What type of Elm is this?

[Chris Gunsolley]

Greetings my fellow forum members! If I may borrow your expertise...

Can you tell what variation of Elm this is?

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(It is wet in the last 3 pictures.)

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I believe that to be Red Elm, for the look of the bark and color of the wood.

[Dale Miner]

Loops like a slippery (red) elm to me. Seeing the leaves would help.

[John Keeton]

I can't help on the type of elm, but that sure is some nice crotch figure. You probably know, but the crotch feather needs to be in the bottom of the bowl else you will turn away most of it.

[Bob Bouis]

I bet he remembers his last threads from a couple months ago seeking advice on how best to use crotch wood. Nice find! I don't know what kind of elm it is, but it's gorgeous.

Are you going to try to do a natural edge this time?

[Chris Gunsolley]

I believe that to be Red Elm, for the look of the bark and color of the wood.

Thanks again, Leo! This isn't the first time you've been a big help to me in this area. Remember when I thought the Black Ash was Elm? ;)

[Chris Gunsolley]

Loops like a slippery (red) elm to me. Seeing the leaves would help.

Thanks, Dale! It looks like you and Leo both agree on this, and so does my research on the species since receiving your suggestions. Unfortunately, I don't have any leaves.

[Chris Gunsolley]

I can't help on the type of elm, but that sure is some nice crotch figure. You probably know, but the crotch feather needs to be in the bottom of the bowl else you will turn away most of it.


I bet he remembers his last threads from a couple months ago seeking advice on how best to use crotch wood. Nice find! I don't know what kind of elm it is, but it's gorgeous.

Are you going to try to do a natural edge this time?

Thank you for the compliments on the crotch figure, John and Bob! I was blown away by the figure as well. It really looks like a spine going through there:

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This log was a nice size as well, which will allow for some decent-sized bowls. The larger two of those blanks are 15" in diameter, and the smaller ones are 12" in diameter:

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And yes, I am going to turn natural-edge bowls from them, with the rim side toward the bark. I want a decent enough depth to the walls, so I do plan on turning a couple inches off of each of them. I expect to end up with bowls in the 13" range from the 15" blanks, and bowls in the 10" range from the 12" blanks.

It's nice that the feather extended so far down the log (which is attributable to the small angle at which the two branches met). Hopefully, this will allow the tip of that feather to be present on a side of each of the smaller bowls--which I didn't expect until cutting the log up to discover the length of the feather. As you can see in the pictures of the actual blanks on my initial post, there are also a couple interesting knots in each of those smaller blanks, which should allow for some additional intriguing features as well, and those would have tensioned the fibers further so I'm eager to see what's in there. It's nice to end up with those 'smaller' blanks--which are not so small at 12" in diameter--when you were initially focusing only on the larger ones when you picked out the log. I think those smaller bowls will be a nice surprise, and something I wasn't counting on prior to cutting the log. Something to keep in mind when you find branches that meet at a very acute angle. I'd be sure to cut those longer, and anticipate more, possibly figured bowls further down the trunk (in addition to the larger bowls directly at the meeting point) than if the branches had met at a greater angle.

[Bob Bouis]

My suggestion would be to cut them pretty thin green and power sand them to finish. That's how I'm doing it now, anyway. Otherwise that crotch figure often cracks when it dries.

Maybe next on the list of endless things to buy is a coring rig. You can core crotch blanks, and even though the figure usually doesn't go that deep, if you're brave you can often scoop out something decent. Though, it doesn't seem like you have much trouble finding nice wood. Here's a picture of some walnut I cut the other day. Reminds me of a cobra's hood.

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[Chris Gunsolley]

My suggestion would be to cut them pretty thin green and power sand them to finish. That's how I'm doing it now, anyway. Otherwise that crotch figure often cracks when it dries.

Maybe next on the list of endless things to buy is a coring rig. You can core crotch blanks, and even though the figure usually doesn't go that deep, if you're brave you can often scoop out something decent. Though, it doesn't seem like you have much trouble finding nice wood. Here's a picture of some walnut I cut the other day. Reminds me of a cobra's hood.

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Wow, Bob, those look like they came right out of my log! This is my first time working with Elm, and my initial thought was that the extreme contrast between the sapwood and heartwood reminded me of walnut, just a little less extreme due to the heartwood not being as dark. Great looking set of bowls there! How thin are the walls?

I do anticipate a similar set, at least from the larger blanks, as I have a Oneway Easy Core system that I've used a few times, but never to core natural edge blanks. One issue I may run into is whether these blanks will be deep enough for that, as I believe the larger blanks are somewhere around 5 inches deep. I'd have to double check to be certain. If coring is possible here, I do think with that sapwood/heartwood contrast, these elm blanks would be worth coring, even if the figure were ultimately absent in the smaller bowls. It's just beautiful material, period.

