Poplar Bowl

[Kurt Aebi]

I finally completed my first larger bowl. It measures about 7" in diameter and stands about 4" tall. It is not a real thing-a-beauty, but i don't think it came out too awful bad either. I do not have any bowl gouges yet, so it was all done with spindle gouges, skews and a round nose scraper. I just picked up a 3-piece bowl chisel set that has a 1/2" bowl gouge that I will be using on the next one; Spalted White Birch!

The finish right now is 3 coats of Watco, natural. I will be trying my home-made buffing system on it this weekend. I don't have any Carnuba wax, but have plenty of beeswax, I was wondering if it would work just as well as the Carnuba?

Thanks for looking and any help with how to keep the inside from getting "fuzzy" where the end-grain portions are exposed would be greatly appreciated. I also know that I need to work on my finishing skills, I can still see some tear-out in some places and I couldn't for the life of me clean up all the tool marks on the inside of the bowl.

LOML has already staked claim to this one, so I guess it ain't all that bad. I think the color didn't come out bad either - it has real character. I plan to let her have it and keep it around to look at and compare with when I have made quite a few more bowls.

[Andy London]

Kurt, Poplar can be a challange to obtain a good finish on. Keep a really good burr on your scraper, turn at a fairly high speed and take very light cuts, generally this will leave little sanding. One trick we use from time to time is a little wax on wet sandpaper, a slow process but it works good.

Poplar is very, very easy to spalt......Here is a piece we turned last fall, it only took three months to spalt it so now that the warm weather is getting here, we will be spalting lots this summer as there is so much of it growing here.

http://www.picframer.ca/sppoplar.jpg

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Kurt, that peice looks really great! I really like the coloration of that peice. Great work.

[Ernie Nyvall]

Good job Kurt. Getting better and better huh.
Do you happen to have Bill Gumbines video? He shows a method of cleaning up the end grain fuzz that works well now that you have a bowl gouge. Of course what Andy wrote above was the only method I could get to work on a piece I did yesterday.I'm new at this turning too and I suppose different methods will work depending which angle the end grain is pointing. Just a thought.
Last weekend though I was turning some tea light hilders between centers and I couldn't get anything to work until I decided to flip the wood so it would turn the opposite direction. Got the idea from what you do when a flat board is chipping out on the jointer. It worked great. It would be some trouble to try this on a bowl though unless you have a reverse, but it did work for faceplate type turning between centers.
Ernie

[Steve Inniss]

Kurt, You won't have as much trouble with other woods. Poplar has a big fuzz-factor. -Steve

[John Shuk]

I don't have the best tool technique yet but I use a sanding sealer of about a one pound cut of shellac then sand up to about 400 grit on most woods and I get a nice smooth surface. It should help alot with the poplar.