Russell Neyman
03-14-2012, 1:31 PM
Some of you have been following my series of experiments with turning fresh, still-wet madrone. So far, I turned it thin and simply let it warp like crazy, and also turned it thin and microwave dried it. I also followed the tradition rough-turn-and-boil, but that blank is still in the drying shed. This third variation employs a bit of all of the techniques.
The tree was taken down less than two weeks ago, and is so wet that my jacket is wet during the initial turning process. In this case, I rough-turned it as I would do if I were going to boil it in water, but slightly thinner. This is an 11-inch blank turned to about 5/8th thick. Note the tenon I cut when the blank was mounted on a faceplate, used when rough turning it to this shape; there's a second view of this upright in the attachments:
227128
I boiled this in water for eight hours, then microwave-dried it (two minutes at a time, allowing it to return to ambient temperature each time) until no water showed on the exterior. This took me about ten shots in the oven over the course of a day. There was minimal distortion, and only a small split at the lip. The next step was to mount it in large jaws (although I easily could have used the faceplate again) to create a trued tenon:
227129
Second day of the project. So now I have the bottom of a solid bowl turned up to the lower bead, and a nice tenon for the four-jaw chuck. Note that there's both a tenon and a foot. I've essentially cut and finish sanded the lower portion, anticpating some later sanding as the curing process raises grain. Next, its time to turn it around and mount it in the four-jaw chuck:
227130
I let it IN the large jaws and engaged the cone-shaped live center. I thought I took a photo of the live center engaged, but guess I didn't. This assure me that everything is true, which is important since I've already added the lower bead. With the blank firmly secured and trued, I remove the large jaws. Repeating my earlier comment, i could just have easily used the original faceplace. Next, it's time to complete the upper half of the outside:
227131
In this design, I will be adding a second bead right at the lip of the bowl. There's a slight piece of the pith along the lip, so I trimmed that off right after this photo was taken:
227132
Creating the space between the two beads was simply a matter of connecting the dots, trimming from the edge of one bead to the other, then sanding. I encountered a small amount of leftover moisture during this step, but not nearly what you'd expect from a blank that was sopping wet less than 24 hours earlier. Turning the interior was a snap, since wet madrone cuts like butter.
Here is the end result, also shown as an attachment. I have not decided what finish I will use, but more than likely a simple application of boiled linseed oil and wax. I'm tempted to color the banding with a very subtle red or blue dye. This will be somebody's salad or potpourri bowl, I'm sure.
227136
Yes, there's just a slight distortion along the rim -- just enough to make it interesting -- but the bowl has not gone oval. I attribute this to the boiling and microwave processes used together. Next time, I will probably place it in some soft jaws and just let it sit for a week, but this experiment was about controlling the warping process to get a nice effect. Normally, I'd expect it to look like a piece of cabbage, highly distorted (see the other experiments) but this is holding it's shape remarkably well for two days after being cut with a chainsaw. I might add that this particular piece is an extremely tight-grained, slow-growth tree, part of the "blue madrone" crop I posted earlier.
Not to get commercial, but the guy who has this batch has plenty more. I will answer all emails with his contact information eventually.
The tree was taken down less than two weeks ago, and is so wet that my jacket is wet during the initial turning process. In this case, I rough-turned it as I would do if I were going to boil it in water, but slightly thinner. This is an 11-inch blank turned to about 5/8th thick. Note the tenon I cut when the blank was mounted on a faceplate, used when rough turning it to this shape; there's a second view of this upright in the attachments:
227128
I boiled this in water for eight hours, then microwave-dried it (two minutes at a time, allowing it to return to ambient temperature each time) until no water showed on the exterior. This took me about ten shots in the oven over the course of a day. There was minimal distortion, and only a small split at the lip. The next step was to mount it in large jaws (although I easily could have used the faceplate again) to create a trued tenon:
227129
Second day of the project. So now I have the bottom of a solid bowl turned up to the lower bead, and a nice tenon for the four-jaw chuck. Note that there's both a tenon and a foot. I've essentially cut and finish sanded the lower portion, anticpating some later sanding as the curing process raises grain. Next, its time to turn it around and mount it in the four-jaw chuck:
227130
I let it IN the large jaws and engaged the cone-shaped live center. I thought I took a photo of the live center engaged, but guess I didn't. This assure me that everything is true, which is important since I've already added the lower bead. With the blank firmly secured and trued, I remove the large jaws. Repeating my earlier comment, i could just have easily used the original faceplace. Next, it's time to complete the upper half of the outside:
227131
In this design, I will be adding a second bead right at the lip of the bowl. There's a slight piece of the pith along the lip, so I trimmed that off right after this photo was taken:
227132
Creating the space between the two beads was simply a matter of connecting the dots, trimming from the edge of one bead to the other, then sanding. I encountered a small amount of leftover moisture during this step, but not nearly what you'd expect from a blank that was sopping wet less than 24 hours earlier. Turning the interior was a snap, since wet madrone cuts like butter.
Here is the end result, also shown as an attachment. I have not decided what finish I will use, but more than likely a simple application of boiled linseed oil and wax. I'm tempted to color the banding with a very subtle red or blue dye. This will be somebody's salad or potpourri bowl, I'm sure.
227136
Yes, there's just a slight distortion along the rim -- just enough to make it interesting -- but the bowl has not gone oval. I attribute this to the boiling and microwave processes used together. Next time, I will probably place it in some soft jaws and just let it sit for a week, but this experiment was about controlling the warping process to get a nice effect. Normally, I'd expect it to look like a piece of cabbage, highly distorted (see the other experiments) but this is holding it's shape remarkably well for two days after being cut with a chainsaw. I might add that this particular piece is an extremely tight-grained, slow-growth tree, part of the "blue madrone" crop I posted earlier.
Not to get commercial, but the guy who has this batch has plenty more. I will answer all emails with his contact information eventually.