I was lucky enough last week to score some lovely pieces of Willow from a good mate of mine, all of which is destined to become bowls of one form or another.
The trough style bowl was the first to be carved out last week, and the round bowl shortly after from the other half of the log, i had intended to make another trough style bowl, but noticed some cracking in the timber, so I used the center section of the wood, which was crack free.
All of the rough hollowing was done with my adze, before i moved on to a gouge and Ben Orford crook knife for the more delicate cuts, as the wood was so fresh, i needed to let it dry somewhat before i could move on and get these finished off, because of this, i left the bowls a little on the thick side to allow for shrinkage.
When i say thick, they were thin enough to allow day light through in places, but this is only because the wood was so wet.
So today, i got one of the two more or less finished, im pretty pleased with the way it's turned out so far, the wall thickness is pretty uniform, although i have left a bit of additional thickness where the end grain is, just in case, the wall thickness as an average, i suppose is around 3/8 of an inch (5mm) thick
This one I'm keeping for me, just by way of a change, I'm going to use it to eat my breakfast from, on the rare occasion i actually have breakfast, i still need to spend a bit of time refining the surfaces of bowl as it's still a bit rough in places, might do that on Thursday with the cabinet scrapers, when hopefully the other other bowl blank will have dried enough by then to allow me to do some work on it.
The trough style bowl was the first to be carved out last week, and the round bowl shortly after from the other half of the log, i had intended to make another trough style bowl, but noticed some cracking in the timber, so I used the center section of the wood, which was crack free.
All of the rough hollowing was done with my adze, before i moved on to a gouge and Ben Orford crook knife for the more delicate cuts, as the wood was so fresh, i needed to let it dry somewhat before i could move on and get these finished off, because of this, i left the bowls a little on the thick side to allow for shrinkage.
When i say thick, they were thin enough to allow day light through in places, but this is only because the wood was so wet.
So today, i got one of the two more or less finished, im pretty pleased with the way it's turned out so far, the wall thickness is pretty uniform, although i have left a bit of additional thickness where the end grain is, just in case, the wall thickness as an average, i suppose is around 3/8 of an inch (5mm) thick
This one I'm keeping for me, just by way of a change, I'm going to use it to eat my breakfast from, on the rare occasion i actually have breakfast, i still need to spend a bit of time refining the surfaces of bowl as it's still a bit rough in places, might do that on Thursday with the cabinet scrapers, when hopefully the other other bowl blank will have dried enough by then to allow me to do some work on it.
