Stupid bark...

[Rob Price]

Tried my hand at a nested NE walnut set today, which I’ve never tried before.

Things were going swimmingly until I went to finish cut the outside of bowl 3... and half the bark came off in several pieces. Tried to glue it back on and then the other side came off. Oh well. Finished it bare.

I finished with 4 bowls. If I remove the bare one they still look okay because I can center the middle one. My spacing wasn’t great anyways, too big of a gap between 1-2.

It was still fun to get 4 bowls from what would have previously only been 1.

[daryl moses]

Oh well, it happens.
Three out of four aint bad lol. The three you got look really nice!

[JohnC Lucas]

Has the wood been sitting long. Of course some bark just won't stay on some woods. That's why I developed a way to use sponge painting to decorate the lip of bowls. I can simply carve off the back and add whatever colors I want.

[Rob Price]

Tree fell in October. Log section cut in March and split just before turning.

I know what I did wrong. I went back to shape the outside after it had been cored. I was taking very light cuts and I had applied CA glue but I think there just wasn’t enough supporting the bark.

I’ve got another log that I cut off just a week or two ago. I’ll try again hopefully soon.

[Bob Bergstrom]

Walnut bark is diffidently worth keeping. The chances of keeping the bark are much better if you cut from the rim into the bark when shaping the outside of the bowl. Bark is much better supported. Cutting from the foot into the bark can lift the bark from the wood. Shape the bottom area of the bowl, but don’t make finish cuts into the bark. Cut into the rim passed the bark area, reverse directions and blend the middle exterior as usual. I immediately use super glue on the exterior of the bark after cutting from the rim down. I posted a demo on YouTube showing how to cut natural edge bowls cleanly.
Here it is.

https://youtu.be/4bYWW4rXaYQ

[Bob Bergstrom]

Here’s a couple that have been repaired when bark came off. I keep the bark from pieces I trim off the log and use them to replace missing pieces. If you power sand pieces of bark and save the dust, it makes good filler to fill the gaps.
Both these bowls have been repaired that way.

386873

[Rob Price]

Great tips. Thanks.

Nice bowls too!

[JohnC Lucas]

Also you didn't say what tools you were using to make the cuts. I assume a bowl gouge since your savy enough to use a coring tool. Scraping tools like most carbides will tear the bark off. I also cut from the rim down on bark edge bowls. Walnut is one of the woods that apparently the bark will stay on over the years. My friend Joe Looper passed away and his wife gave me a bunch of his roughed out bowls to turn. I made bowls for his family out of the walnut natural edge pieces. They were probably 10 years old at that point.

[Rob Price]

Yes- bowl gouge. I usually finish the outside before hollowing. On bowl #3 I got out of order- cored it, then remembered I needed to clean up the outside and boom. I think having the center core in place would have helped support the bark.

I’ve done 5-6 NE walnut bowls before this and a few Oak NE bowls. I’m nowhere near being proficient. But this gave me 4 chances to improve my technique with one blank!

Half of the rim came off in one section completely clean from the sapwood- I’ve had bits and pieces come off on me before and I could glue them back off but this just peeled right off.

I looked at my last log section in the shop last night and the bark is pealing away. It may just be a bad section of bark. I’m going to try again and see how it goes.

[Rich Aldrich]

The bark also stays on better when the tree is cut when it is dormant. The cambium layer is much more dense because the moisture in the wood is minimized. Otherwise, the cambium layer can be a very large percent water and will release the bark easily. Unfortunately, many of us have little to no control of when the tree is cut.

At work, we try to buy veneer logs cut in the winter for this very reason. We keep the veneer logs sprinkled to preserve the wood. Winter cut logs also reduces staining for saw logs as well. ( I work at a hardwood veneer and hardwood saw mill.)