Help with walnut stump please

[Rob Price]

Haven’t been around much, I haven’t been turning much either, but a friend had a walnut tree go down and he let me have the root ball and stump as well as some other pieces. I’ve already roughed out a few bowls from the root, and I’ve done two natural edge bowls, hopefully I’ll have some pics up once I get them dry and oiled up. One posted for proof.

Now that I remember how to use my lathe I want to get to the stump. It has a nice ridge going down one side that maybe could make a good platter? I here are the top/bottom/side pics. Looking from the top I’m thinking about 2 cuts- see my sketch.

Thoughts?

[Paul Williams]

Nice looking natural edge bowl and an interesting piece of wood. My first thought was that if you rotated your cut lines 10 degrees clockwise you would have the same size blank but avoid more of the cracking around the pith. I think the limit on the size blank you can get is the length of your log not the cross section. Good luck and please post photos of what you end up doing.

[Rob Price]

Right. I wish it was a bit taller but still hoping to get a 12-14” Bowl. My first NE was 16.5” tip to tip, 14” in the middle. Biggest one I’ve done so far.

[Rob Price]

Well, I cut a good 6” slab out of it, right up against the bark basically, but the pith was at more of an angle than I thought. The bowl ended up 15.5” by 3.5” and still has some of the pith checks, they basically go halfway down the bowl. I’ll post pics when I get back to my computer. The grain is really cool though. I might epoxy up the checking/cracking if I have to.

The good news is the other half of the stump should be pith free. Hoping to turn it tomorrow. Should be a much deeper bowl.

i had forgotten how much fun green walnut can be. The root was very gritty/sandy and the NE bowls don’t produce shavings like this.

[julian abram]

Wow, grain is beautiful on that bowl!

[Rob Price]

Bowl #2 roughed out, some big bark inclusions, still some of that pith. 15.5" by 5.5", we'll see how it dries.

EDIT: Not sure why my photos are always rotated...