Salad bowl in Beefwood

A local recently donated a 'substantial quantity' of sawn Red Cedar to the club in return for a salad bowl to be turned from a huge lump of Beefwood he supplied. Possibly because I wasn't at that meeting, I was 'volunteered' to do the turning! The following is a pictorial of the main stages in the creation of the bowl. 

The 'lump' mounted on a 200mm faceplate on the Stubby. 

Trimmed a bit of excess off with the chainsaw to avoid some of the "ka-thunk!, ka-thunk!"

Roughing it down to true.

Approaching the final shape.

Shaped and sanded.

Reversed onto the chuck for hollowing. You can see a bit of brass was required to fill a couple of cracks and a sealer has been applied to the outside to stabilize it while hollowing.

Hollowing almost done. If you have read my Beefwood page, you will know how much I dislike the stuff. Because this piece is fairly dry, it does not 'slice' at all and comes away as dust rather than shavings and the resin makes it all so sticky that you just about have to peel your fingers from the chisel after a while.

Hollowing done, sanded and 1st coat of oil (non-toxic) applied.

Remounted on an old donut chuck (only just) to tidy up the base and hide the mounting recess.

Chuck recess removed and a small bead detail created to frame the signature.

All done! Ended up 420mm diameter.

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