Unfortunately, the entire piece of bark on one of my larger blanks became detached while I was cutting the blank, so I may need to do at least one of the larger sets without the bark. I think it will still be very impressive with the sapwood highlighting that natural edge. I've done a couple natural edge bowls like that. I could try to glue that entire, big piece of bark back on the blank, but I just don't feel right about that. As easily as that fell off, I'm concerned about the others staying intact, but I'll be as careful as I can, come at the rim from the top down while turning, inspect frequently and have the glue ready. I'd prefer to keep the bark on there. This picture of your bowls show that extreme contrast between the bark and the light sapwood nicely--the bark is even darker than the heartwood, so sitting next to the sapwood like that, it is in my opinion a major asset to the bowl aesthetically. For a utility bowl that is to be natural edged for lots of character, I actually think that no bark is the way to go, as I don't want someone's heart to be broken when they accidentally break the bark off. That being said, I'd opt for a center piece absolute work of art with the bark intact when at all possible...

[Bob Bouis]

The walls are about 3/8" thick on the larger ones, give or take. The biggest one is about 15" at the widest. You can see on the fresh-cut one on the right where I messed up a little. Go to the bathroom before you start cutting it to final thickness, because if you have to stop in the middle you might find that it's warped on you! Hah. It'll sand out, though.

Unfortunately the sapwood will probably darken on me. Blowing out the loose water with compressed air is supposed to keep it lighter colored, but for me it never seems to work. Maybe because here it's 85 degrees and 85% humidity in late October.

You probably already know, but be careful with the bark if it's coming off. Even a small piece can really hurt you. Always wear a face shield when doing a natural edge bowl.

[Chris Gunsolley]

The walls are about 3/8" thick on the larger ones, give or take. The biggest one is about 15" at the widest. You can see on the fresh-cut one on the right where I messed up a little. Go to the bathroom before you start cutting it to final thickness, because if you have to stop in the middle you might find that it's warped on you! Hah. It'll sand out, though.

Unfortunately the sapwood will probably darken on me. Blowing out the loose water with compressed air is supposed to keep it lighter colored, but for me it never seems to work. Maybe because here it's 85 degrees and 85% humidity in late October.

You probably already know, but be careful with the bark if it's coming off. Even a small piece can really hurt you. Always wear a face shield when doing a natural edge bowl.

How long ago did you turn those, and if you don't mind my asking, do they remain crack-free?

And about the bark, that's one reason I'm hesitant to attempt to glue that entire large sheet of bark back on the large blank that it fell off of. I always wear a face mask, and my lathe is a Powermatic 3520b, which has a guard, so if I have major concerns during the roughing stage, I'll engage that through much of it.

[Bob Bouis]

Those particular ones? A week or two ago maybe. The one on the right in the picture had just been turned when the pictures were taken. They're crack free so far, yeah. If you cut them fairly thin and immediately stick them in a cardboard box with some dry-ish shavings to slow moisture loss, they usually won't crack as they dry. I don't have statistics or anything but I'd say 95%+ won't crack seriously. You might get some minor checking in the feather.

[Chris Gunsolley]

Those particular ones? A week or two ago maybe. The one on the right in the picture had just been turned when the pictures were taken. They're crack free so far, yeah. If you cut them fairly thin and immediately stick them in a cardboard box with some dry-ish shavings to slow moisture loss, they usually won't crack as they dry. I don't have statistics or anything but I'd say 95%+ won't crack seriously. You might get some minor checking in the feather.

I'll have to try that cardboard box method. It would save me a lot of work, and open up some time for more turning. I usually turn my bowls very thin, such as 1/4" or less on the walls, but I've just been saturating them in mineral oil. It works in preventing rapid drying, but it's a lot of work to do that every day to a whole bunch of bowls. Maybe I'm being a little too obsessive with some of them that I've been oiling for a while. I put a hickory bowl in a plastic container once to slow the drying, and mold formed on it. Yuck!

Do you put penetrating oil on your bowls to keep them moisturized, or just put them in the cardboard box with the shavings?

[Bob Bouis]

I've honestly never used oil like you're describing, especially on green wood, so I have no idea whether it's useful or not. I'd be afraid it would gunk up the bowl when you go to sand it.

As I understand it, there's two kinds of moisture in wood. Some is inside the cells and some is outside. The stuff on the outside evaporates pretty quick (and you want it to). You can blow some out of out a fresh green-turned bowl with compressed air. The sawdust is there to catch that moisture as it comes out and you want to change it or at least stir it up a couple times in the days after you first put the bowls in. The water inside the cells takes much longer to evaporate and is what causes wood to shrink and crack. The trick is to keep the bowl dry enough so that outside water dries quickly enough to keep it from molding (or fungus discoloring the wood; surface mold sands off easily enough) without drying the inside water out and having it crack.

[Chris Gunsolley]

I finished my first bowl from these blanks yesterday evening. This one is from one of the larger blanks:

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I'm sorry about the low level of lighting, but that's what I can take at the moment. It is 13" in diameter, and the highest wing is about 3.5" deep. The wall on that highest wing is 1/8" thick, then further down it comes out to just under 1/4" and remaining at that consistently throughout the remainder of the wall and its bottom. So, it's nice and light for its size. It feels like a boomerang when you hold it. You'll notice that it looks soaked in the pictures, and that's because I have it saturating in mineral oil right now in order to keep the wood from drying out too quickly.

