Red Mallee Burl Bowl

[Eric Holmquist]

My first attempt at turning a Mallee cap. These things are hard as rocks! Picked it up today when visiting Bad Dog Burl Source and turned it when I got home. Finished with Bush Oil. Around 6" (15 cm) across.

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[charlie knighton]

i like it a lot, looks like something a caveman would use, sort of me Tarzan kind of thing

[Bernie Weishapl]

Yep I do like the rustic look of it. Well done Eric. Yes they are like turning concrete.

[David E Keller]

Nicely done! I love red mallee burl, but you're right about the turning... I find it scrapes better than it cuts. It'll also take threads pretty nicely... More on that in a day or two!

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks,

I experimented with various tools, Thompson bowl gouge, round carbide insert tool and an HSS bowl scraper. None of them were really great, but I did find the bowl scraper to work quite well to refine the curve. Even with light cuts, I managed to stall my DVR XP a few times which I have not done in over a year despite taking fairly aggressive cuts on other turnings.

I'll probably get more burl caps next time I stop by Bad Dogs, we have a club meeting there in October, postponed from last weekend when we were blown out of town by Irene.

[Andrew Kertesz]

How did you chuck that up? Looks like a flat on the bottom. I did a a similar burl and fashioned a doughnut chuck and used expanding foam.

[Steve Schlumpf]

I like the rustic design you came up with! Just enough of a bowl to showcase the beauty of the wood and just enough of the natural form to show everyone what you had to work with!! Very nice!

[Baxter Smith]

Never turned any but you made a pretty piece of wood look even nicer!

[Michael Ginsberg]

Looks Great Eric. I have some maple for you...

[Eric Holmquist]

Thanks all!

I started off with a woodworm screw in the face what was cut off the tree and turned a flat / recess in the bottom then expanded chuck jaws into the recess. I could now work on the main face. Left the live center up as long as possible since the wood is so hard and the mortice was so shallow. Eventually had the bowl portion mostly done with the exception of the part touching the live center. Then carefully removed that and did some clean up on the curve with a scraper.