half-round log prep/use

[Benjamin Dahl]

I had to cut down a dying dogwood in my yard and now that the vortex has pulled me in I want to turn some of the wood I saved. the tree had a lot of rot in it but also some solid pieces with potentially interesting spalting. I cut a number of chunks away from the pith as has been described in previous posts and am now left with about 6" diameter. my limited experience to date has been with square blanks. I have a band saw so I could square these up but won't have much depth left if I do. is there a recommended way to turn a bowl with what I have?
thanks, Ben
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[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ben,

You could turn a bowl or a Natural Edged (NE) bowl with those....Just a matter of how you mount it on the faceplate.

If you mount the flat surface of what you have to the faceplate, you can turn a regular bowl.

If you mount the outside/bark side of the piece to the faceplate, You can turn a NE.

Regardless, the side that gets mounted to the faceplate ends up being the inside of the bowl, so the screw holes get turned away.

Good luck!

[George Tokarev]

Try wedging the bark side under the drillpress with free wedges on a board you can slide around or a V block and making overlapping depth-stopped cuts with a Forstner bit to create a flat spot for your faceplate. You can then mount and get a flat spot turned opposite to accept a glue block if you don't care to mess with screw holes. Same procedure can be used for turning a bark up version, though spalting normally precludes leaving the bark on, unless you spend a lot of time gluing, reducing and re-gluing.

If you don't have the bark, try charring the edge with one of the mini-torches prior to the 220 grit sand. This will give you some nice black which you can then protect by blotting on shellac or the finish of choice, allowing to dry before you sand any dark that might spill over away

[Christopher K. Hartley]

Benjamin, those will make some great bowls. You can go NE(natural edge) or regular. Have lots of fun.:)

[John Hart]

Also looks like you have some punky wood to accompany the spalting. Might want to harden that with some hardener or the Epoxy manhatten to reduce the tearout. Looks like a fun and interesting piece.

[Gary Herrmann]

6" diameter trunk dogwood? Figure something out, whatever it is. Thats decent size for a dogwood. Mine are 20 years old, and I'd be surprised if they're 4" diameter.

[Benjamin Dahl]

thanks for the tips everyone. I hope to have a little time this weekend to see what I can do with a chunk of this stuff. It was sad to see this tree dying (and there is an even larger one that is also in bad shape and will probably need to come down too). I estimate both to be about 30-35 and have heard that is getting up there for dogwoods. I did plant a new one to replace the old.
Ben