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Don’t forget the Christmas Ornament Woodturning Challenge is coming in November.

I picked up this chunk of wood at a local woodturning club meeting. It was supposed to be green elm. This made sense because the demonstration topic was green wood turning.

However, upon closer inspections and some turning, it quickly became obvious that it had been cut for some time. There were large end checks. Once into the interior of the wood, it did not feel wet enough for fresh green wood. It is elm – just not fresh green.

Those drying checks forced me to turn it smaller than originally expected. Yes, maybe I could have filled them but filling cracks in wet wood can become an issue also.

But the eleven inch by three inch tall bowl, finished with walnut oil, turned out very nice. I like the color of the heartwood.

To summarize the process:

1. Mount on faceplate
2. Mark and rough saw on bandsaw.
3. Remount to lathe and tool the exterior, cut mortise, sand and finish.
4. Reverse the bowl onto a scroll chuck.
5. Shape and form the interior, sand, and finish.
6. Reverse the bowl into Cole jaws
7. Shape the foot, sign, sand, and finish.
8. Buff.

Good turning.