Spalted Maple Bowl - and how do you sand?

[Prashun Patel]

Critiques welcome. I'm a beginner and know it. Bowl is 6" x 1.5".

I love this. Projects can be completed in a day; you can use scrap or free wood; so much freedom - the form just kind of happens.

Falling...falling...

Also, what's yr preferred sanding method? Lots of options.

[Jeff Hamilton Jr.]

Works for me! I think the form flows and I do like the spalted woods. Great job.

[Dennis Ford]

Beautiful wood with a nice shape.

[Tim Rinehart]

I love spalted wood, all of it. Nice to catch it before it goes punky...sometimes too quickly.
Nice job on your bowl, was it pretty solid?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Nice bowl Prashun! Gorgeous wood.

I typically sand on the lathe prior to removing the tenon. Thus the only unfinished part the area of and around the tenon.

I power sand with a Grex 2" and I also manually sand using a strip of an old mouse pad backing the 1" sanding strips from the different turning suppliers.

After removing the tenon, I power sand and sand the tenon area and on to finishing.

[Tony Kent]

Hello
Hehehehe got ya...yes it is addicting,,,,great job.....
if I remember right spalting is another word for mold so be careful sanding and use a mask, dust collector etc, would be a bad time to find out you have allergy or worse with spalted wood. I can't go near it or cocobolo and a few other woods otherwise I go into a fun thing called anaphylactic shock.....yippee for epipens and steroids......don't mean to scare ya, just be safe with your lungs. Looks like you finished the bottom so hand sanding or gluing waste block on the bottom and remounting on the lathe.
Tony

[Michael E. Thompson]

Nicely shaped bowl. Nothing better than free wood. I could be wrong but it looks like your free wood has a bit of ambrosia along with the spalting. Pretty wood.

I like to power sand, so much faster and easier. I typically use 2" sanding disks starting with 120 and finishing at 320. In some cases I use 80 grit if I am lacking tool control and leave a lot of tool marks. I will usually go over the entire piece by hand with 320 just to make sure everything looks good.

Keep 'em coming.

[David E Keller]

+1 for power sanding. I use 2 or 3 inch pads with velcro backed discs. Slow speed on the lathe and fast with my cordless drill. If the grain is pronounced, I'll sometimes hand sand with the grain. Usually, I'll raise the grain with DNA and hit the final grit again after it's dry. Lots of ways to skin that cat.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Prashun - nice bowl! Really pretty wood! I like the slight ogee to the curve!

I use the 2 3/8" Blue Flex disks from Vince with the cheapest variable speed drill I could find. Figure when the drill burned up - I'd just go get another one. Been using the same 'cheap' drill for over 3 years now and it's still going strong!

I run the lathe at the slowest speed it can go - around 127 rpms and run the drill about half speed. The idea being speed and friction causes heat - heat causes checking.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Good looking Bowl Prashun, and yes instant gratification at times ;-))
99% of my sanding is on the lathe, either while turning or the piece just held in the chuck without the lathe turning, mostly with the sanding mandrel held in a drill, also use a passive sander though rarely, I have worn out a good number of drills, and find it doesn't help to buy expensive drills, just had bad experiences with a couple of Black & Decker drills, 3 to be precise, I still have one I bought in 1967 and replaced the brushes in at least once and still works fine, but I only use that one for drilling, the cheapest once you can find when they are on special or clearance sale are the ones to get, and use for sanding,and try to keep the speeds down, both the lathe and drill, it works just much better.

[Thomas Bennett]

That is a fine looking bowl, Prashun! I love the maple. Are more coming?

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks.

A giant maple fell in my co-worker's yard. He gave me a bunch of logs. I'm going to spend a lot of time learning about green wood turning now. I turned one this weekend and it was such a pleasure - a huge diff from the dusty spalted piece below.

[John Keeton]

Nice work on the bowl, Prashun - and, sorry about your neighbor's tree, but good fortune for you it sounds!!

Good advice already on the sanding, so no need for my comments.