Bill Grumbine
11-15-2005, 9:15 AM
Here is yet another bowl, and one to show you all that I haven't gone all artsy fartsy yet. This is a piece of English walnut that was given to me by my tree guy last summer. While it was mostly sapwood, when I split the logs in half, I discovered that it was curly! Even with it being mostly sapwood, English walnut is a pretty wood, and I was able to get a number of bowls out of it. I actually had two trees, one that cut like buttah, and one that fuzzed up something fierce. I kept the good stuff for myself and unloaded the fuzzy stuff on students! :eek: Well, I did, but that's not the reason. Every student who turned a piece of the fuzzy stuff learned to cope with that kind of grain problem rather than work on a virtually perfect piece of wood which doesn't have the capacity for teaching how to overcome difficulties.
<img src="http://www.enter.net/~ultradad/englishwalnutsaladbowl01.jpg">
This bowl is 13" in diameter and just a hair over 4" high. The rim is just about an inch thick and tapers down to be thinner at the bottom. How much thinner? I don't really know, but it is lighter than it looks, and that is important. A local friend and fellow turner stopped by the show and was looking at this and some of my other bowls. He wanted to know why I made so many of them so thick when so many turners insist that bowls have to be thin. I replied that other turners were not the ones buying my work, and that the thicker bowls always sold faster than the thinner bowls. There are a lot of turners out there who have an obsession with making everything thin. Not me. Most of my customers like something that has some weight to it, some gravitas, if I may use the word. :D This bowl is also finished with Bush Oil and buffed inside and out with a Beall wheel.
Oh yeah, what is so important about being lighter than it looks? Bowls that are lighter than they look offer the handler a pleasant surprise. Bowls that are heavier than they look feel clunky, and give a somewhat negative impression. So, it is not the weight of the piece, but rather what the person holding it expects it to weigh!
Thanks for looking!
Bill
<img src="http://www.enter.net/~ultradad/englishwalnutsaladbowl01.jpg">
This bowl is 13" in diameter and just a hair over 4" high. The rim is just about an inch thick and tapers down to be thinner at the bottom. How much thinner? I don't really know, but it is lighter than it looks, and that is important. A local friend and fellow turner stopped by the show and was looking at this and some of my other bowls. He wanted to know why I made so many of them so thick when so many turners insist that bowls have to be thin. I replied that other turners were not the ones buying my work, and that the thicker bowls always sold faster than the thinner bowls. There are a lot of turners out there who have an obsession with making everything thin. Not me. Most of my customers like something that has some weight to it, some gravitas, if I may use the word. :D This bowl is also finished with Bush Oil and buffed inside and out with a Beall wheel.
Oh yeah, what is so important about being lighter than it looks? Bowls that are lighter than they look offer the handler a pleasant surprise. Bowls that are heavier than they look feel clunky, and give a somewhat negative impression. So, it is not the weight of the piece, but rather what the person holding it expects it to weigh!
Thanks for looking!
Bill