape with chunkier walls.... Looks nice though. Your forms are always so visually appealing to me.

[Kim Ford]

Steve, nice job, good form and style.

The heavy bottom is a bummer though. I have done the same thing and always wound up putting it back on the lathe and turning it down. . . not always successfully I might add so I don't know if it is worth the cost (time and wood) or not, but that's just me. As long as it is round, you can get it centered on the vacuum chuck it just takes time. Sometimes this type of a bowl might be a better canidate for a donut chuck.


Good Luck and let us know.

[Harvey Ghesser]

Really nice bowl, Steve! I love a thin bowl.:)

[Norris Randall]

Steve, that is a thing of beauty.
Makes me want to get a hollowing system, but $$$$????

Oh! since I mentioned "thing" did you notice a couple of
pictures looks like some "thing" got stain on a forearm and
finger tips and grabbed at you masterpiece. :D

[Eugene Wigley]

Steve, what a great looking bowl; thick bottom and all. I really like that form. I saved a copy of one of your photos to use as a guide when I rough turn a couple of these later in the week. I hope you don't mind. It must be a real challenge to get the walls down to 1/16". I just hope I can get a consistant 3/8" with the undercut rim. Thanks for posting this and for the inspiration.