"Irregular" or natural rims

[Greg Taylor]

I'm not even sure how to phrase this so it makes sense but can anyone steer me in a good direction to learn about creating, finishing, natural or uneven bowl edges? I noted in a book on Stockdale that he band-sawed the rough shape of the bowl top into the blank before turning. But I'm just not getting my mind spatially around how to do the turning and not violate the edge. I'm just missing something. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Mike Minto]

Greg, I've made a couple of 'natural edge' bowls, starting with just a half-round section of log. It's not hard, really. I usually start with a faceplate screwed into the bark side of the blank, then turn a tenon on the "pith" side. Then I remount in a chuck, and turn the bowl from there. If you start with a green piece, you might consider doing the turning all in one go - I had luck with this on a couple of pieces, including a 'rocker' i made (round bottom bowl with no foot). You can, however, start with a green piece, rough turn it, and later finish turn it when it is dry. I think that is harder to do, though, because the form will probably go pretty oval on you, and that makes the finish turning all the more difficult. As you work, you may find it advantageous to put some thin CA glue or lacquer on the bark edge, to help stabilize it - it's pretty fragile and prone to coming off. If you do it in one go, to say 1/4" thickness, the form will oval on you as you go, and don't worry about the bark edge "dipping", or seeming to get lower than other parts of the edge - just cut lightly with a sharp tool, and turning the air between the remaining high spots of wood will go just fine. Sanding is a little tricky, with the piece probably being oval. Try it on a cheap piece of wood and tell us how it went.

[Jeff Fagen]

Jeff Nicol has a great Youtube vidio on nateral edge bowls.
Just type in wooden nicol and you'll find it.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mike pretty well explained it.

One thing to keep in mind is that part of the time you will be turning air......and then reentering the wood and then air and the reentering the wood...

Keep your cuts light...your tools sharp......

It's a new sensation and operation and takes a certain amount of courage without being overconfident.

I'm nearly deaf so I can't hear when bark is getting loose but often I can see a change in subtle vibration so I will stop...apply a little super glue....let it set up and coninue.

Have at it....be aware....be confident but not overconfident until you find your limits.

[Tim Rinehart]

One thing I just heard about recently, and it can be frustrating to figure out why, is the season that the tree went down has a big impact on the adhesion of the bark, if you're leaving that on.

I have a bunch of walnut that came down last summer/fall, and when I turn natural edge...I ALWAYS end up either having it sling off, or I need to do some pretty serious application of CA.

Trees felled in winter seem to have least amount of moisture in that boundary between the bark and tree, and the adhesion is better.

Others may explain it better...

One other thing, helps to make your final cuts coming into the outside edge of the bark to avoid tearout and fray of the natural edge. To better visualize, if you're turning with the natural edge on the right side of the piece, as with hollowing out the bowl, the direction would be right to left.

[Toney Robertson]

If your like me, a picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Here I screwed the fact plate to the bark/natural side.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/Tools/1.jpg

Mounted it and turn the bottom or outside.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/Tools/3.jpg

After making my recess I turned around and turned the inside and this is the result.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/iublue/199-99A.jpg

Hope this helped.

Toney

[Greg Taylor]

Thanks...as always you folks are awesome.

[David E Keller]

One other tiny tip... When you are making your cuts at the bark edge, it sometimes helps to make sure you are always cutting from air to bark to wood. In other words, avoid cutting toward the bark at the edge so that you don't inadvertently lift the bark off the edge.

[Louis Reynolds]

(http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Green-Wood-Michael-ODonnell/dp/1861080891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274407835&sr=1-1) (http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Green-Wood-Michael-ODonnell/dp/1861080891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274407835&sr=1-1)"Turning Green Wood" by Michael O'Donnell has been of great use to me...I've also discovered that when you're "turning air" it's best to have the speed up a bit...that and scrapers should be used with extreme delicacy.