This is only my second natural edge bowl from a crotch section, and my first large one. Between that and my wife's reaction, I've decided to keep it. (She almost seemed offended when I said it would make a hell of a fruit bowl--"And cover that up? I wouldn't put anything in that!" :-)) So, I've accepted a couple of small tool marks on the highest wing, in order to walk away with something to look at and admire until I produce a few more. I do have a lot more crotch sections from this Slippery Elm, and this certainly wasn't the best, bulgiest one.

The blanks that you saw in my initial post were cut very close to the pith, as I literally just cut through the pith perfectly centered on those. (The remaining blanks are being preserved in a chest freezer, in case you're wondering.) Because I cut them so close to the pith, I made the tenon about 1/2" deep, and I'm pushing it at that. I'm willing to do that in this case, because I'm working with Elm. Unfortunately, since I had to come so far away from that bottom side, I lost some of the most detailed parts of the feather. (Compare the bottom of the blanks to the bottom of my bowl.) However, I still got a vivid portion of it, and I'm happy with that. Yes, a glue block would have allowed me to achieve a maximum depth and feather, but then again, I'd be bringing the bottom right next to the pith in that case and I would be at high risk of losing the entire bowl.

You can also see that the bark is absent. I think the contrast between the heartwood, sapwood and that dark line remaining where the bark was still highlight that natural edge nicely.

This was my first experience in turning Elm, and indeed it was literally hard as hell to turn. What I mean by that is that I was forced to take very little off with each cut, compared to my experience in turning other woods, so it takes a lot of patience and you can't hold the same standard for rate of progress as you do with other woods. This reminded me a lot of turning Hickory. As a result, the bowl took a lot more time to turn than it would have with a lot of other woods. Ultimately, I'm psyched about Elm now and think the effort is well, well worth it.

[Bob Bouis]

Looks great!

A glue block would probably be ideal, but I'm too lazy to do it. What I've been doing is using a recess, wide and shallow, and "domed" in the center to allow a little more tapering of the bottom. Thinness helps to prevent cracking and the recess's rim gives the bowl something to sit on. Often there's no central pith in those bowls so the branch piths are the ones to watch out for, but they tend to further out from center and therefore higher on the bowl, plus they're more forgiving in terms of getting close to them.

One other thing I see is that the rim thickness is uneven on one side -- did it warp while you were cutting, or was that from chuck runout? Natural edge bowls really look best when the whole rim is the same thickness if it can be done. As far as the tool marks, did you not sand them out because the top was already so thin?

Also, I really like the idea of stashing wood in a freezer. My next shop will have one of those walk-ins...

[Chris Gunsolley]

Looks great!

A glue block would probably be ideal, but I'm too lazy to do it. What I've been doing is using a recess, wide and shallow, and "domed" in the center to allow a little more tapering of the bottom. Thinness helps to prevent cracking and the recess's rim gives the bowl something to sit on. Often there's no central pith in those bowls so the branch piths are the ones to watch out for, but they tend to further out from center and therefore higher on the bowl, plus they're more forgiving in terms of getting close to them.

One other thing I see is that the rim thickness is uneven on one side -- did it warp while you were cutting, or was that from chuck runout? Natural edge bowls really look best when the whole rim is the same thickness if it can be done. As far as the tool marks, did you not sand them out because the top was already so thin?

Also, I really like the idea of stashing wood in a freezer. My next shop will have one of those walk-ins...

Thanks for the compliment on the bowl, Bob!

The reason that one wing looks thinner than the other two is because it is higher up than the other two, and I did cut the wall thinner up there at the top of that wing. It didn't warp while I was turning it, and I kept it soaked while doing so. At the top of that higher wing, the wall is about 1/8" thick, and the wall tapers down to just under 1/4" thick by the time it's as low as the other two wings, and stays there throughout the remainder of the bowl. (The other two wings, which are the same height are the same thickness.) The top, dark surface of those smaller wings, where the bark used to lie, also angles down at a sharper angle than it does on the higher wing, further giving the impression that the wall is thicker. I had a scary moment on that big wing that convinced me to go ahead and accept the form that the bowl was in. I suppose I was eager to go ahead and walk away with my first big crotch bowl and be happy about it. The next one's will have a higher standard in terms of consistent wall thickness, because I'll know that if I blow one out, I'll still have this one to look at and admire.

As far as the tool marks, I was planning to sand those out off the lathe with a right angle drill. I told myself that was the right thing to do from the beginning, and I'll probably take it back out to the shop and do that at some point. I did my sanding on this one by hand while the bowl was spinning on the lathe, with extreme care and lightness on the wings in particular.

And the freezer works wonderfully. You can find them for cheap on Craigslist and they are so extremely useful for us bowl turners. I have two large chest freezers that I put blanks in that I plan on turning soon, or bowls in that are partially done. This prevents them from cracking, as I'm sure you realize, since you think it's a good idea. I've turned a lot of frozen wood, and it's not a problem. You can also submerge the blank you plan to turn completely in water in a plastic bin, for about a half hour before turning, and this will make it easier to cut than if you were to either do it dry or frozen. ;)